How to ‘master’ one of the 10 most promising jobs of 2015


Makeba Burke has what Forbes has listed as No. 1 among “The Ten Most Promising Jobs of 2015.” Burke is a certified physician assistant with the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine’s flagship program, the Green Family Foundation NeighborhoodHELP™.

“One of the things that attracted me to the physician assistant is they can spend more time with the patient,“ says Burke.

Like doctors, physician assistants are trained to examine patients, diagnose illnesses, provide treatment and prescribe medicine, but they cannot practice independently; they work under a physician’s supervision. Burke’s supervisor is Assistant Professor Dr. Kumar Ilangovan, site director of the FIU Health District Center where FIU/HWCOM health care workers see patients in a partnership with the Miami-Dade Health Department.

“There are not enough primary care physicians,” says Ilangovan, “that’s why we rely on non-physician providers.”

The physician assistant is such a hot job right now, no one was surprised when the College of Medicine announced that it would launch a Masters of Physician Assistant Studies beginning in the fall of 2015, and there was a deluge of applications. “We had over 680 applicants, out of which we selected 45. So it’s a very competitive program,” says Dr. Pete Gutierrez, associate dean and founding chair of the physician assistant program.

The growing demand for physician assistants is being fueled by a national shortage of primary care and family doctors, aging baby boomer physicians nearing retirement, and a new emphasis on a team-based approach to managing patient care.

This in turn translates into an exciting job outlook. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts the PA profession to grow by more than 38 percent between 2012 and 2022, and supply and demand is dictating very attractive starting salaries.

“The national average of a PA coming out of school after 27 months is about 85k. For a young person, that’s a pretty good salary to begin with,” says Gutierrez.

In order to become a certified PA, students must pass the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam (PANCE); and to be eligible for PANCE, they must graduate from an accredited program. The FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine Physician Assistant Program has received provisional accreditation from the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant, the accrediting body for all PA programs in the United States.