Physician Associate Studies

You should have or be expected to achieve, a minimum of a second class degree (2:2) in a life sciences or other health-related subject. For healthcare graduates, a pass is required. All degrees must be awarded before 1^st August on the year of entry.

Physiology is a necessity for those not holding a life science degree. If your degree is not a life sciences or health- related subject, you will need to complete some Physiology modules in order to be eligible for the course. Alternative evidence of recent Physiology academic study (NVQ Level 4 and above) will be considered.

Please note that graduates of UK Physician Associate Studies programmes are not eligible to work as Physician Associates in other countries (or vice versa).

We accept equivalent qualifications gained in other countries and use UKNARIC to assess. Please see our International Student Support pages for more information. If you have any questions, you can contact us at pgadmissions@sgul.ac.uk

For details on English Language requirements, please see here. This is a Group 3 course.

You will be asked to submit a personal statement with your application. This statement should outline your reasons for applying for the course. You will also need to provide one satisfactory reference. See the ‘Apply’ tab for more information. 

Health screening

Candidates accepted into clinical healthcare courses are required to pass an occupational health screening. When admitting a candidate to study and practise as a healthcare practitioner, St George’s has an obligation to patients and students. If you are concerned about a health issue, we strongly advise you to contact us prior to applying. All offers of places at St George’s are subject to satisfactory health clearance and an agreement to undergo appropriate blood tests and immunisations.

All candidates will be asked to be immunised against Hepatitis B for personal safety. If you firmly accept an offer made to you by St George’s you will be sent a confidential health questionnaire and further information about the Hepatitis B screening process.

Police screening

This course will include work with children and vulnerable adults so you are required to have an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check, and an in-country police check if you have lived outside of the UK for longer than a 6 months period. More information about this process will be sent to you as part of the admissions process.

Professional registration

If you are a current healthcare professional or a member of a registered professional body, we ask that you provide details of your registration. If you have had your professional registration suspended or revoked, or undergone a disciplinary/fitness to practise investigation, you will be required to provide further information if selected for an interview. You may also be asked to provide full copies of related documentation.

Work experience

You need to have experience of paid or voluntary work, preferably in a health or social care context

Previous enrolment on a clinical course

If you have previously enrolled on a Physician Associate Studies or another clinical course which you did not complete, you must declare this on your application and provide information about the circumstances.

The first year is dedicated to ensuring you have a good grounding in the sciences underpinning health care. Communication and clinical examination skills are a key part of the first year curriculum. You will spend four days a week on campus and one day on clinical placement, which will be organised in a GP practice.

Year 1 teaching is system- or theme-based, following a brief introductory period. We begin with the ‘big three’ systems: cardiovascular, respiratory and gastrointestinal. Most themes are covered in two- or three-week blocks, with a large amount of information delivered in each block.

Information is often delivered across multiple modules (see below).

In the second year you will begin with special topics weeks covering skills such as ECG interpretation and suturing, before beginning your hospital placements. You will then be on campus one day every three weeks as the emphasis shifts towards clinical work and placements, with 36–39 weeks being spent in hospital and six to nine weeks being spent on a GP placement.

This module lays the basis for future prescribing activity and ensures you have a good understanding of common drugs and their effects. (Please note that PAs do not yet have prescribing rights in the UK. However, strong pharmacology knowledge is essential for PA practice.)

This module enables you to locate and evaluate evidence underpinning decision-making in healthcare and to develop your skills in critically appraising this evidence.

This module covers integrated body systems, pathology, differential diagnosis skills, models of decision-making, and applications of the underpinning sciences to patient conditions. It also provides an overview of the clinically relevant elements of human anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, microbiology, immunology and pathology.

This module runs across both years of the course and addresses the common and pertinent investigations relating to the clinical practice of a Physician Associate. You will learn about the role of clinical investigations and their relevance in relation to common and important presentations in clinical practice. It will involve analysis of common investigations performed in primary and secondary care.

This module runs throughout the two years. Your achievement of core clinical competencies, procedural skills and work with specific clinical conditions will be documented. Developmental reviews support the practical learning achieved during this module.

This module facilitates the application of clinical knowledge and examination skills with appropriate supervision from suitably qualified and skilled clinicians in real clinical environments, preparing you for entry into professional practice.

