PAs in Primary Care: A Case Study From Tennessee

Primary care is as short of physician assistants as it is doctors. More than half of all graduating PAs go into specialty medicine. But the goal of the newest physician assistant training program at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee, is to keep PAs in primary care. They also hope graduates will stay in rural Cumberland Gap, where the University is located, identified by the federal government as medically under-served. Dr. Michelle Heinan, director of Lincoln Memorial University's PA program, joins host Lisa D'Andrea Lenell to discusses the need for PAs in primary care and the need for them to stay in rural medicine. In the second half of this interview, Dr. Heinan talks about the challenges the University took on in establishing a PA training program, and what distinguishes this program from others around the country.