AMBASSADORS OF WELLNESS
CMU launches physician assistant program with strong community service orientation
BY KRISTEN LUMMIS
On her first day of class, Tiffany Petersen, a graduate student in the Master of Physician Assistant Studies (MPAS), visited the Salvation Army with her classmates.
“We stocked shelves and sorted clothing,” said Petersen. “CMU wants us to be invested and involved in the local community, and we definitely are.”
Community service is an important underpinning of physician assistant education and training at Colorado Mesa University.
According to MPAS Program Director and Assistant Professor Amy Bronson, EdD, the mission of CMU’s physician assistant (PA) program is to improve health care in western Colorado, while training PAs who will become service-minded leaders within their communities.
“We identified health care access as a huge need in the 14 counties that surround CMU,” Bronson said. “And we wanted to create a program that would meet both strategic university needs as well as these community needs.”
