Forty-nine students from Chapman University’s Physician Assistant (PA) Studies program turned on their Zoom cameras Dec. 4 to sport newly received short white coats in the university’s annual ceremony. The university’s event symbolizes the students’ transition into a practitioner role as they move out of a didactic year of learning. Applying the knowledge they’ve garnered thus far, these students will be placed into clinical rotations, a process Michael Burney, the PA Studies program director, calls an ultimate “rite of passage.” 

This sentiment was echoed by Emily Blair, the president of the PA Studies graduating class of 2021, in her opening address at the ceremony.

“The thought of enduring PA school through a pandemic, social injustice uprisings across the country, wildfires that resulted in evacuations, the unexpected departure of two of our beloved faculty members and having no physical interaction with our classmates or faculty makes it sound impossible,” Blair said. “But, our class has persevered and made it here to this day.”

Although Burney conceded the event lacked its usual pomp and circumstance and the familiar nostalgia of being held on campus, faculty and administration sought input from students when planning to determine how to best replicate the significance of the white coat ceremony virtually. Students and faculty settled on a slideshow presentation in tribute to each of the students as well as words of encouragement from beloved students and faculty, whose words centered around the graduating class’ resilience and dedication to their field in the face of adversity.

“You put (the white coat) on and you are responsible for people – their outcomes, their mental health, their diagnoses and their quality of life,” said first-year PA Studies student Reilly Carr, who also functions as the student academy representative for the American Academy of PAs at Chapman. “That’s really humbling.”

The two-year graduate program accepts only 6% of its applicants as of 2019, condensing the pool down to an average of 50 students, according to Burney. Studies are separated into six trimesters, the last half of which are composed of nine separate rotations at off-campus medical facilities. Students will gain wide exposure to various niches in the medical field from pediatrics and women’s health to emergency medicine and general surgery.

Although most of this time will be spent off-campus, PA Studies students will still be granted access to the Rinker Health Science Campus in Irvine for in-person laboratories and clinical examinations. This opportunity is granted as a result of being classified by the California Department of Health as essential healthcare professionals in-training.

“We really worked hard as a faculty with the students to give them every possible laboratory experience they could have,” Burney said. “They’re going to be as current as anyone else out there …  A lot of them have been testing patients for COVID-19 and interpreting the tests and unfortunately, for better or for worse, they’ve had to adapt to this.”

Burney largely credited President Daniele Struppa, Provost Glenn Pfeiffer and Janeen Hill, dean of Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, for the level of flexibility the PA Studies Program has to teach in person to better prepare students for the medical field. Carr elaborated on the increasing pressure within their scope of practice as COVID-19 cases surge.

“Because we’re in this crisis mode with healthcare workers, the restrictions have been temporarily relaxed to give us more room to practice the extent of our ability and provide more access to medical care,” Carr said. “I didn’t go to PA school because I wanted to practice independently.”

However, Carr said it’s reassuring to know she has an opportunity to work independently if need be. A frequent topic of conversation in her classes has been the ethical boundary between looking after oneself and the patient. From her observations, students are fairly equally split in regard to their priority in potentially life-threatening situations. Ultimately, she believes students acknowledge the risks enrolling in PA school, but she describes the circumstances of the coronavirus as “uncharted territory.”

Burney harked back to his own experience entering the medical field during the HIV/AIDS pandemic nearly three decades prior, encouraging students to continue combatting adversity and providing essential medical care “independent of what’s going on in the medical field.” Blair elaborated on the concept.

“You never really think about the fact that we, on a daily basis, go into rooms where we’re exposed to all types of bodily fluids and all types of diseases,” Blair told The Panther. “That’s just what we decided to do because we want to help people.”