After just two years of graduating students through its rigorous 27-month master's program, the Department of PA Medicine in the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine (MSUCOM) has achieved a perfect 100% first-time board pass rate.
By comparison, the first-time pass rate for the inaugural PA class of 2024 was 94%, and in 2025, the national average was 91%. According to John G. McGinnity, M.S, P.A.-C., professor and chair of the Department of PA Medicine, of the 320 PA programs in the nation, only 60 (19%) reached a 100% pass rate.
“Our students come in incredibly qualified and work really hard, but we don’t teach to the boards,” McGinnity said. “I mean, we didn't design this program so that students could pass a test. We designed it so they can take care of my mom in an emergency room and improve patient outcomes.
“Most of the faculty came in with experience from other programs, and so all of us took our past lives and said, ‘Okay, how could we make it better?’” he continued. “That created a lot of synergy among our faculty to really think outside the box – to create a program that has good outcomes yet is innovative in the way we approach things. And our mission is to have graduates be day one ready to begin practice.”
MSU PA Medicine students complete 108 credits over four semesters of didactic coursework before finishing a year of rotations in various hospitals, health systems and outpatient clinics, then they take the Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination (PANCE) after graduation to become a board-certified physician assistant.
Ellen Brooks was hired as a hospitalist PA by Corewell Health in Grand Rapids in July of 2025 – one month before graduating from MSU’s PA program. She opted to take the board exam just a few weeks after graduation.
“I felt extremely prepared going into it right away,” she said. “I felt that if I took any more time to study, then the forgetting curve might set in, and my rationale was, I'm not going to know any more than I do now.”
Brooks works nights and is responsible for admitting and treating over 100 patients at Butterworth and Blodgett Hospitals in Grand Rapids.
“I feel that I can really use what I learned in PA school in my everyday practice because I'm managing acute conditions, but I also have to worry about everyone's chronic medical conditions that they're coming in with, how they interact with one another, really think through the things that I'm doing, forming a differential diagnosis,” Brooks said. “I feel well prepared by the clinical rotations that I was able to rotate. So far, I've received a lot of good feedback from my mentors, from attending physicians and my peers.”
McGinnity said MSU’s PA curriculum is unique because its clinical structure offers more electives than the average PA program, which gives it more flexibility in meeting market demands and greater variability based on student needs.
“We can take students who are doing really well and put them in something like trauma surgery in different places that maybe they wouldn't rotate in via a traditional PA program,” he explained. “But we can also work on a student's weakness, where if they are struggling in certain areas in the didactic portion, then we intentionally focus on their clinical experiences to work on those deficits. Or, if we see that they have an area of weakness when they take a standardized exam, we want to focus on that in their clinical training.”
MSU is also the only PA program in the state and one of only a few in the country where PA students and D.O. medical students attend some classes together during their didactic training. While these are two distinct medical training programs, this synergy helps to improve a team-based approach and underscores holistic primary care.
“Having some of our classes combined with D.O. students was a big draw for me, because as PAs, we’re going to be working with doctors our whole career,” said Annaliese Barnhart, who graduated last year and will begin working at Corewell Health Family Medicine in Kentwood, Mich., in March. “Even though it was a new program, I felt the faculty had so much experience and that they brought that into the program that they created. I loved the program and I felt really confident heading into clinicals.”
The MSU Department of PA Medicine has affiliation agreements with all the major health systems in the state of Michigan, and McGinnity said a deliberate effort is made to ensure that students get exposure to large and small hospitals and health care clinics throughout the state in their clinical rotations to emphasize the core value of improving access to care, particularly in underserved areas.
“I tell students, ‘There's no one way to practice medicine,” McGinnity said. “No matter where you come from, I want to take you out of your comfort zone. And the more exposure they have to different approaches, the more well-rounded clinician they’re going to be and the better their ability to communicate with various cultures and diverse groups.”
The MSU PA Medicine program is in the final stage of the accreditation process, which requires three formal reviews over a six-year period. As a newly formed PA program, the department was granted Accreditation-Provisional status. McGinnity said final accreditation review is occurring this year, and results are expected by the end of the year. The perfect 100% first-time board pass rate certainly won’t hurt the process.
“Our goal is to work collaboratively to improve patient outcomes. And with the shortage in physicians, the aging of the physician population and the needs in rural and underserved areas, the market is going to stay strong for PAs for quite some time.”
by Lynn Waldsmith
After just two years of graduating students through its rigorous 27-month master's program, the Department of PA Medicine in the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine (MSUCOM) has achieved a perfect 100% first-time board pass rate.