Problem-based learning

Given a clinical problem, you will use self-directed research to make a diagnosis and suggest an appropriate course of action. Problem-based learning encourages learning in context, self-motivation, and deep rather than surface understanding.

Self-directed study

This course requires a significant amount of self-directed study, outside of teaching hours. In the first year, lectures are complemented by group work, designed to develop clinical and communication skills. You are allocated a clinical supervisor who is a General Practitioner and will support you in developing your skills development throughout your GP placement.

In the second year, you'll continue community placements, as well as rotating through a number of acute clinical placements, including:

• general medicine

• paediatrics

• obstetrics and gynaecology

• emergency medicine

• mental health

• geriatric medicine.

Assessments are designed to prepare you for the PA National Examination and will be a mixture of written papers, written examinations and Objective Structured Clinical Examinations.

A portfolio of your development of the core clinical skills and competencies is monitored throughout both years and is submitted for assessment at the end of each year. Written coursework assignments and/or presentations are set for the modules in Personal and Professional Development, and Foundations of Clinical Medicine.

Apply for this course through UCAS.

Please ensure that you have completed all tabs, including personal statement and reference details.  

When completing your application, you will be asked to provide contact details of one referee. Please ensure these details are accurate. As soon as you have submitted your application, your referee will be contacted by the university asking them to upload a reference to your online application. 

Your referee can be an academic reference if you are still in academia, or a current employer. Your referee should know you well enough, in an official capacity, to write about you and your suitability for higher education. If your referee is not deemed appropriate, your referee will be rejected. We do not accept references from family, friends, partners, ex-partners or yourself. 

We will send reminder emails to your referee, but it is your responsibility to ensure that contact details are correct and referees are available to submit a reference. References should be uploaded within two weeks of making your application. 

Please note that we will not be accepting deferrals.  

Students with pre-existing illnesses or disabilities, or who are shielding

If you suffer, or have suffered, from a serious illness (physical or psychological) or have a disability, or have been required to shield due to Covid-19, please let us know. St George’s is committed to supporting our students and will explore all reasonable adjustments to support you to thrive on your course.

Please contact our Disability Advisor as soon as possible with details to help us establish whether your health history or disability is likely to affect your ability to study or practise. This will also give us sufficient time to carry out a detailed assessment, obtain reports and organise additional expert assessments if required.

Attendance at site

Most of our courses include elements of teaching for which you will be required to attend the University site. Attendance at these sessions will be essential to enable you to engage with the course and undertake assessments.

Placements

You will be required to undertake a personal risk assessment before you can attend any placement that is part of your course (or undertake certain other activities, such as those which include the practice of clinical skills or require the use of PPE). Where a health concern arises, every effort will be made to identify alternative placement arrangements, but your health and safety will be the first priority, and alternative arrangements may not be possible. This may have implications for the continuation of your study. If you are clinically vulnerable or have been shielding, we strongly encourage you to contact the Disability Advisor now to undertake an assessment.

Students with pre-existing illnesses or disabilities, or who are shielding

If you're a student with a pre-existing illness or disability, or who is shielding, your course team will contact you to ask if you would like to complete a personal risk assessment before you return to the site. If you suffer from a serious illness which may increase your level of risk, or have been required to shield due to Covid-19, we recommend that you complete a personal risk assessment. St George’s is committed to supporting our students and will explore all reasonable adjustments to support you to thrive on your course. 

Attendance at site

For the majority of our courses, we will be delivering an element of face to face, hands-on teaching on campus in line with social distancing guidelines which you are required to attend. If you will be unable to attend teaching on-site due to a health reason, you must let us know by the start of the academic year so we can consider alternative arrangements to ensure you progress through the course. Mitigating Circumstances can still be submitted for unforeseen illnesses; however, being unable to attend the site due to shielding or being at heightened risk from a pre-existing illness or disability will not be accepted as grounds for Mitigating Circumstances. Please discuss this with your course team and complete a personal risk assessment so that all reasonable adjustment can be made.

Placements 

You will be required to undertake a personal risk assessment before you can attend any placement (or undertake certain other activities, such as those including the practice of clinical skills or requiring the use of PPE) that is part of your course. Where a health concern arises, every effort will be made to identify alternative placements arrangements, but your health and safety will be the first priority, and where alternative arrangements are not possible, there may be implications for your studies. If you are clinically vulnerable or have been shielding, we strongly encourage you to contact your course team now to undertake a personal risk assessment.

