Direct Patient Care Experience FAQ

University of Bridgeport’s Physician Assistant program requires a minimum of 1000 hours of direct patient care experience. For experience to be considered “direct patient care”, it must involve hands-on contact with patients and/or high-level decision-making in a medical environment. These experiences may be paid or volunteer. The PA program faculty/Admissions committee will review all duties listed, therefore please be as specific as possible when documenting your responsibilities. Hours documented in CASPA must be completed at the time of your CASPA application submission. Hours that you plan to obtain in the future cannot be counted toward your documented patient care experience.

Please see the listed examples of patient care experiences to determine whether the University of Bridgeport PA program will accept them. These lists are intended as a guide and are not all-inclusive:

Examples of experiences that ARE accepted as direct patient care

For experience to be considered “direct patient care”, it must involve hands-on contact with patients and/or high-level decision making in a medical environment. These experiences may be paid or volunteer.

Examples of experiences that MAY BE considered direct patient care

These experiences are evaluated on a “case-by-case” basis, and will be determined by the PA program faculty/Admissions Committee, based on the description of duties noted on your application. Please provide a detailed and accurate account of your responsibilities for each experience documented. Generally, duties involving direct contact with patients, (such as checking vital signs and blood glucose) are likely to be accepted, while duties that are administrative, clerical, or focused on activities of daily living, companionship, and transportation will likely not be accepted.

Examples of experiences that ARE NOT considered direct patient care

While valuable to the healthcare system, society, and to your life experience, these activities will not be accepted as direct patient care hours.