Meeting Wisconsin’s Need for Rural Providers

Just three years earlier, the inaugural class of four UW School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) students had begun their studies in the Physician Assistant (PA) program’s first distant campus outside of Madison, established at UW-Stevens Point at Wausau (now known as wisPACT@UW-Stevens Point at Wausau). Snyder and colleagues built the program from the ground up to help address a continuing shortfall of primary care providers in the northern part of Wisconsin.

And that wasn’t even the first significant undertaking she faced after becoming the director of SMPH’s Physician Assistant program in 2008. Given the rapid growth of medical information and increasing pressure for PAs to have master’s-level preparation for licensure, Snyder had been charged with transforming the existing bachelor’s degree program into a master’s-level program. She oversaw a comprehensive adjustment of the curriculum and the degree change with UW–Madison by 2010.

The purpose of the 2017 regional summit was to explore the health care needs of southwestern Wisconsin, northern Iowa, and northern Illinois. The tri-state area had a shortage of physicians, PAs, and many other health care professionals.

“We started a dialogue,” Snyder recalls. And from those discussions grew the idea of a second SMPH distant campus for students pursuing the Master of Physician Assistant Studies degree. The wisPACT@UW–Stevens Point at Wausau program had taken off; by 2017, it was accepting 12 students per year. Thus, it provided a strong template for a program at UW-Platteville.

So, Snyder again went to work. As she had with the Wausau campus, she procured grants from the Health Resources and Services Administration, which supports a range of efforts to expand health care access. The structure of the academic program would be the same: a 24-month course of study, with classroom instruction via videoconference from Madison and laboratory work in Platteville during the first year, followed by clinical placements in rural settings within a 100-mile radius of Platteville. A baccalaureate degree would be required, and students would need to have completed 1,000 hours of direct patient care experience before admission.

UW-Platteville renovated the first floor of historic Ullrich Hall, the oldest building on campus, to house laboratory, exam, and dedicated lecture space for PA students. And in May 2023, the first class of 10 students began their pursuit of the Master of Physician Assistant Studies degree in Platteville, to be granted from UW–Madison.

The composition of the student body is in line with the program’s mission. Eight of the 10 students are from Wisconsin, and five are from the southwestern part of the state. They are between 21 and 30 years of age. Their direct patient care experiences include work as certified nursing assistants, rehabilitation aides, phlebotomists, emergency medical technicians, and medical assistants. Enrollment will grow gradually to an expected total of 14 students matriculating per year.

In light of a projected 26.5 percent employment growth for physician assistants from 2022-2032, Snyder believes current and future students are likely to have many opportunities to practice almost anywhere they’d like after graduation. But the philosophy that has successfully guided SMPH’s Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine — recruiting and training medical students who aim to practice medicine in medically underserved rural areas — is at play here too. Students who come from, understand, and love rural settings are more likely to practice in those areas. That has played out with wisPACT@UW-Stevens Point at Wausau; approximately 70 percent of PA graduates have remained to practice in that area of the state. The wisPACT programs at both campuses are carefully designed to expose students to the broad scope of practice that rural physicians and PAs experience.

Snyder notes that PA education is in the midst of a significant growth spurt. The number of programs is expanding, and the number of students in existing programs is growing. Wisconsin alone has five PA programs, and the United States has 287 accredited programs.

In addition, the profile of PA education is evolving.

“Advancement of technology and active learning strategies help PA students learn the critical-thinking skills necessary for application of course material,” Snyder points out. “PA education has become true competency-based education. It is now very data-driven.”

SMPH’s overall emphasis on scholarship, service, and public health positions students in the Master of Physician Assistant Studies for success in their professional practices. Among many measures, the PA program’s ranking in the nation’s top 30 in the most recent U.S. News & World Report analysis speaks to its success in preparing students.

And for Snyder, the successful launch of wisPACT@UW-Platteville represents a milestone.

“With the launch of the program at UW-Platteville, I feel I have come full circle because I joined the faculty of the UW-Platteville biology department right after I earned my graduate degree,” she reflects. She left Platteville when she moved to Madison for her PA studies. Later, when she was practicing in Janesville, Wisconsin, she was invited to teach neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neurology in SMPH’s PA program, so she moved back to Madison. Now, her extensive academic and leadership experiences have contributed to a new option for students in Platteville.

“It’s a big circle,” Snyder notes, “but it has been a full one.”