PASP6030 Physical Diagnosis II
Prerequisite: PASP6020. PASP6030 Physical Diagnosis II continues to provide the PA student with the additional History- Taking and Physical Examination skills required for evaluating patients and making diagnoses in clinical practice. Building on the skills developed during the preceding semester, students will be expected to continue to incorporate and integrate new skills into a cohesive process. This semester continues to offer experiences designed to improve the student’s history taking skills while complementing it with the formal instruction of physical examination techniques and differential diagnostic skills based on examination findings. Students will continue to practice documentation using the SOAP (Subjective, Objective, Assessment & Plan) note method. (2.0 credits)
Each unit of the course corresponds to a portion of the physical examination with material presented in a lecture format followed by practice groups in which the students can practice the skills learned. The material covered is intended to prepare the PA student for patient encounters, clinical rotations, and their future PA practice. This course is divided into units:
- Unit 1: Geriatric Patient Examination
- Unit 2: Pediatric Patient Examination
- Unit 3: Neurological Examination
- Unit 4: Musculoskeletal Examination
- Unit 5: Female Pelvic Examination
- Unit 6: Breast/Axillae Examination
- Unit 7: Male Genitourinary and Anorectal Examination
- Unit 8: Physical Diagnosis in the patient with a Disability
- Unit 9: Business of Healthcare
Clinical Experience and Exposure:
CEE Physical Diagnosis skills are a required curricular component of Physical Diagnosis II. Neurological examination and musculoskeletal examination units will be supplemented by practical skills sheets which serve to guide students in the steps necessary for practice/skills testing of each unit above. It will include the following:
- Neurological Examination
- Musculoskeletal Examination
CEE small group workshops are a required curricular component of Physical Diagnosis II. It will include the following:
- Data Acquisition 1
- Data Acquisition 2
- Interprofessional Education
CEE Patient encounters are a required curricular component of Physical Diagnosis II. Students will have an opportunity to complete a real patient encounter in the NY Presbyterian/Weill Cornell emergency department.
At the completion of every CEE session, students are required to complete the CEE Qualtrics Survey no later than 8:00pm on the day of the session.
Physical Diagnosis GU/GYN Teaching Associate sessions are a required curricular component of Physical Diagnosis II. It will include the following:
- Genitourinary Examination
- Gynecologic Examination
- Breast/Axillae Examination
The material covered in the Physical Diagnosis I and II course sequence is intended to prepare preclinical PA students for future patient encounters, OSCEs, clinical rotations and their future PA practice.
PASP6070 Pathology
This course in pathology introduces the student to the natural history, etiology, pathogenesis (gross and microscopic) and clinical findings associated with disease states. Instruction is presented mainly in lecture format with the use of visual aids. Emphasis is placed on disorders commonly encountered in surgical patients. (3.0 credits)
PASP6400 Pediatrics
Pediatrics is a one semester course. This course introduces the PA student to a broad base of pediatrics including growth and development, well baby care, commonly encountered childhood diseases and their treatments. (2.0 credits)
PASP6600 Psychiatry
Psychiatry is a one-semester course that introduces the student to the fundamentals of common behavioral abnormalities and their treatment as encountered in clinical practice. Topics include the professional-patient relationship, reactions to history taking and physical examination, stress and coping mechanisms, detection and treatment of psychiatric complications. This course will also provide the student with a fundamental understanding of psychopathology, pharmacological options, and other treatment modalities. Emphasis is on the clinical examination, diagnoses, and practical approaches to treatment. (1.5 credits)
PASP6130 Surgical Specialties
Prerequisite: PASP6110 and PASP6120. This is the third course in a three-course sequence that broadens the student’s foundation of surgical knowledge. It will build on the knowledge of surgical concepts presented in PASP6110 Surgical Aspects in Primary Care and PASP6120 General Surgery while expanding the base of surgical knowledge for our didactic students. Information related to high-volume specialties in surgery will be introduced. Items presented include common presentations of disease or injury needing surgically focused care, surgical referral indications, and common bedside and surgical suite procedures needed in trauma, breast, plastics, orthopedics, GI and bariatrics, cardiothoracic, vascular, transplant, and urologic patient care. Students will develop an understanding of the indications for surgical care and be able to acknowledge a basic understanding of the rationale for needing a particular surgical intervention. Correlates will be drawn daily from prior surgical courses, PASP6110 and PASP6120. The same concept-development emphasis applied from PASP6110 and PASP6120 continues in this course: Students are expected to recall the knowledge acquisition points related to common surgically necessary diagnoses’, recalling when surgical care may be warranted by the specialty providers discussed in class. (2.0 credits)
PASP6230 *Fundamentals of Primary Care & Clinical Medicine III
Prerequisite: PASP6220. PASP6230 Fundamentals of Primary Care & Clinical Medicine III (“Fundamentals III”) continues to build a foundation of knowledge of medical care in the following disciplines/units:
- Renal Medicine
- Endocrinology
- Hematology
- Oncology
- Rheumatology
- Infectious Disease
- Neurology
- Geriatric Medicine
- Billing and Coding
Fundamentals III will include instruction in the clinical presentation, pathophysiology, risk factors, patient evaluation, diagnosis, management, and patient education of various diseases and disorders in these specialty areas. The course will incorporate prior and ongoing learning in basic sciences, anatomy and physiology, medical interviewing, physical diagnosis, and medical terminology. (2.0 credits)
The LEAP Program is a (Longitudinal Educational Experience Advancing Patient Partnerships) is a required curricular component of the Physician Assistant Program that is part of Fundamentals III.
