NEW YORK
The warning from the district attorney was strong: Be careful if you’re considering hiring a physician assistant who recently graduated from Touro College. A former administrator and nine others were indicted in connection with a scheme to falsify grades and degrees, including for physician assistants.
But officials in the industry offered reassurance on Tuesday, saying that there is a system of checks and balances in place and that someone couldn’t just graduate from a PA program and walk into a job.
“Patients should be reassured because it is not a one-step process to becoming a physician assistant,” said Nancy Hughes, vice president of communications and information services for the American Academy of Physician Assistants. “It’s a very rigorous process.”
There are more than 60,000 physician assistants in the country. To become one, a person has to be accepted to one of the 136 accredited programs in the country, which run anywhere from 26 months to four years, Hughes said. While in school, students are exposed to a wide variety of medical training, from surgery to gynecology.
Once they graduate, students must pass a national certification exam and then be licensed by their states. Physician assistants work in a range of medical fields, but always under the supervision of a practicing physician. They can do everything from perform exams to write prescriptions to help in surgeries.
On Monday, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau announced that Touro College’s former director of admissions, the former director of the school’s computer center, three former students and three public school teachers were involved in a plot to tamper with the college’s computer system to change grades and create fake degrees in exchange for money.