At this stage, we expect to deliver the course within the planned timescales to enable successful students to progress through the programme and graduate without delay.

Some of our teaching includes clinical skills and communication sessions which are normally delivered face to face. We expect to continue to deliver all clinical skills sessions on the university site, face to face. However, for communication skills, a small selection of the essential communication skills will be delivered face to face on-site and the rest live online.

We cannot deliver anatomy and dissection room sessions on-site as we normally would, due to restrictions on room numbers. These will be delivered online, via a combination of live, pre-recorded and Q&A sessions. 

Our assessments are designed to be taken on-site. However, we have developed an alternative strategy to enable students to complete assessments remotely without coming on to campus. The exception to this is are the clinical examinations, which will continue to be delivered on-site.

On-site delivery is dependent on Government advice, and therefore planned face-to-face teaching and on-site assessments may be subject to change or cancellation. Should this happen we will, where possible, adapt them for online delivery. Where this is not possible, students may experience delays in progressing or graduating from the programme. We will do our best to minimise the impact on students.

At this stage, we expect to deliver the course within the planned timescales to enable successful students to progress through the programme and to graduate without delay.

As you are aware, some of our teaching includes sessions which are normally delivered face to face. It is anticipated that we will deliver any essential sessions that cannot be delivered online, face to face on site. You will be advised in advance of which sessions these will be.

For clinical programmes, placement providers will continue to offer placements as they have in the previous years. Their capacity to offer placements may change if, in the event of a further outbreak of Covid-19, delivering care to affected patients becomes the overriding priority for our partners. If that happens, we will limit the impact on students where possible. We will rotate students through the sites that are continuing to accept students. However, there is a possibility that graduation for some final year students may be delayed until they are able to complete all placements. A delay to placements may also impact when students can sit the PA National Examination.

We do not expect students to incur any extra costs over and above those that we have advertised on the course page.

As a result of our courses beginning with the majority of teaching online, you will need a personal laptop or computer and access to the internet to participate in online lectures. Information is available on recommended device specification. If you are worried you might struggle to meet these requirements, you should email IThardship@sgul.ac.uk so we can look at support options for you.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) will be provided for you if needed.

We do not expect students to incur any extra costs over and above the normal level, as previously advertised on the course page.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) will be provided for you if needed.

We assess the knowledge, skills and attributes of our students in a variety of ways. These include formal written examinations, clinical examinations and coursework assessments which include case histories, reflections and oral presentations.  

Formal examinations are spread out over the year. At this stage, we expect to deliver these as planned. Although some assessments are designed to be taken on-site, we successfully developed an alternative assessment strategy in 2019/20 to enable students to complete assessments remotely without coming on to campus. For example, formal examinations were taken remotely by students within at a time of their choosing within a window stipulated by us. If the government advice on social distancing changes, we will take this approach again.

Assessments, where students are directly observed performing a practical or clinical skill by an examiner, can only be delivered on campus. Assessments of a student’s ability to communicate appropriately with a patient or simulated patient can also only be delivered on-site.

At this stage, we expect to be able to deliver assessments of this kind on site. However, if government advice changes and the campus is closed, we will not be able to deliver these assessments as planned. In that case, it might be possible to delay these assessments until the following academic year to protect student safety. However, this could mean that graduation and subsequently entry to the National PA examination for some final year students are delayed until they are able to complete all assessments. We have an obligation to the Faculty of Physician Associates to confirm that our students have met the clinical and practical outcomes for the programme before they apply to sit the PA National Examination.

The changes that we are making are the consequence of current public health advice, and our capacity to offer alternatives is limited by that advice. If you wish to avoid these changes by deferring your offer please contact admissions@sgul.ac.uk.

The changes that we are making are the consequence of current public health advice, and our capacity to offer alternatives is limited by that advice. You will be required to consent to these changes as part of your re-enrolment. If you wish to avoid these changes (e.g. by taking a year out from your studies) please discuss this directly with your course team in the first instance. We remain, as always, focused on the best experience and outcomes for our students.