Using a Curriculum Map to Link the Competencies for the PA Profession With Assessment Tools in PA Education

The physician assistant (PA) profession has identified core competencies for practicing PAs that specifically address medical knowledge, interpersonal and communication skills, patient care, professionalism and practice-based learning and improvement, and systems-based practice. The American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA), the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA), the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA), and the Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA) disseminated the document Competencies for the Physician Assistant Profession in the spring of 2006. Given that a significant number of the competencies are based in the educational setting, it is the responsibility of PA educators to incorporate the competencies into the curriculum in order to train students who are globally competent and prepared for clinical practice. The competencies may be integrated throughout the didactic and clinical phases of the curriculum via course syllabi, learning objectives, and assessment tools. Ideally, PA programs should conduct ongoing self-assessment to ensure that the competencies have been successfully integrated and are being evaluated using appropriate methodology. One tool that programs may use to evaluate the integration of the competencies, and the curriculum as a whole, is a curriculum map. A curriculum map traditionally provides a comprehensive overview of the content and the respective assessment tools used to measure student outcomes. Curriculum maps also provide programs with a tool to facilitate continuous curricular evaluation and identify potential areas for improvement.