The school faculty from Yale University, the reputed Ivy League school announced that they have started a web-based PA (Physician Assistant) master’s program.

This will continue the Ivy League Institution’s penetration of the “Blended” learning program. “Blended” learning programs create a path for students to go through a course from far away through an integrated (Online\Digital) learning experience.

This online program has been initiated by the Yale school of medicine after collaboration with 2U Inc., an education technology company. This made it the second school from Yale to start an online program preceded by Yale school of Nursing.

Back in 2011, Yale school of Nursing started a partial doctoral degree in nursing. The online PA training program will simulate and replicate the residential and in-campus Physician’s Assistant training which was launched back in 1971.

The students will communicate via video-conferences to exchange data and notes. Using 2U’s revolutionary technology Yale will be hosting collaborative and live classes which will help students connect with the faculty and receive interactive course-work. Even so, nearly half of the course-work is field training which will be done in Yale approved clinics near their residence. The financial demands for this are comparably lower given that it frees the students from the problem of moving far away from home.

The course is still pending approval from the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA) and other state licensing agencies but will be up and running soon.

Unlike other PA programs, the online course will recruit qualifying students 3 times a year instead of once. This will pave the way for students to start their training and education earlier. The program director, James Van Rhee commented “PA program students could come to campus during the first week or two in the program to experience Yale.” He also said that the students could come back at the end of the first year to learn the required clinical skills an later at the end of the clinical year to do testing. A distant student will also be allowed to do a rotation of the Yale New Haven Hospital.

Over the years more and more universities have started online courses and Yale took an active interest in this. Back in 2007, Yale University hosted online lecture videos for free of cost but the decade old plan came to a halt, till this year when Yale finally decided to catch up on this and provide a more cost-efficient way to acquire a “Yale Degree”.

In this age of technology this is a new step for Yale to join in on the online courses and options. This will benefit both the students and the University’s reach. Yale University’s campus based course has room for only 40 students while over 1000 students can apply and study the online course. James Van Rhee hopes that this will help to expand the school’s reach to rural areas. He expects the enrollments to increase from the current size of 40 to around 300.

Robert Alpern, dean of the Yale School of Medicine said, “The goal is to contribute to the healthcare needs of the country and our hope is to give more qualified applicants the opportunity to earn a Yale School of Medicine Physician Associate degree.”  This will surely help increase the number of attending medical professionals in the coming years for the growing population. Yale’s online PA course will require the same tuition and prerequisite expenses as the in-campus courses which will amount to $83,162 for 2 years and 6 months or 5 semesters.

Apply for the course here .