Skip to main content

Allied health professionals

Physician Associates Diploma

Register interest

A live online diploma for physician associates and physician assistants working in supervised medical and surgical teams, built around the work you do every day: safe practice within the team, the acutely unwell patient, investigations, procedures and medicines, common conditions in hospital, and the settings and conversations that test judgement.

It is written to current UK scope and regulation, with differences in the US and elsewhere flagged rather than taught as UK practice. The sessions focus on assessment, clinical reasoning, presenting to your supervising doctor and escalating safely. Twenty-five weekly sessions across five modules, taught live by practising clinicians you can question.

The diploma is professional development. It does not confer registration, a credential or any extension of your scope of practice, which stay with your regulator, your employer and your supervisor.

Course director
To be announced
Format
25 live weekly sessions on Zoom, in 5 modules
Dates
Confirmed when enrolment opens

Register Interest

You are registering for Physician Associates. We email you first when it opens for enrolment, and we will not pass your details to anyone outside PMI.

By submitting, you agree to receive emails from PMI about diplomas, course dates and updates. Unsubscribe any time.

A clinician in a white coat listens to a patient with a stethoscope during a physical examination.
Image: chest examination in clinic by Josie Kemp, U.S. Air Force via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Who it is for

Practising physician associates in the UK and physician assistants worldwide, working in supervised medical and surgical teams.

The programme

25 one-hour sessions in 5 modules, each with its learning objectives. This is the draft programme: the course director reviews and refines it before enrolment opens, so session titles may change.

Module 1 · Sessions 1 to 5Safe practice in the medical team

  1. 1. The role today: regulation, title and scope

    • Explain the current UK regulatory requirements for physician associates
    • Identify the limits of your role set by your employer, your supervisor and national guidance
    • Introduce yourself to patients so that your role is clear
    • Compare the UK role with physician assistant roles in other countries

  2. 2. Supervision and escalation

    • Agree a written supervision plan with your named supervisor
    • Escalate a concern about a patient using a structured approach
    • Record senior review decisions accurately in the notes
    • Act safely when the expected supervision is not available

  3. 3. Clinical reasoning and presenting a patient

    • Take a focused history and examination guided by a differential diagnosis
    • Recognise common cognitive biases in your own reasoning
    • Present a patient to a senior clearly in under two minutes
    • Confirm and document the agreed plan and who owns each action

  4. 4. Documentation, handover and discharge

    • Write clerking and ward round entries that another clinician can act on
    • Give and receive a structured handover
    • Draft a discharge summary that is accurate and ready for senior sign-off
    • Communicate a plan clearly to the patient's GP and other teams

  5. 5. Patient safety, candour and learning from incidents

    • Report a patient safety incident clearly and without blame
    • Explain the professional duty of candour and how to meet it
    • Raise a concern about safety through the right route
    • Write a reflection that supports learning and revalidation
Module 2 · Sessions 6 to 10The acutely unwell patient

  1. 6. Recognising deterioration and sepsis

    • Calculate and act on a NEWS2 score
    • Recognise suspected sepsis and escalate it within the expected time
    • Start the immediate actions within your role while senior help arrives
    • Hand over a deteriorating patient to the critical care team

  2. 7. Chest pain and breathlessness

    • Assess chest pain and breathlessness in a structured way
    • Recognise ECG changes that need immediate senior review
    • Explain how troponin and D-dimer results are used and misused
    • Identify presentations that must be escalated at once

  3. 8. Acute kidney injury, fluids and electrolytes

    • Recognise and stage acute kidney injury from blood results
    • Assess fluid status and present a fluid plan to the prescriber
    • Recognise dangerous potassium and sodium results and escalate them
    • Identify medicines that need review in acute kidney injury

  4. 9. The confused or drowsy patient

    • Screen for delirium and identify its likely causes
    • Recognise and escalate suspected stroke without delay
    • Respond to hypoglycaemia and to a seizure within your role
    • Gather a collateral history safely

  5. 10. Frailty, falls and the older inpatient

    • Assess frailty and explain how it changes the plan
    • Assess an inpatient after a fall
    • Identify medicines that raise falls risk for the prescriber to review
    • Recognise when a patient may be in the last days of life and raise it with the team
Module 3 · Sessions 11 to 15Investigations, procedures and medicines

