New PA Students Welcomed with White Coat Ceremony

The Albany Medical College Center for Physician Assistant Studies welcomed 42 students to its Class of 2028 this week. Students were joined by family, friends, faculty, and classmates from the PA Program as they donned their white coats for the first time.

This year’s class was drawn from nearly 3,000 applicants. The students range in age from 21 to 34 and come from 12 states throughout the United States, including as far away as California, Oregon, and Nevada.

Physician assistants, or PAs, are clinicians with master’s degree-level training and they represent one of the fastest-growing professions in the U.S. The PA profession was developed in the late 1960s to help address a national shortage in primary care physicians. The first-ever class graduated from the Duke University PA Program in 1967, and five years later, Albany Medical College established its own program—only the 11th in the nation at the time. There are now more than 300 programs throughout the country.

Now a mainstay in PA education, the Center for Physician Assistant Studies turns out 42 PAs a year from the 28-month program, highly qualified clinicians who, in collaboration with a physician or surgeon, can diagnose, treat, prescribe medication, and often serve as the principal health care provider for patients.