Training Physician Assistant Students to Provide Evidence-Based, Holistic, Patient-Driven Care: a Novel Curriculum

Edward M Phillips; Susan M McGlynn; David R Topor; Claire M Stauffer

doi:10.1007/s40670-020-01150-5

Training Physician Assistant Students to Provide Evidence-Based, Holistic, Patient-Driven Care: a Novel Curriculum

Med Sci Educ. 2021 Jan 9;31(2):319-323. doi: 10.1007/s40670-020-01150-5. eCollection 2021 Apr.

Authors

Edward M Phillips^{1

2}, Susan M McGlynn^{1

3}, David R Topor^{1

4}, Claire M Stauffer⁵

Affiliations

¹ VA Boston Healthcare System, 1400 VFW Parkway, Boston, MA 02132 USA.
² Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA USA.
³ Department of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA USA.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA USA.
⁵ Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA USA.

Abstract

Lifestyle and behavior modifications are the primary preventative strategies to mitigate the growing morbidity, mortality, and cost of chronic disease in the USA (Trilk et al., American Journal of Preventive Medicine 56:e169-e175, 2019); hence, there have been multiple calls to train all healthcare professionals in lifestyle medicine (LM). This paper describes and evaluates the implementation of a novel Whole Health/lifestyle medicine (WH-LM) education initiative for physician assistant (PA) students embedded within a clinical rotation at the VA Boston Healthcare System (VABHS). Students demonstrated increased knowledge of WH-LM principles and increased self-efficacy in utilizing these principles following training.

Keywords: Curriculum; Lifestyle medicine; Medical education; Physician assistant; Student; Whole Health.