Medical News of Arkansas Feature

The Medical News of Arkansas recently featured an article on Physician Assistants in the state. Here's an excerpt:

Although there is still no state PA program, Harding University, a private college in Searcy established one in 2005. Tobin is also assistant clinical director for the program, which just graduated its first class students in July.

Of the 16 graduates, all have jobs and 11 remained in Arkansas. “It’s a competitive program,” Tobin said. “For our next class, we had 300 applications and will interview about 130 applicants for the 32 spots.” Students are a good mix of recent college graduates and non-traditional students, often who have many years of experience in ancillary health professions.

Physician assistant is one of the fastest-growing professions. “Most polls usually have PA in the top 10 in satisfaction,” Tobin said. “We’re higher than nurses, higher than doctors. We have high job satisfaction and we get paid pretty well for our degree.”