Program Overview

With a commitment to serve the diverse healthcare needs of Missouri and the Kansas City area, UMKC Physician Assistant (PA) students are trained with the skills necessary to care for these communities. More than half of our program’s graduates have accepted positions in the State of Missouri or Greater Kansas City Area.

Due to the program’s success and the increasing demand for healthcare providers in Missouri, UMKC is expanding the program to a new location in Columbia, Missouri. The expanded program allows students to choose between two campus locations: the UMKC Health Sciences District in Kansas City and the Columbia location at the MU School of Medicine. Both campuses will provide students with diverse clinical experiences across a range of settings, ensuring they are well-prepared to serve a variety of patient populations.

Why Choose Our Program?

The UMKC PA program offers:

• Smaller class sizes, prioritizing quality educational experiences and faculty-to-student ratios.
• Diverse teaching faculty consisting of PAs and physicians, as well as School of Medicine Biomedical Science faculty who are experts in their fields.
• Systems-based didactic curriculum that integrates essential biomedical and applied medical knowledge through traditional and active teaching methods.
• Early patient care experiences and interprofessional learning activities that prepare students for clinical rotations.
• Robust clinical experiences that provide students exposure to both urban and patient populations, in-demand primary care, and a variety of elective opportunities.
• One great program at two amazing locations: Our vibrant and thriving campus community in Kansas City offering culture, professional sports, activities, and affordable cost of living and our exciting campus in Columbia offering a college-town experience with big city culture, activities and resources.  
• A history of training in-demand graduates who are successful in securing PA employment in geographic locations, practice specialties, and workplace environments that suit their interests and lifestyles.

Accreditation Statement

The Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA) has granted Accreditation-Continued status to the University of Missouri Kansas City Physician Assistant Program sponsored by University of Missouri Kansas City. Accreditation-Continued is an accreditation status granted when a currently accredited program is in compliance with the ARC-PA Standards.

Accreditation remains in effect until the program closes or withdraws from the accreditation process or until accreditation is withdrawn for failure to comply with the Standards. The approximate date for the next validation review of the program by the ARC-PA will be September 2027. The review date is contingent upon continued compliance with the Accreditation Standards and ARC-PA policy.

In June 2025, the UMKC PA program received accreditation approval to expand its program to the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Program accreditation history via ARC-PA

Graduate Performance on Certification Exam

The program's five-year exam performance on the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam (PANCE) are posted in the report below. 

 NCCPA Pass Rate Summary Report (PDF)

Student Attrition 

 *Attrition rate calculation: Number of students who attritted from cohort divided by the entering class size.
**Graduation rate: Number of cohort graduates divided by the entering class size.