CEE clinical skills are a required curricular component of Fundamentals III. It will include the following units:
- Urinary bladder catheter placement
- Sampling an Arterial Blood Gas (ABG)
PASP6500 Emergency Medicine
Prerequisites: PASP6110 and PASP6210. Emergency Medicine further explores concepts introduced in medicine and surgery lectures, with an emphasis on emergent care and life-threatening illness and injury. Common presenting complaints seen in emergency medicine settings, and their diagnosis and treatment are addressed. It explores emergency medicine both as a field of study and as a medical specialty. Telemedicine training, Basic Life Support and Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support are curricular components of this course. (1.5 credits)
PASP6700 Biostatistics
Statistical concepts are employed on a daily basis in the care of medical and surgical patients. This course provides an introduction to statistical methods as applied to health care research. Topics will include population sampling, types of data and distributions, measures of central tendency and dispersion, interval estimation (confidence intervals), graphical presentation of data, population sampling, sample size and its relationship to statistical power, common parametric and non-parametric tests, correlation, regression, and survival analysis. (2.0 credits)
PASP6800 Epidemiology
This course applies the scientific method to the study of disease in populations. The epidemiological method for studying a problem involves description of the frequency and determinants of a disease in a defined population, evaluation of factors that may cause a disease, and experimental studies of the effects of modifying risk factors on the subsequent frequency of a disease. The focus of this course is to introduce the Physician Assistant student to the fundamental concepts of epidemiology. After completion of the course, the student should be able to apply those fundamentals in evaluating medical research, including the assessment of the validity of data and a methodological critique of current research as it relates to the practice of medicine. This course will better prepare students for the Research Methods and Application course. (2.0 credits)
*LEAP (Longitudinal Educational Experience Advancing Patient Partnerships) is an additional required curricular component of the three Fundamentals of Primary Care and Clinical Medicine courses in the Physician Assistant Program. LEAP is an innovative program that allows students of Weill Cornell Medicine to participate in the healthcare experiences of assigned patients (referred to hereafter as “patient-teachers”) who reside in their community from the beginning of their PA Program experience and continue throughout their training. The goals of the LEAP program are: 1. to allow students to partner with patient-teachers early in their PA education. 2. to provide a clinical experience that will complement and enrich classroom experiences. 3. to help students understand the complexity of the healthcare system and appreciate patient’s experiences within the system 4. to foster humanistic and culturally sensitive medical care 5. to explore the meaning of professionalism and collegiality 6. to experience the richness of the provider-patient relationship over time Preclinical phase students are generally assigned two patient-teachers initially. Students are expected to engage with their patient-teachers at least once a month, ideally in the context of a medical office visit, hospitalization, home visit, virtual encounter (telemedicine), or phone call. Students meet monthly in small groups with two faculty members to discuss these experiences, review the clinical and psychosocial dimensions of patient care, and reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the healthcare system. PA students will work collaboratively with medical students and Weill Cornell/NYP faculty in the LEAP program. Parameters for successfully completing LEAP include logging patient encounters, attendance at monthly meetings, and at least one topic presentation.
Clinical Phase “Required” Supervised Clinical Practice Experiences – Clinical Rotations. During the Clinical Phase of the PA Program (Semesters IV, V, VI, and VII), students must complete the courses below for another total 49 credits of required coursework.
