Healthcare Experience Hours
- The GVSU PAS program requires a minimum of 500 healthcare experience hours. These experiences expose the applicant to the healthcare system and various healthcare professionals, including physician assistants.
- Healthcare experience hours can be volunteer, work-related, or observational experiences. The GVSU PAS program highly encourages hands-on patient care activities as an important component of preparation for PAS studies.
- The program emphasizes the importance of variety in patient care experiences and healthcare settings. For example, applicants employed as a nurse aide in a long-term care center may benefit from shadowing a physician assistant in an outpatient setting or volunteering in an acute care hospital.
- For all the following positions, only include hours with direct patient interaction.
- Certified nursing assistant, nurse aide, patient care technician, patient care assistant
- Emergency medical technician
- Medical assistant
- Psychiatric care technician
- Phlebotomist
- Home health aide or personal care attendant
- Research assistant
- Acceptable hours for healthcare experience include performing procedures, such as phlebotomy or EKGs.
- Hours spent writing, entering data, analyzing data, etc. should not be included.
- Volunteer work in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, health-related agencies.
- Hours spent performing housekeeping or clerical tasks should be excluded.
- Medical mission trip volunteer
- Medical scribe
- Medical translator
- Internships and training programs
- Hours spent in a classroom and/or training activities not directly interacting with patients should be excluded.
- Patient counseling
- Health care professional shadowing hours
- Shadowing a physician assistant is encouraged; however, GVSU will accept shadowing hours of any healthcare professional as we have found this valuable to increase students' knowledge of the various healthcare professional roles.
- Pharmacy technician
- Physical therapy aide
- Dental hygienist
- Respiratory therapist
- Nurse
- Patient transport
- Athletic trainer
- Telehealth
- Medical technologist
- The GVSU PAS program does NOT consider the following to count towards the required healthcare experience hours:
- Veterinarian technician
- Hospital or long-term care food service positions
- Teaching experience (teaching assistant, tutoring positions, etc.)
- Hours spent during research positions, volunteering, internships, etc., in which applicants are not directly interacting with patients should NOT be included as healthcare experience hours.
Page last modified September 17, 2026