The DMSc curriculum was designed to prepare PA leaders to navigate the complexity of healthcare delivery while improving healthcare outcomes and access.
The curriculum was informed by the national PA competencies, PA educators, PA researchers from the Physician Assistant Leadership and Learning Academy (PALLA), alumni and students. The UMB DMSc is unique in its design, we provide a common foundational core to all students and allow our students to choose focus areas from the myriad of courses we offer at UMB. Examples include taking elective courses in palliative care, thanatology, social innovation, intercultural leadership, health professions education, integrative medicine, or health informatics.
Educational Objectives
Upon the completion of the Doctor of Medical Science for PAs, graduates will be able to:
- Demonstrate knowledge about established and evolving biomedical and clinical sciences and the application of this knowledge to patient care.
- Demonstrate interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills that result in the effective exchange of information, advancing learning, and healthcare in collaboration with patients, families, and health professional team members.
- Demonstrate leadership ability to engage with a variety of other health care professionals in a manner to optimize safe, effective, patient- and population-centered care.
- Engage in reflection and critical analysis of one’s own practice experience, the medical literature, and other information resources for the purposes of self-evaluation, lifelong learning, practice improvement, and organizational health.
- Demonstrate a commitment to practicing medicine ethically and in legally appropriate ways and emphasizing professional maturity and accountability for delivering safe, quality, affordable health care to patients and populations.
- Provide person-centered care that includes patient- and setting-specific assessment, evaluation, and management and healthcare that is evidence-based, supports patient safety, and advances health equity.
- Recognize and understand the influences of the ecosystem of person, family, population, environment, and policy on the health of patients and integrate the knowledge of these determinants of health into patient care decisions.
- Utilize principles of intercultural leadership, health system science, implementation and dissemination science when dealing with complex problems to promote the strategic use of resources to improve care and operational effectiveness.