You can tell where a university is headed by the administrator jobs it posts. The CCPA Physician Assistant Program has listed a Manager, Physician Assistant Program on AcademicJobs, and this is not a back-office role bolted onto a health science department. It sits at the point where clinical education, student compliance, and accreditation enforcement collide.

Before you apply, get one thing straight. A physician assistant program manager is not a generic higher ed administrator. You are running the operational side of a graduate clinical training program: clinical site agreements, preceptor onboarding, background checks, progress committee files, and the documentation that an accreditation reviewer will request without warning. If that sounds like three jobs, that's because at many programs it used to be.

What a Physician Assistant Program Manager Really Does

Physician assistants are licensed clinicians who practice medicine with physician supervision or collaboration. Training one takes a graduate-level didactic phase followed by supervised clinical rotations. The manager is the person who keeps that sequence from breaking down.

• Coordinating clinical rotations across hospitals, outpatient clinics, and private practices
• Maintaining affiliation agreements and onboarding new preceptors
• Tracking immunization, background check, and credentialing records
• Supporting admissions, orientation, and student progress committees
• Preparing accreditation documents and annual program reports

Some programs split these duties across a clinical coordinator, an admissions coordinator, and a program administrator. A manager role usually means the work rolls up to one desk. Candidates coming from a student affairs or scheduling background can learn the job, but the clinical compliance piece is where they either adapt quickly or stall.

Why Accreditation Turns This Job Into a Compliance Role

The Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant, known as ARC-PA, accredits PA programs and sets standards for faculty, facilities, curriculum, and clinical rotations. Programs must show enough administrative support to supervise clinical sites and keep student records audit-ready. The standards are not vague niceties. They shape every affiliation agreement and every student file a program keeps.

When a site visit approaches, the manager's workload spikes. Self-study documents, course syllabi, preceptor evaluations, and student outcome data all have to be pulled together on a strict timeline. A program that loses track of clinical site agreements can face citations, and repeated problems can threaten accreditation. That is why a manager with regulatory literacy is worth more than a candidate who can only manage calendars.

You can review the current standards on the ARC-PA website. The details matter, but the headline is simple: accreditation is a documentation sport.

The PA Workforce Boom Behind the Hiring Push

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 28 percent increase in physician assistant employment from 2023 to 2033, with median annual pay of $130,020 in May 2023. That demand reaches PA programs before it reaches the clinics, because more applicants and larger cohorts create more clinical placements, more preceptors, more compliance work, and more student records.

Duke University opened the first physician assistant program in 1965. Today the profession spans more than 300 accredited programs, and the Physician Assistant Education Association tracks how those programs are expanding, where applicants are coming from, and what they need administratively. When a program adds a manager, it is usually responding to growth it can no longer absorb with existing staff.

This hiring signal matters even if you are not applying. A new PA program manager role means the institution is betting on sustained demand for physician assistants. For a candidate, it can mean more stable funding and a clearer career path than an unfunded coordinator job.

How to Read the CCPA Posting Before You Apply

Do not skim past the reporting line. The manager usually reports to a program director or a college dean, and that tells you whether the role has real authority or mostly owns scheduling. Look for words like accreditation, clinical site coordination, and budget oversight. If the posting is light on those details, ask the screening contact two things: Who owns the affiliation agreements, and what is the current status of the next ARC-PA self-study?

Find the full CCPA listing on AcademicJobs and use the actual text of the posting, not the title, to shape your application. A title tells you the level. The duties tell you what the committee is most anxious about.

What to Emphasize in Your Application

Your resume needs to prove you can run a process, not just support one. Use specific, countable examples.

• Managed clinical placement agreements across multiple hospital systems
• Led accreditation preparation or self-study documentation for a health professions program
• Handled student progress, remediation, or dismissal cases with confidentiality
• Built a preceptor onboarding workflow that cut paperwork turnaround time

If you have never worked in a PA program, translate experience from nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, medical residency, or allied health education. The committee wants evidence of regulatory literacy and speed, not just years in higher ed.

One Action to Take This Week

Email the contact listed in the posting and ask two questions: What is the biggest operational backlog in the program right now, and what does success look like in the first six months? That single email separates a serious applicant from the people who just clicked submit. Then complete your application through the program's application portal before the review date passes.

The CCPA role will not sit open long. PA program managers are hard to find, and health science deans know it.