Course summary

Train to become a physician associate and gain the clinical skills vital to the diagnosis, treatment and care of patients in primary and secondary care. Physician associates are part of a rapidly growing medical profession in the UK. If you have a first degree in life or health sciences, our MSc Physician Associate will equip you to fill an important clinical role. We’ll train you to diagnose illnesses, develop treatment and management plans, perform procedures and deliver patient education, counselling and health promotion. You’ll be able to take a patient’s history, perform physical examinations and procedures and request and interpret diagnostic test results. This is an intensive and challenging two-year postgraduate course offering significant rewards. At ARU, your postgraduate study will be divided equally between theory and practice, following the medical model of teaching, learning and assessment. In your first year of this Masters degree course you’ll study on ARU’s Chelmsford campus in the School of Medicine. Alongside lectures, tutorials, practical workshops and simulated skills work, you’ll also go on primary care placements in GP surgeries. You’ll spend all of the second year following a programme of clinical placements in general practice, hospital wards and outpatient settings across the East of England. Clinical specialties will include: community-based medicine general hospital medicine front door medicine (A&E) mental health general surgery obstetrics and gynaecology paediatrics in an acute setting. You’ll learn to become a caring, capable, knowledgeable and research-aware physician associate, with high-level clinical and communication skills. As the availability of work placements in the UK health service is limited, our MSc Physician Associate is open to UK applicants only.