  1. 11. Blood tests: choosing and interpreting

    • Choose blood tests that answer a clinical question
    • Interpret common blood results in clinical context
    • Identify results that need same-day action and escalate them
    • Avoid tests that will not change management

  2. 12. The ECG and the chest X-ray

    • Read an ECG systematically and recognise life-threatening findings
    • Read a chest X-ray systematically and recognise urgent findings
    • Present ECG and X-ray findings to the supervisor with a proposed next step
    • Explain who may request imaging under local IR(ME)R procedures

  3. 13. Practical procedures and consent

    • Perform and record ward procedures within your training and competence
    • Apply a local safety standard before an invasive procedure
    • Obtain valid consent for a procedure you are competent to perform
    • Recognise and escalate procedural complications

  4. 14. Interpreting the arterial blood gas

    • Interpret an arterial blood gas systematically
    • Recognise type 1 and type 2 respiratory failure
    • Identify metabolic acidosis and its common causes
    • Recognise when target oxygen saturations need review by the prescriber

  5. 15. Medicines safety in a non-prescribing role

    • Complete an accurate medicines reconciliation
    • Identify high-risk medicine problems and raise them with the prescriber
    • Record allergies and adverse reactions correctly
    • Explain why prescribing rights differ between countries
Module 4 · Sessions 16 to 20Common conditions in hospital

  1. 16. Diabetes in hospital

    • Recognise diabetic ketoacidosis and the hyperosmolar state
    • Follow a local diabetic ketoacidosis protocol within your role
    • Identify inpatients at risk of hypoglycaemia
    • Plan diabetes care around fasting and surgery with the team

  2. 17. Respiratory presentations

    • Assess the severity of an asthma or COPD exacerbation
    • Recognise life-threatening features that need immediate senior review
    • Use a severity score in suspected pneumonia
    • Identify patients who may need non-invasive ventilation

  3. 18. Heart failure and atrial fibrillation

    • Assess a patient with suspected heart failure
    • Assess a patient with new atrial fibrillation
    • Calculate stroke and bleeding risk scores
    • Present an anticoagulation question to the supervisor with the relevant facts

  4. 19. Gastrointestinal and liver emergencies

    • Assess an upper GI bleed and calculate a risk score
    • Recognise decompensated liver disease
    • Assess and escalate alcohol withdrawal using a local tool
    • Recognise an acute abdomen that needs surgical review

  5. 20. The surgical patient

    • Prepare a patient for surgery within the team's pathway
    • Recognise common post-operative complications
    • Escalate a deteriorating post-operative patient
    • Support enhanced recovery on the ward
Module 5 · Sessions 21 to 25Settings, communication and development

  1. 21. Acute and emergency settings under national protocols

    • Explain what current national guidance allows in acute and emergency settings
    • Assess patients within an agreed protocol
    • Recognise presentations that fall outside the protocol and escalate them
    • Make sure each patient has the senior review the protocol requires

  2. 22. Mental health in the general hospital

    • Recognise mental health presentations in general hospital patients
    • Escalate concerns about self-harm promptly
    • Respond safely to an agitated patient within your role
    • Refer to liaison psychiatry with the information they need

  3. 23. Capacity, consent and safeguarding

    • Assess whether a patient has capacity for a specific decision
    • Explain when best-interests decisions apply and who makes them
    • Recognise safeguarding concerns and act on them
    • Share information lawfully and appropriately

  4. 24. Difficult conversations

    • Prepare for a difficult conversation and agree who will lead it
    • Explain information clearly and check understanding
    • Respond to distress and anger calmly
    • Handle a complaint in line with local policy

  5. 25. Career development and complex case review

    • Apply the course to complex cases in a panel discussion
    • Plan CPD and appraisal evidence for revalidation
    • Explain the credentialling and career routes being developed
    • Build a personal development plan

What the diploma includes

  • 25 live sessions on Zoom, one evening a week, with recordings for the weeks you miss.
  • Practising specialists teaching live, so you can put your questions to them.
  • Weekly MCQs and a final written assessment.
  • A digital certificate carrying your final classification.

Lead or teach the Physician Associates Diploma

We are looking for a course director and faculty from the specialty. Sessions are one hour in the UK evening, live on Zoom, and paid.

Apply to teach