http://www.touro.edu/shs/pany/admissions.asp

ADMISSIONS

Who Should Apply
Technical Standards
Admissions Requirements
Admissions Decisions

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WHO SHOULD APPLY

Potential applicants to the BS/MS Physician Assistant Program must have previously completed a minimum of 90 college credits that includes specific prerequisite coursework, as described below. The role of the PA demands intelligence, sound judgment, intellectual honesty, and the ability to relate to people. Applicants to the PA Program should have a desire to practice medicine and to provide health care to patients of diverse ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds, with compassion and empathy.

Some factors to consider are the following:

The intense 32-month professional, graduate-level program requires personal as well as financial sacrifices, and demands a high degree of self-sufficiency and well-developed study skills.
During the first 16 months of the program, students may be able to maintain part-time employment. However, during the remainder of the program, employment is precluded.
During the clinical phase, students must be adaptable to variations in scheduling, location of clinical sites, and scope of responsibilities.
The profession necessitates working with those who are ill, and interacting effectively and cooperatively with doctors, nurses, and other members of the healthcare team.

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TECHNICAL STANDARDS

Successful participation in and completion of the PA program requires students to have certain mental and physical abilities, with or without reasonable accommodation or adaptations. Touro College complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and state and local requirements regarding applicants and students with disabilities. The Touro College “Handbook for Students and Applicants with Disabilities” is available if further information is required.

Physician Assistants deliver health care in a variety of settings to diverse patient populations. The role of the Physician Assistant demands intelligence, sound judgment, appropriate interpersonal skills and the capacity to react to emergencies in a calm and reasoned manner. Physician Assistants and Physician Assistant students must be able to collect and analyze data, perform diagnostic and therapeutic maneuvers and solve problems all in the course of providing patient care.

Required mental and physical abilities fall into five major categories: sensory, communication, motor, intellectual, and behavioral/social.

Sensory: PA students must have sufficient visual and auditory ability to observe in lecture-learner, laboratory and patient care settings. Sensory skills required in the performance of complete physical examinations utilizing inspection, percussion, palpation and auscultation include adequate vision, hearing, and tactile sensation.

Motor: PA students must be able to perform therapeutic and diagnostic procedures in addition to negotiating various health care environments, such as outpatient facilities, laboratories and hospitals. The didactic phase of the program requires extended sitting, in contrast to the clinical phase which requires extended standing and moving about various clinical facilities.

Communication: PA students must be able to read and understand, write and speak English for effective classroom and laboratory communication. PA students must be able to record and communicate patient information in a timely and effective manner to other members of the health care team.

Intellectual: PA students must be able to sustain attention, calculate, reason, analyze, assimilate and recall information. Correlating information to arrive at a reasonable clinical conclusion in a timely fashion is a basic tenet of clinical practice. With rapidly expanding avenues of clinical information, the ability to extract valid, useful and relevant information from the medical literature is also required.

Behavioral and Social Attributes: PA students must be able to relate and perform professionally in a work environment with other members of the health care team. Recognizing limitations, demonstrating concern for patients and exercising good judgment are also required attributes.

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ADMISSIONS REQUIREMENTS

All applicants, whether transfer students or Touro College undergraduate students, apply to the Manhattan Campus PA Program through the Central Admissions Office of the School of Health Sciences. Decisions on admission are made by a committee of PA faculty based on an assessment of the applicant’s past academic performance, potential, and understanding of and commitment to the PA profession. Entry into the program is in the fall semester only. Applications are reviewed throughout the year and applicants are accepted into the program on a rolling admissions basis.

Consideration for admission to the program is a 2-phase process. The first phase consists of submission of the following:

A completed application form
A written personal statement
3 letters of recommendation
Documentation of a minimum of 100 hours of direct patient contact healthcare experience, either volunteer or paid, to include a minimum of 20 hours “shadowing” a Physician Assistant.
Official transcript(s) indicating (1) a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.70, (2) a minimum GPA of 2.70 in science courses, and (3) successful completion of 90 transferable credits (60 of which must be in general liberal arts and sciences and include the specific 52 credits of prerequisites listed below) with grades of “C” or better* at an accredited college or university or its equivalent. Please note: An applicant may apply to the program with prerequisite coursework in progress, but all prerequisites must be completed prior to entering the program.

Distribution of 52 credits of specific prerequisites:

General Biology I & II (with labs)**	8 credits
General Chemistry I & II (with labs)**	8 credits
Organic Chemistry or Biochemistry**	4 credits
Natural Sciences (e.g., Anatomy, Physiology, Microbiology, Genetics, Immunology)**	8 credits
Behavioral Sciences (e.g., Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology)	6 credits
English Composition and/or English Literature+	6 credits
Humanities (e.g., History, Philosophy, Languages, Literature, Art)	6 credits
Mathematics (pre-calculus level or above)	3 credits
Statistics	3 credits

* Advanced Placement scores must be 4 or 5 to transfer.
**(1) Courses must be designed for science majors. Science courses designed for liberal arts/nursing/respiratory therapy majors, etc. are not acceptable. (2) Applicants whose science prerequisites are more than 10 years old will be required to take refresher courses unless exempted by the Admissions Committee.
+Applicants must provide catalog descriptions for English courses not taught by an English department (e.g. through a core curriculum or honors program).

For applicants who did not attend high school or college in the US or other English-speaking country, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) examination with a score of at least 550 (paper-based) or 220 (computer-based) (Note: the TOEFL exam does not fulfill or substitute for the 6-credit English prerequisite requirement). They must also have their credentials evaluated by a Touro-approved agency such as the International Education Research Foundation, Inc. (IERF) or World Education Services, Inc. (WES).A list of approved agencies can be found by visiting www.naces.org/members.htm

The PA program does not award academic credit for experiential learning.

All prerequisite courses are offered by Touro College’s Lander Colleges of Arts and Sciences and New York School of Career and Applied Studies, as well as by the School of Health Science’s Undergraduate Studies program at the Bay Shore campus.

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ADMISSIONS DECISIONS

As the second phase of the admissions process, the program Admissions Committee evaluates an applicant’s completed application and considers the following factors in the review process:

Quality and content of the personal statement.
Quality of the three letters of recommendation.
Cumulative GPA
Science GPA
Quality of healthcare experiences

Based on this review, selected applicants are invited for a personal interview. At the interview, a minimum of two faculty members assess the applicant with regard to their understanding of the PA role, their motivation, their maturity, their intellectual qualities and insights, and their interpersonal skills.

The Admissions Committee makes final decisions on admission, taking all factors into consideration.

For application and information, contact:

Touro College
Office of Admissions - PA Manhattan
1700 Union Boulevard
Bay Shore, N.Y. 11706
(866) TOURO4U
www.touro.edu/shs/pany

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