By comparison, the first-time pass rate for the inaugural PA class of 2024 was 94%, and in 2025, the national average was 91%. According to John G. McGinnity, M.S, P.A.-C., professor and chair of the Department of PA Medicine, of the 320 PA programs in the nation, only 60 (19%) reached a 100% pass rate.
“Our students come in incredibly qualified and work really hard, but we don’t teach to the boards,” McGinnity said. “I mean, we didn't design this program so that students could pass a test. We designed it so they can take care of my mom in an emergency room and improve patient outcomes.
“Most of the faculty came in with experience from other programs, and so all of us took our past lives and said, ‘Okay, how could we make it better?’” he continued. “That created a lot of synergy among our faculty to really think outside the box – to create a program that has good outcomes yet is innovative in the way we approach things. And our mission is to have graduates be day one ready to begin practice.”
MSU PA Medicine students complete 108 credits over four semesters of didactic coursework before finishing a year of rotations in various hospitals, health systems and outpatient clinics, then they take the Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination (PANCE) after graduation to become a board-certified physician assistant.
Ellen Brooks was hired as a hospitalist PA by Corewell Health in Grand Rapids in July of 2025 – one month before graduating from MSU’s PA program. She opted to take the board exam just a few weeks after graduation.
“I felt extremely prepared going into it right away,” she said. “I felt that if I took any more time to study, then the forgetting curve might set in, and my rationale was, I'm not going to know any more than I do now.”
Brooks works nights and is responsible for admitting and treating over 100 patients at Butterworth and Blodgett Hospitals in Grand Rapids.
“I feel that I can really use what I learned in PA school in my everyday practice because I'm managing acute conditions, but I also have to worry about everyone's chronic medical conditions that they're coming in with, how they interact with one another, really think through the things that I'm doing, forming a differential diagnosis,” Brooks said. “I feel well prepared by the clinical rotations that I was able to rotate. So far, I've received a lot of good feedback from my mentors, from attending physicians and my peers.”
McGinnity said MSU’s PA curriculum is unique because its clinical structure offers more electives than the average PA program, which gives it more flexibility in meeting market demands and greater variability based on student needs.
“We can take students who are doing really well and put them in something like trauma surgery in different places that maybe they wouldn't rotate in via a traditional PA program,” he explained. “But we can also work on a student's weakness, where if they are struggling in certain areas in the didactic portion, then we intentionally focus on their clinical experiences to work on those deficits. Or, if we see that they have an area of weakness when they take a standardized exam, we want to focus on that in their clinical training.”
MSU is also the only PA program in the state and one of only a few in the country where PA students and D.O. medical students attend some classes together during their didactic training. While these are two distinct medical training programs, this synergy helps to improve a team-based approach and underscores holistic primary care.
“Having some of our classes combined with D.O. students was a big draw for me, because as PAs, we’re going to be working with doctors our whole career,” said Annaliese Barnhart, who graduated last year and will begin working at Corewell Health Family Medicine in Kentwood, Mich., in March. “Even though it was a new program, I felt the faculty had so much experience and that they brought that into the program that they created. I loved the program and I felt really confident heading into clinicals.”
The MSU Department of PA Medicine has affiliation agreements with all the major health systems in the state of Michigan, and McGinnity said a deliberate effort is made to ensure that students get exposure to large and small hospitals and health care clinics throughout the state in their clinical rotations to emphasize the core value of improving access to care, particularly in underserved areas.
“I tell students, ‘There's no one way to practice medicine,” McGinnity said. “No matter where you come from, I want to take you out of your comfort zone. And the more exposure they have to different approaches, the more well-rounded clinician they’re going to be and the better their ability to communicate with various cultures and diverse groups.”
The MSU PA Medicine program is in the final stage of the accreditation process, which requires three formal reviews over a six-year period. As a newly formed PA program, the department was granted Accreditation-Provisional status. McGinnity said final accreditation review is occurring this year, and results are expected by the end of the year. The perfect 100% first-time board pass rate certainly won’t hurt the process.
“Our goal is to work collaboratively to improve patient outcomes. And with the shortage in physicians, the aging of the physician population and the needs in rural and underserved areas, the market is going to stay strong for PAs for quite some time.”
by Lynn Waldsmith