Demand for qualified health care professionals is growing in direct proportion to patient populations. Learn to provide essential patient care in JWU’s developing program that awards a Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies (MSPAS).

Johnson & Wales University offers a 24-month MSPAS. Our program offers 36 seats a year, and classes begin in June. We seek the most highly qualified students who have a demonstrated capacity to excel academically and show the most promise of becoming PAs who will exemplify our program's mission. All applicants must be graduates of, or be in the process of graduating from an accredited U.S. institution. A bachelor's degree is require before matriculation. We are not currently able to accept applications from international candidates.

The JWU PA Class of 2016 (inaugural) and Class of 2017 have BOTH achieved a first time test taker 100% pass rate on the NCCPA PANCE Exam! 

Key Faculty

George Bottomley DVM, PA-C, is the Dean of the College of Health and Wellness at Johnson & Wales University. He's a native Rhode Islander, and he earned an undergraduate degree at the University of Rhode Island and a doctoral degree in veterinary medicine at Michigan State University, completed residencies in comparative medicine and pathology at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, veterinary pathology at Cornell University and the San Diego Zoo and a NASA funded fellowship in pathology at Kansas State University.

On a national level, he was appointed by the Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA) to chair the committee that created the first national honor society for the physician assistant profession, Pi Alpha. He has been the PAEA Regional Consortium Chair for the Northeast which he currently co-chairs. He served two terms as a committee member responsible for writing the Pathway II Examination, the recertification examination for physician assistants developed by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants and the National Board of Medical Examiners.

Research & Labs

The PA program is part of JWU’s new Center for Physician Assistant Studies, housed in a 18,000-sq. foot facility dedicated to the health sciences and located in Providence’s Knowledge District.

Our facility has been set up to maximize information sharing, teamwork and collaboration between students, faculty and community colleagues, with:

• Lecture halls with global teleconferencing capabilities
• “Active learning” classrooms that can be easily reconfigured for group work or lectures, depending on the need
• Cadaver-based anatomy lab with access to e-study guides at each dissection station
• Conference rooms for small group meetings
• Student lounges and study areas
• Clinical practice center similar to a hospital emergency room

Program Requirements

Minimum Overall GPA of 3.0 

Minimum BCP (as calculated by CASPA) GPA of 3.0  

2 Biology classes with labs (8 credits)

2 Chemistry classes with labs (8 credits)

2 Anatomy /Physiology classes with labs (8 credits and completed within the past 7 years)

2 (3 credit) English courses * 

***Medical Terminology and AP courses will not fulfill the English requirement. In most cases, the admissions committee will review other writing-intense coursework as a substitution on a case-by-case basis. An official course syllabus will need to be provided by the student for official review after the CASPA application has been submitted and verified

2 (3 credit) Behavioral Science courses (psychology preferred) 

College level math (3 credits)

Minimum of 250 Direct Patient Care Hours

PA Shadowing Hours

Official GRE scores

3 Letters of Recommendations