MEDC6001 Internal Medicine I
The purpose of this clinical course is to provide the physician assistant student with an opportunity to gain practical experience and learn, understand, and practice the care of the adult and aging population in the setting of internal medicine. (3.0 credits)
MEDC6002 Internal Medicine II
The purpose of this clinical course is to provide the physician assistant student with an opportunity to gain practical experience and learn, understand and practice the care of the adult and aging population in the setting of internal medicine. (3.0 credits)
SURG6001 Surgery I
The purpose of this clinical rotation is to provide the physician assistant student with practical exposure to patients with commonly encountered surgical disorders unresolved by conservative care. Students will gain experience in the operating room as well as pre-and postoperative assessment and follow-up. (3.0 credits)
SURG6002 Surgery II
The purpose of this clinical rotation is to provide the physician assistant student with practical exposure to patients with commonly encountered surgical disorders unresolved by conservative care. Students will gain experience in the operating room as well as pre-and postoperative assessment and follow-up. (3.0 credits)
PRCM6001 Family Medicine/Primary Care
The purpose of this clinical course is to provide the physician assistant student with practical experience in an outpatient setting providing continuity of care including preventive medicine and treating acute and chronic illness to all members of the family across the age spectrum including child, adolescent, and adult. (3.0 credits)
PEDS6001 Pediatrics
The purpose of this clinical course is to provide the physician assistant student with practical experience in caring for pediatric patients in an outpatient and/or inpatient settings. The student will actively function as an integral member of the healthcare team while under the direct supervision of the attending physician or PA thus modeling professionalism, interpersonal communication, and behaviors that are key to the success of a practicing physician assistant. (3.0 credits)
OBGY6001 Women’s Health
The purpose of this clinical course is to provide the physician assistant student with practical experience in the inpatient, outpatient, and surgical settings to provide non-urgent, urgent, emergency, or surgical management of gynecologic and/or obstetric issues occurring throughout the lifespan. (3.0 credits)
EMER6001 Emergency Medicine
The purpose of this clinical course is to provide the physician assistant student with practical experience in the triage, evaluation and care of patients in an emergency room setting. It is designed to augment, strengthen, and refine the student’s knowledge and skills learned in the didactic phase. (3.0 credits)
MEDC6003 Internal Medicine III
The purpose of this clinical course is to provide the physician assistant student with an opportunity to gain practical experience and learn, understand and practice the care of the adult and aging population in the setting of internal medicine. (3.0 credits)
PSYC6001 Behavioral and Mental Health
The purpose of this clinical course is to provide the physician assistant student with practical experience in care for patients with mental and/or behavioral health disorders in ambulatory or hospital settings. The student will actively function as an integral member of the psychiatric healthcare team while under the direct supervision of the attending physician or PA thus modeling professionalism, interpersonal communication, and behaviors that are key to the success of a practicing physician assistant. (3.0 credits)
Elective Rotations (PASC8010 - PASC8050)
Five (5) Elective rotations - students may choose from available clinical sites and opportunities or work with the Director and Assistant Director of Clinical Education to facilitate an external or international elective. External or international electives are considered a privilege and may not be permitted for students who have had a documented lack of professionalism or have been documented as an “academic risk”.
- PASC8010 - Elective One
- PASC8020 - Elective Two
- PASC8030 - Elective Three
- PASC8040 - Elective Four
- PASC8050 - Elective Five
The purpose of this clinical rotation is to provide the physician assistant student with practical exposure to patients in the specialty setting designated and is designed to augment, strengthen, and refine the student’s knowledge and skills learned in the didactic phase by enabling them to recognize and manage acute and chronic medical conditions prevalent in the designated specialty. (160 contact hours/3.0 credits each)
PASM8000 Research Methodology and Application
This course will explore the basic concepts of research in the health sciences. Problem finding, formulation of a research question, methodology, design, data collection, and interpretation will be addressed. Ethical considerations in research will be examined. Published research articles will be analyzed critically. At the midway point of this course, the student will submit a draft version of a scholarly literature review that is a suitable foundation for original empirical research and also appropriate for publication as a clinical review article. Working under the guidance of a program faculty advisor and later a faculty mentor, the student will develop a completed clinical review article suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, submit a proposal for an original study, and present an oral defense of the final project before the Thesis Committee. (4.0 credits)
