Campus Connection

Methodology assists with retention of physician assistants in academia

Karen Graham, UWL clinical associate professor of Health Professions, co-wrote an article that is receiving national recognition for its important implications related to the future of the health care workforce. Graham earned the Article of the Year Award from the Physician Assistant Education Association for the article that used an innovative way to measure a physician assistant’s intention to stay in academia. Attracting and keeping physician assistants in education is a hot topic as physician assistant programs continue to grow nationally to meet a healthcare demand. Physician assistant education has grown from 100 programs in 1996 to nearly 200 programs across the nation today, demonstrating a strong demand for physician assistants to make the transition from the clinical practice to education to administer and teach PA programs. However, because the clinical job market is good and clinical salaries outpace academic salaries, it is difficult to retain faculty. This sparked the need for Graham’s research, which aims better understand what draws someone from clinical practice to academia and keeps them there. Graham found that “intention to stay in academia” for PA faculty is best measured by a set of factors related to a supportive work environment. She found that factors such as mentorship, a supportive administration, autonomy and support for research are very important to intention to stay. Few studies have determined the factors that PA program directors might be able to use to identify faculty at risk of leaving, explains Tamara Ritsema, PA faculty member at St. George's University of London and a member of the PAEA Research Council, in a nomination letter. She adds that Graham’s method can be a model for other PA researchers for moving the profession forward. The research helps maintain quality education programs as they continue to grow — a problem facing health professions education in general, not just physician assistant education, notes Graham. “Hopefully the results of my study will help PA program administrators better understand why PA faculty stay in academia, thus allowing them to better target their retention efforts,” says Graham. Graham co-wrote the paper “Development and Initial Validation of a Measure of Intention to Stay in Academia for Physician Assistant Faculty,” with Svetlana Beltyukova, associate professor in Research and Measurements at the University of Toledo. Beltyukova was her dissertation advisor and the work is part of her dissertation research. The article was published in the March 2015 issue of the “Journal of Physician Assistant Education.” She will accept her award at a PAEA forum in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 13.