Holistic Admissions and Underrepresented Minorities in Physician Assistant Programs.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Health Professions Education
• Diversity in Medicine

Background:

• Physician assistant (PA) programs are crucial for training healthcare professionals.
• Increasing diversity among healthcare providers is a national priority.
• Holistic review is an admissions strategy aiming to assess a broader range of applicant qualifications beyond traditional metrics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the prevalence of holistic review implementation in PA programs.
• To investigate the correlation between holistic review adoption and the matriculation of underrepresented minority (URM) students in PA programs.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of the 2016-2017 Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA) annual survey data.
• Examination of holistic review utilization across PA programs.
• Application of bivariate correlation and binary logistic regression to assess relationships between holistic review practices and URM student percentages.

Main Results:

• A significant majority of PA programs (77.2%) reported employing holistic review.
• Holistic review use showed a modest positive correlation with the percentage of URM, Hispanic, and African American students.
• PA programs incorporating specific diversity-focused holistic review elements demonstrated stronger correlations with URM and African American matriculation.
• Logistic regression indicated a slightly higher likelihood of URM students enrolling in programs utilizing holistic review.

Conclusions:

• Holistic review practices in PA programs are modestly associated with a higher percentage of URM student enrollment.
• Further investigation is warranted to pinpoint specific components of holistic review that most effectively enhance diversity.