Overview
Program description
Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences offers a 12-month postgraduate Physician Assistant Fellowship in Hospital Internal Medicine at Mayo Clinic's campus in Phoenix, Arizona. The program trains highly qualified graduate physician assistants (PAs) to become skilled, compassionate, and efficient hospital-based PAs.
The curriculum contains diverse didactic instruction and direct patient care clinical experience, embedded in the foundation of Mayo Clinic: excellence in patient care, education, and research. This program provides the graduate PA with the training needed to provide the utmost quality of care to hospitalized patients.
The program offers three tracks and accepts three fellow each year (one per track):
- Traditional Hospitalist Track
- Hematology/Oncology Track
- Critical Care Medicine Track
The fellowship curriculum is designed in a diverse format that accommodates all learner types. It is based upon the physician "Core Competencies" from the Society of Hospital Medicine. You complete various medical specialty rotations that are two to four weeks in duration. The curriculum includes formal didactic instruction, journal club and case review, and project-based learning through hands-on experience.
Specifically, the Hematology/Oncology Track and Critical Care Medicine Track offer up to 16 weeks of training in their fields in addition to the core rotations offered in the traditional hospitalist track.
Postgraduate hospital internal medicine experience and training allows you to be more competitive for hospitalist PA positions and have increased security in the job market.
Program goals
The Physician Assistant Fellowship in Hospital Internal Medicine enables you to:
- Acquire a deep and broad knowledge base of the common disease processes for which patients are hospitalized, understand the pathophysiology, present various clinical presentations, and disease prognosis
- Develop a diverse differential diagnosis and respective diagnostic and treatment plan based upon the patient's presenting symptoms along with evidence-based and cost-effective medical care
- Identify logistical and systematic measures within the institution to uphold the highest quality patient care while improving patient outcomes, such as length of stay in the hospital, and patient safety
- Manage patients effectively throughout the whole hospital stay, including admission, daily rounds and continuing evaluation, and dismissal, while remaining cognizant of the patient's emotional, physical, and spiritual needs
- Develop keen verbal skills to effectively communicate with colleagues, physicians, patients, and ancillary staff to ultimately become a key part of the inpatient health care delivery team
- Learn practice management, including strategies in training physician assistants and physician assistant students
Accreditation
See accreditation information for Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science.
Facilities
Mayo Clinic has two campuses in Arizona. The Phoenix campus of Mayo Clinic includes the state-of-the-art Mayo Clinic Hospital, the first hospital entirely designed and built by Mayo Clinic. It has been recognized several times by Phoenix magazine as the Best Hospital in Phoenix.
The Mayo Clinic campus in Scottsdale is centered around a beautiful, five-story outpatient clinic. This modern facility contains extensive exam rooms, an outpatient surgery center equipped for general anesthesia, a full-service laboratory, pharmacy, patient education library, endoscopy suite, and a 188-seat auditorium for patient, staff and student education programs. Services in numerous medical and surgical disciplines are provided, including outstanding programs in cancer treatment and organ transplantation.
Graduation and certification
After successfully completing this fellowship, you receive a certificate of completion from Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences, part of Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. This certificate specifically states that the graduate fellow has received postgraduate training in the field of hospital internal medicine.
Hours
For the majority of the fellowship, your learning schedule includes 10-hour days, five days a week, including weekends and nights. Hours while on subspecialty rotations vary depending on the requirements and needs of the particular service. All hours worked are in accordance with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) medical resident hour restrictions.
Class size
Each year, Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences admits three students to the Physician Assistant Fellowship in Hospital Internal Medicine. This ensures that you receive tailored instruction and a comprehensive educational experience.