Current through Register Vol. 48, No. 38, September 20, 2024
a)
Applicants shall complete a full-time practicum of 14
months supervised clinical training, including a research project. During the
clinical rotation program, students shall complete rotations in the
following areas:
1)
Emergency
Medicine;
2)
Family Medicine;
3)
Geriatrics;
4)
Internal
Medicine;
5)
Obstetrics and Gynecology;
6)
Pediatrics;
7)
Psychiatry;
8)
Surgery; and
9)
One elective of the program
participant's choice. (Section 4.2(a)(2)(C) of the Act)
b) The clinical rotation training
shall be completed either within the parameters of an American Psychological
Association (APA) or equivalent approved doctoral program or pre-doctoral
program, or during a post-doctoral master's program in clinical
psychopharmacology. The training program must be housed in an institution that
is accredited by a regional accrediting body recognized by the Council for
Higher Education Accreditation. The clinical rotation program shall meet the
following requirements:
1) All program faculty
and preceptors must hold an active physician and surgeon, advanced practice
nurse, or prescribing psychologist license. Program faculty and preceptors must
be sufficient in number and be qualified through academic and clinical
experience to provide enrolled participants with sufficient attention,
instruction and supervised practice experiences necessary to acquire the
knowledge and competencies required to meet the objectives of the
program.
2) A program must have
access to adequate labs and clinical medical rotation sites for participants. A
program must assure that clinical support services, including pharmacy,
clinical laboratory and diagnostic imaging, are readily available to
participants on clinical rotations. Clinical support staff must be available in
numbers sufficient that participants are not expected to serve as replacements
for staff.
3) In order to be
considered a full-time practicum, the program must require a minimum of 20
clock-hours of rotations per week and require all 36 credits of rotations to be
completed within a minimum of 14 months and maximum of 28 months after the
participant begins rotations. To earn 36 hours of clinical rotation training
credits, a participant must complete a minimum of 1,620 clock-hours of clinical
rotation training.
4) The program
must provide participants with experience in progressive responsibilities for
patient management. Participants must be provided the opportunity to observe
and demonstrate competence in skills necessary for the pharmacological
assessment and treatment of mental disorders within a medical setting under
supervision of a physician, advanced practice nurse or prescribing
psychologist.
5) The program must
assure that the volume and variety of clinical experiences provides for a
sufficient number and distribution of appropriate experiences/cases for each
participant to meet defined program expectations. Clinical rotations may be
held in hospitals, medical centers, health care facilities located at
federal and State prisons, hospital outpatient clinics, community mental health
clinics, patient-centered medical homes or family-centered medical homes,
women's medical health centers, and Federally Qualified Health
Centers; (Section 4.2(a)(2)(C) of the Act). The program must
coordinate clinical sites and preceptors for program required
rotations.
6) Program participants
must be clearly identified as such to distinguish them from physicians, medical
residents, APNs, prescribing psychologists, and other health care professionals
and residents.
7) The program must
conduct periodic, objective and documented formative evaluations of
participants to assess their acquisition of knowledge, problem-solving skills
and clinical competencies.
8) The
program must define and maintain consistent and effective processes for the
initial and ongoing evaluation of all sites and preceptors used for
participants' clinical practice experiences.
c) The clinical training must meet
the standards for:
1)
physician assistant education as defined by the Accreditation Review
Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant;
2)
advanced practice nurse education
as defined by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education for the Advanced
Nurse Practitioner or the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing for
the Advanced Nurse Practitioner; or
3)
medical education as defined by
the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. (Section
4.2(a)(1)(C) of the Act)
d) The Division hereby incorporates by
reference the ARC-PA Standards for Physician Assistant Education,
5th edition (with clarifications as of September
2023), the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician
Assistant, 12000 Findley Road, Suite 275, Johns Creek GA 30097, September 2020,
with clarifications 11/2019, 9/2020, 3/2021, 3/2022, 9/2022, 3/2023 &
9/2023, with no later amendments or editions.
