The Augsburg PA Program is excited to welcome students back from a long-deserved break! We had quite a year in 2024 the program and we want to take a look back at the various successes.

The PA Profession as a whole was able to celebrate a success in January with the new federal rule which allowed PAs at OTPs to order methadone! Methadone is medication used to treat opiod use disorder and has been approved by the FDA for the life-saving treatment.

In January, our very own Vanessa Bester was featured in the PA Path Podcast to discuses the idea of empowering communities and elevating healthcare; addressing the social determinants of health. She was later awarded the President’s Civic Engagement Leadership Award from Iowa and Minnesota Campus Compact in April and we are so proud to have her hard work for the larger community recognized.

Our second-years participated in the MAPA Challenge Bowl and tested their knowledge against other schools. While they didn’t take home the trophy, they gained valuable knowledge and had a blast! They were able to re-test that knowledge with some friendly competition during our 2nd Annual Skills Olympics! Students went from station to station to battle other teams in a race against time and the curriculum.

The month of May flew by as we welcomed our new cohort, the class of 2026, and sent our 2nd years out into the clinical phase after celebrating their White Coat Ceremony!

The entire summer was full of students volunteering with places like the Special Olympics,and the FANS Ultra Race. Aside from volunteering, some students along with some of our very own staff members, completed part of their Master’s project with a trip to Costa Rica, where attendees applied what they learned to their own leadership roles and projects. One of our new grads and one of our faculty members were also featured in a recently released book Digital Health: Telemedicine and Beyond edited by Dipu Patel.

Amidst all of the busy work the students have been doing, we had a few changes behind the scenes. We welcomed new faculty members this year, including: Mary Ruggeri MEd, MMSc, PA-C, Kelsey Reif, PA-C, and Mara Czaja PA-C. Alongside them, we welcomed Danielle Skoglund, PA-C as our interim Program Director. We said a sort-of-goodbye to our previous Program Director Vanessa Bester. EdD, PA-C, but welcomed her back as the Director of the School of Health, a part the University’s new structure. We are proud of our new team and excited to see the hard work they’ve been putting in to support our students to reach their full potential.

The Class of 2024 celebrated their commencement at the end of summer and headed out to the world of healthcare as they all went their different directions. Some focusing on the PANCE, some traveling across the states for new jobs, and some stuck around to become fellows, helping the very faculty as peers instead of students. During the rest of the fall and the end of the year our didactic phase students worked hard on fundraising for local community organizations,  doing some outreach with things like Project Access, and as always – studying hard. We are proud to see them make it through their finals and get a long-deserved break at the end of the semester.

The PA program looks forward to another year of building relationships between our students, our community, and the patients we hope to serve going forward. Thank you to everyone who has supported our program, our faculty and staff, and most importantly, those who have supported our students on their journey to become capable PAs.

“Education for Service.”

The Augsburg University PA Program is proud to have recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of our first graduating class this year. As we invite our alumni to come celebrate the achievements of our current standings, we also want to take a trip down memory lane to see how far Augsburg PA has come from our start.

In 1994, Augsburg University began the official setup of the Physician Assistant Program. Led by Program Director Dawn Ludwig, we were a 4-year post baccalaureate program that enabled students to receive their PA license and certification. Not only was it the first (and only) PA program in Minnesota at the time, it was also designed to follow Augsburg University’s guiding principles and mission. Dean Marie McNeff, vice president for academic affairs at that time, stated in an article of Augsburg Now that:

“The college is pleased to be able to offer the physician assistant program as an example of the college’s motto of ‘Education for Service.’ Our P.A. program will educate persons to be generalist physician assistants – professionals well-educated in current theory and practice, dedicated to excellence in performance with the highest standard of ethics and integrity, committed to lifelong personal and professional development, respectful and sensitive to persons of all cultures and background, and oriented toward service to underserved populations.”¹

The first class of 23 students were located in the basement of Anderson hall and had 12 months of coursework focused on human anatomy and physiology, medical ethics, pharmacology, and more; followed by 15 months of clinical rotations in various medical areas and a 12-week long preceptorship.

Over time our program itself has evolved from its original certification, and in 2002 we made the official switch to the Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies degree. Today, the program is 27 months long and has 15 months of coursework on human gross anatomy, clinical medicine, pharmacotherapy, research and professional issues in the didactic phase, followed by 12 months of clinical rotations, including an 8 week preceptorship. We are proud to partner with most major health systems as well small rural hospitals and clinics throughout Minnesota, the five state area, and beyond to provide our students with the experiences they need to provide the best care to underserved and rural populations.

The curriculum and education established in 1995 has evolved over the years yet the excellence of our PA graduates persists, with a strong presence in primary care, PANCE board pass rates well above the national average, and opportunities for our students to engage in the local and global community. 

Coursework isn’t the only place where we made some changes and continue to grow. In 2015, the PA Program moved locations over to Luther Seminary, in St. Paul as part of a partnership with the university to help foster urban development spaces and encourage undergraduate and graduate studies to work in tandem.

In 2019 we made our return to the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, across the street from Augsburg University, in the Riverside Plaza Medical Building. Students now have a state of the art lecture hall, small group classrooms, a dedicated lounge space, and study room. Additionally, we also have an expanded clinical skills lab with 10-fully equipped exam room bays and 2 simulated hospital bays with simulation mannequin. The clinical skills lab also supports our point of care/bedside ultrasound curriculum and use of 3 Butterfly bedside ultrasound units. Our faculty and staff are able to remain close in our 5th floor office suite in the same building.

Here at Augsburg, we are so excited to celebrate 25 years of learning, and we look forward to expanding our outreach. We are collaborating  with the Augsburg University Health Commons and the Nursing Program to provide care around the local communities, including  Central Lutheran Church, Cedar-Riverside Towers, and more. PA students are also learning in tandem with the Medical Music Therapy and the Master of Arts in Leadership programs through study abroad courses in Costa Rica, China, and South Africa. We look forward to more years of growth for our students and the areas they will serve throughout their careers as PAs. While we have seen many changes throughout the years, the Augsburg PA Program continues to carry forward our original guiding principles and mission.