Introduction to clinical genetics seminar for physician assistant students: A pilot study

Physician assistants are often the first and only point of contact for many patients within our existing healthcare system. Physician assistants are licensed allied health care professionals who exercise autonomous responsibilities under the supervision of physicians in multiple areas of medicine. Yet, to date many accredited physician assistant training programs lack faculty with sufficient expertise to teach genetics and the integration of genetics education has accordingly been inadequate. Nevertheless, continued outpouring of genetics information and increase in clinical application has lead to the realization of many that there is a pressing need to increase genetic literacy among all healthcare providers including physician assistants. The driving force for developing this pilot study was to address the need for genetic literacy among physician assistant students and provide future directions for a successful integration of genetics education within physician assistant curricula via collaborative approaches between genetic counselors and physician assistant programs. Here we present the development and implementation of the pilot study seminar entitled Introduction to Clinical Genetics, for Physician Assistants, along with the outcomes.