Does Student and Staff Gender Affect Physician Associate Student Experience on Clinical Rotations?

Introduction: Physician assistant/associate (PA) courses rely heavily on hands-on experience during clinical placement, and higher education institutes aim to provide students with an equitable experience. This article aims to understand how student gender and supervisor gender affect student experience on clinical placement at 2 PA courses in the United Kingdom, where PAs are known as physician associates. We found no evidence of pedagogical literature that focused on the gender differences in PA experience, so we aim to be the first to provide this research.

Methods: To assess student experience, student feedback was collected through online qualitative surveys and stratified by student and supervisor gender. 95% confidence intervals were calculated for scaled questions.

Results: Qualitative feedback from students shows a clear difference in their clinical placement experiences. Male students report fewer opportunities to observe and assess female patients, while female students report fewer opportunities observe and assess male patients. The most significant difference is seen when male students are seeing female patients. The discrepancy becomes more pronounced when male students are supervised by male supervisors and when female students are supervised by female supervisors.

Discussion: In planning clinical placements for students, programs must understand and recognize the potential for differences in experience based on student and supervisor gender and should take action to ensure a more equitable experience for all students.