Physician Associate Studies

Beginning in week 3, you will experience clinical placements at GP surgeries (primary care) and hospitals (secondary care) across the Yorkshire and Humber region. Your placements provide an invaluable opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills you acquire in the classroom to the real-world clinical environment.

In your first year, you will spend one and a half days a week in secondary care and one day a week in primary care. In your second year, you will be in a secondary care setting for 3 or 4 days a week, rotating through various medical and surgical specialities, together with a further placement in primary care. You will also undertake an elective at the end of the programme.

You will experience a range of speciality placements in secondary care, including mental health, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, surgery, emergency medicine and acute care.

Led by a practising clinician, you will learn the different components to performing a consultation, including history taking, mental state examination, physical examination and diagnostic reasoning.

You will practise consultations with a simulated patient, receiving feedback from your peers, the clinician and patient so you can hone your skills. You will also practise physical examinations on your peers and develop your professional behaviours during those examinations.

Procedural skills teaching takes place in our dedicated teaching facilities at Castle Hill Hospital or Hull Royal Infirmary. Here you will learn the theory and practical skills to carry out procedures with realistic anatomical training products, such as venepuncture, ophthalmoscopy, cannulation, stitching and arterial blood gas sampling.

We employ a range of assessments which are both formative to support your learning and development, and summative to ensure you have acquired the necessary knowledge and skills. These include a variety of written and clinical assessments specific to each module, and a personal portfolio that you will build throughout the programme.

On completion of this programme, you will be eligible to sit the National Licensing Examination, administered by the Faculty of Physician Associates, in order to gain entry into the profession and begin practice. The National Licensing Examination costs are not included in the MSc course fees.

You will be assigned an academic supervisor for the whole programme who will meet with you each term to review your performance and progress. They can also support you by regularly reviewing and commenting on your formative work. We find that this regular feedback really helps students get the most from their clinical placements and university-based teaching and learning.

In addition to the student support services at the Universities of Hull and York, we also have our own dedicated student support team providing a range of pastoral services to all our Hull York Medical School students.

When you graduate from this programme, we are confident you will have the skills, knowledge, and experience that the NHS wants and needs from its workforce as a Physician Associate, including evidence-based practice and quality improvement research skills.

All our graduates have secured substantive positions as qualified Physician Associates in the NHS, many of which are in the local area. We work with our regional partners to continually develop employment opportunities.

Typically, when you graduate, you will be employed at Band 7 on the NHS pay scale, and can progress to Band 8 with experience and career development.

We also have graduates from our programme contributing to teaching our current students both in the university and on clinical placements.

For more information about a career as a Physician Associate, visit the NHS health careers website.