Lipscomb University has submitted the paperwork to establish what would be just the second physician assistant school in Middle Tennessee. The Nashville campus is responding to nationwide demand for PAs in the health care industry.
Increasingly, PAs are handling much of what doctors once did, especially in the realm of primary care. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the number of openings is expected to grow by nearly 40 percent over the next decade — much faster than most fields.
Tennessee has added two other training programs over the last year at Christian Brothers and Milligan College, but the Nashville area still just has one — the oldest in the state. Trevecca Nazarene University has been graduating physician assistants since the mid-1970s. And the program has been in high demand, with 700 applications for each cohort of 50 slots.
Lipscomb has already experienced a flood of applications for its masters-level program, which includes 15 months of classroom work and 12 months in clinical settings. The school says nearly 500 verified applications have been reviewed since September for the 40 spots in the first class. Interviews begin in January. If the accreditation body signs off this summer, the program would begin next October.
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