LTU adding physician assistant program
Lawrence Technological University in Southfield is launching a physician assistant program.
The two-year master’s degree program is scheduled to begin in fall 2022, pending accreditation-provisional status from the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant.
The program will be offered in the LTU College of Arts and Sciences, with clinical experience offered through LTU’s ongoing partnership with Ascension Michigan, the nonprofit health care and hospital system.
LTU has hired Aimee Lamb, PA-C, as director of the program. Her career path includes helping to develop a physician assistant program in the United Kingdom’s National Health
Service. She also worked as a physician assistant for Sinai Grace Hospital, the Detroit Medical Center and several private physician practices, working primarily in underserved urban and rural areas.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Eastern Michigan University and a master of medical science physician assistant degree from Emory University in Atlanta. Most recently, she was an assistant professor of physician assistant studies at the University of Detroit Mercy.
Lawrence Tech has also hired three faculty members who will be starting in January, as well as a program coordinator and a medical director for the program, who have already begun work at LTU.
Physician assistants are medical professionals who diagnose illness, develop and manage treatment plans, prescribe medications and often serve as a patient’s principal health care provider.
PAs are educated at the master’s level, with entry to PA programs requiring a bachelor’s degree that includes courses in basic and behavioral sciences.
PA programs are modeled on a medical school curriculum that combines classroom and experiential training, requiring more than 1,500 hours of clinical rotations in medical and surgical disciplines.
Due to the retirement of many doctors and limitations in the capacity of medical schools, there is rising demand for physician assistants. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the employment of PAs to grow 31 percent between 2018 and 2028, a rate much faster than the average for most occupations.
U.S. News and World Report ranks physician assistant third on its list of 100
Best Jobs for 2020, and has been in the top five for decades. The median salary for PAs is $110,000 a year.
Lamb said adding the PA program is “part of an ongoing effort by LTU to address the health care needs of southeast Michigan.”
Srini Kambhambpati, dean of the LTU College of Arts and Sciences, said the university is considering adding other health care education programs in the future. LTU added a bachelor of science in nursing program in 2017.
Kambhambpati said Ascension will be involved in developing the program’s curriculum and will offer its hospitals and laboratories for clinical rotations for second-year PA students.
For more information on LTU’s physician assistant graduate program, visit https://www.ltu.edu/arts_ sciences/naturalsciences/ pa-master.asp.