Society and Behavioral Medicine

Catalog description

This course is the introduction to professionalism, professional behaviors for the PA, and behavior science for the PA student. We will explore stereotypes and providers’ inappropriate (or lack of) knowledge and how this might influence access to care. The focus is non-somatic medical skills and knowledge needed to become a clinician who manages these issues with insight into human behavior. Topics will include issues related to age, socioeconomic status, cultural, racial, religious, ethnic and family diversity etc. We will seek out and develop tools to recognize facets (including risk factors for and signs/symptoms) of the above issues and of abuse issues. Setting this foundation in basic psychopathology and its relationship to understanding human illness is core to the PA student’s developing professionalism.