Just a few years after Duke University founded the PA profession in 1965, Florida’s first PA program began at Santa Fe College and the University of Florida College of Medicine in 1972 under the guidance of founding director Richard Henry, MD, with an associate degree awarded through Santa Fe.

One of the College of Medicine’s early contributions to the PA program was working alongside the Trenton Rotary Club to found and operate a rural health clinic in Trenton, a rural agricultural community roughly 30 miles west of Gainesville that in the early 1970s was home to about 3,500 people. At the time, no physicians practiced in Trenton, requiring residents to travel to Gainesville for all their health care needs.

The Trenton Medical Center, which opened in 1971, served as the world’s first clinic run almost entirely by a PA. Prior to this, the nation’s approximately 200 PAs worked in clinics or hospitals under the close supervision of an attending physician. Doctors and health officials from around the nation and 10 different countries flocked to Trenton to learn more about the novel clinic, according to a documentary video produced about the clinic in the mid-1970s.

Gary Rexroat, PA-C, a former faculty member in the department of community health and family medicine at the College of Medicine, managed the Trenton clinic with the assistance of a registered nurse. Henry, the PA program director, visited weekly to assist with diagnoses and other needs. Medical students at UF also trained and learned about rural medicine by working with Rexroat, who passed away in 2020.

“You know what a physician looks like and you know what an attorney is supposed to look like, but as PAs … we had no role models at the time,” Rexroat said in a 2014 interview recorded in the UF digital archives. “So, we had to kind of take the good and leave the bad from other professions to see how we were going to serve the community.”

Building off its early successes, Gainesville’s PA program progressed steadily. It was fully incorporated into UF by 1977, offering a bachelor’s degree. After moving between the College of Medicine and the College of Allied Health Professions, now the College of Public Health and Health Professions, the PA program returned permanently to its current home at the College of Medicine in 1993.

The program’s longest-serving director, Wayne Bottom, MPH, PA-C, joined the faculty in 1982 and led the program for 27 years through a period of exponential growth and progress.

A year after Bottom saw the program through its final integration at the College of Medicine, the Florida Legislature earmarked funding to double enrollment to 60 students per class. During this period, the 1329 Building, situated between Southwest Archer Road and Southwest 16th Avenue, served as the PA program’s home base. The program continues to enroll approximately 60 new PA students every year.

In 1996, the PA program was upgraded to the master’s degree level, and in 2009, the program received school status, giving it the equivalent rights and privileges of a department within the College of Medicine.

“UF has been a trailblazer in moving the profession to the forefront, answering the growing demand for PAs as health care reform and spending became top national issues,” Bottom said in a 2009 interview with the college.

Upon Bottom’s retirement in 2011, Ralph Rice, PA ’91, DHSc, PA-C, joined as associate dean and director, serving in this role until his retirement in 2017. Under his direction, the PA school implemented a pass/fail curriculum for first-year students. Rice held quarterly director’s meetings with first-year students to foster open communication, encouraged professional development and mentoring opportunities for faculty.

In 2015, through the generosity of School of PA Studies graduate Randy Mahoney, MPAS ’01, PA-C, the school relocated to the newly constructed George T. Harrell, MD, Medical Education Building, where UF PA and medical students shared a home for the first time.

Nina Multak, PhD, MPAS, PA-C, joined the School of PA Studies in 2018 as the associate dean and Randolph B. Mahoney director, the first woman appointed to the role. During her tenure, the school has developed its curriculum to better integrate medical education technology. The program has added simulation and patient encounter experiences to give students a glimpse of the real-world scenarios they may encounter as PAs.

Elizabeth Brownlee, MPAS ’03, an assistant professor and director of didactic education for the School of PA Studies, said using simulated heart and lung sounds helps prepare students for their patient interactions.

“Students have said to me, ‘Oh, I can just pay attention to what a heart line visually looks like for the exam,’ but the simulation helps them understand that your patients are going to need you to know that sound just by listening,” she said.

UF has graduated more than 2,000 PAs, and the profession has grown to comprise more than 130,000 PAs working nationwide, according to 2021 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The UF School of PA Studies is expecting further changes as the profession continues to evolve.

In 2021, the American Academy of Physician Associates House of Delegates passed a resolution affirming physician associate as the official title for the profession. Multak said the change needs to be adopted by individual states, meaning it may take a few years before UF’s program can officially change its name to adopt the new title.

“Over the past 50 years, our graduates have laid the foundation for a strong presence in the profession, which we couldn’t have done without the support of the College of Medicine, UF Health and our alumni,” Multak said. “We’re looking forward to continuing our track record of training some of the best PAs in Florida and the nation as our profession grows in stature among the medical community and in the eyes of the public.”

This story originally ran in the Spring 2023 issue of the Doctor Gator newsletter.