New Dalhousie physician assistant program should ease health-care pains

Nova Scotia is about to start training physician assistants who will work under the supervision of doctors to ease the load in the province’s overburdened health-care system.

“Since becoming health minister I had the opportunity to talk to many health-care professionals across the province to hear about what’s working well, what’s not working well and what changes our government can make to improve the system,” Health Minister Michelle Thompson said at a news conference Thursday at Dalhousie University’s collaborative health education building in Halifax.

“One thing I heard from physicians was to reduce red tape, let us focus on the things that only physicians can do.”

That is the impetus of Thursday’s announcement of a new physician assistant program at Dalhousie University, expected to begin in January.

The two-year master’s program will be open to 24 students and priority will be given to Nova Scotia applicants who meet the program’s eligibility criteria.

“This is the only program of its kind in Atlantic Canada,” Thompson said. 

The province is investing $5.6 million to develop the program and providing $1.5 million in annual funding.

Physician assistants will provide safe, competent and effective health care under the supervision of physicians, including:

• perform histories and physical examinations;
• order blood and radiological tests;
• make diagnoses and outline treatment plans;
• assist with surgeries;
• perform minor surgical procedures;
• consult other medical and health services; 
• prescribe medication; 
• attend to medical emergencies such as cardiac arrest; 
• provide counselling and preventive services; 
• administer vaccinations; and 
• perform educational, research and administrative functions

Dalhousie University’s senate has approved the new program and the university is now accepting applications.

Approval is pending from the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission, which assesses academic programs before implementation to ensure they meet agreed-upon standards and to provide quality assurance to students, governments and the public.

“This is truly a landmark day for our university and for our province,” said Dr. David Anderson, dean of the university’s faculty of medicine.

“Dalhousie will now be home to the first Master’s of Physician Assistant studies in Atlantic Canada and only the fourth such program in the country.” Anderson said.

The university’s website says physician assistants are highly trained medical professionals who can work in all health-care settings. It is likely that they will be primarily employed in hospital and collaborative clinical situations.

The admission requirements for the program are aligned with admissions standards in the faculties of medicine and graduate studies, and are consistent with Dalhousie’s commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, the website states.

Anderson said the introduction of the program represents Dalhousie’s “commitment to meeting the evolving needs of the health-care delivery system in the communities we serve.”

Anderson said physician assistants are highly skilled health professionals who work collaboratively with physicians and other members of the health team to provide high-quality patient care.

“At Dalhousie, we’re confident that our physician assistant students will receive comprehensive interdisciplinary education experiences, work closely with learners from other health professions, as well as perform on clinical rotations with our partners in Nova Scotia Health and the IWK Health Centre,” he said.

“Physician assistants will play a critical role in improving health outcomes and advancing the quality of patient care. Our program will equip students with the necessary skills, the hands-on experience to excel in these vital roles. We will ensure that our graduates possess the competencies needed to provide compassionate, evidence-based care and contribute significantly to inter-professional health-care teams.”

Thompson said there are “currently seven physician assistants working in Nova Scotia and while that is only a few, we have seen and heard from health-care teams that it is working well.” 

Those physician assistants were trained in other jurisdictions and the provincial government is investing an additional $1.7 million this year to add another 10 physician assistants in collaborative primary care sites across the province.

Gail Tomblin Murphy, vice-president of research and innovation and the chief nurse executive with Nova Scotia Health, said the “integration of physician assistants in primary care, orthopedics and emergency departments as ‘test and try’ initiatives to enhance access to care for Nova Scotians” is an exciting development.

Brian Wong, the provincial minister of Advanced Education, voiced a sense of pride in the government’s work in breaking down the silos that had existed among provincial departments and key stakeholders.

“One of the things that I’m very proud of is the work that our staff at Advanced Education have done to ensure that we work with our universities, with all of our educational partners in order to make sure that we have the health-care workers that we need today and for tomorrow.”

Wong gave a nod to Dalhousie and other post-secondary education institutions in the province for stepping up to help government find solutions to move health care forward.

“We continue to collaborate and we continue to work together and we continue to innovate to get things done and it is going take time (to fix health care) and it’s going to take money and our government is willing to do that.”