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Program Goal 4
Improve access to medical care in South Dakota
Action Steps and Accountability Metrics
As stated in the University of South Dakota PA program mission statement, the program provides a comprehensive primary care education that prepares graduates to deliver high-quality health care to meet the needs of patients in South Dakota and the surrounding region.
The PA program strives to:
- Provide educational activities designed to promote higher order thinking and integration of material that will prepare students to practice using an interprofessional team-based health care delivery approach. This is evinced by:
- Interprofessional simulation activities woven throughout clinical medicine curriculum.
- Interprofessional training event
- Core Disaster Life Support
- Rural/Underserved Primary Care Clinical Rotation
- REHPS (Rural Experiences for Health Professional Students) opportunity
- Meet or exceed 32 percent of alumni practicing in a primary care field.
- 49 percent of graduates practice in a primary care setting, i.e., family medicine, general internal medicine, pediatrics, women's health.
- Meet or exceed 60 percent of graduates practicing in South Dakota.
- 50 percent of USD PA graduates practice in South Dakota.
- Of those, 44 percent practice in rural/frontier communities, i.e. communities with a population of 50,000 or fewer.
- Over the last four graduating classes (2016-2020), 59 percent of USD PA graduates practice in South Dakota.
- 1 unknown 2019
- 7 unknown 2020
The map below represents the counties where PA program alumni practice in South Dakota: