This course explores various discoveries in the history of medicine and the individuals credited with the discoveries. The course begins in ancient Greece and ends with modern times. Individuals such as Hippocrates, Vesalius, Harvey, Jenner, Leeuwenhoek and Roentgen will be discussed.

This course is the introduction to professionalism, professional behaviors for the PA, and behavior science for the PA student. We will explore stereotypes and providers’ inappropriate (or lack of) knowledge and how this might influence access to care. The focus is non-somatic medical skills and knowledge needed to become a clinician who manages these issues with insight into human behavior. Topics will include issues related to age, socioeconomic status, cultural, racial, religious, ethnic and family diversity etc. We will seek out and develop tools to recognize facets (including risk factors for and signs/symptoms) of the above issues and of abuse issues. Setting this foundation in basic psychopathology and its relationship to understanding human illness is core to the PA student’s developing professionalism.

This is the first of a two-course sequence which will provide the physician assistant student with opportunities to prepare a formal graduate capstone project/paper. Projects may be in the form of: clinical practice essay, PA curriculum development, medically-related community service project, in-depth medical case review, meta-analysis of specific disease / syndrome, or original medical research. This capstone project/paper will build on clinical training and enable students to build skills for life-long learning as problem solvers and critical evaluators of medical and scientific literature.

This course will provide the physician assistant student with continued preparation of a formal graduate project for the PA Program. Projects may be in the form of: clinical practice essay, PA curriculum development, medically-related community service project, in-depth medical case review, meta-analysis of specific disease/syndrome, or original medical research. This course will culminate with the completion of the capstone project/paper which is founded in clinical experience and enables students to build skills for life-long learning as problem solvers and critical evaluators of medical and scientific literature.