Dixie State University and the University of Utah School of Medicine are delving deeper in plans to create a new physician assistant program in St. George after receiving an ongoing $1.5 million allocation for partnership programs during Utah’s 2016 legislative session. The master’s degree program is scheduled to open to students in May 2018, and faculty from the University of Utah School of Medicine visited the DSU campus to further plan the implementation of the program.
The University of Utah has agreed to manage the program in its initial years until it is fully matriculated, after which DSU will assume full responsibility and funding for the program. After being fully established, the funds for the program will then be used for developing similar high-market demand programs between the two universities.
Dr. John Houchins, University of Utah’s chief of the Physician Assistant Division, said that ultimately both universities have partnered to improve quality of life and access to healthcare for Southern Utah.
“That’s the big win in the whole thing,” Houchins said.
Houchins and physician assistant program director Karen Mulitalo both stressed the importance of the education being identical on both campuses and have said that the funding provided by the legislature will be an investment to ensure that happens.
The universities are also partnering with Intermountain Healthcare’s Dixie Regional Medical Center to allow students to work with physicians in the community.
In addition to the funding received from the legislature, DSU also received ongoing amounts of $173,300 and $175,000 for market demand programs and the USHE Engineering Initiative respectively along with a one-time amount of $150,000 for the K-16 Technology Pipeline, a program devoted to developing computer programmers, designers, and developers.
