The Physician Assistant program has new bragging rights: every member of the Class of  2025 passed the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam (PANCE) on their first try. The  program previously achieved this milestone in 2018, making this year’s result a remarkable repeat of that success.

“We’re thrilled and so proud of this class,” said Deanna Denault, Interim Department Chair of the Physician Assistant Studies. “This has been the main goal of our program, and we've communicated it to the students, and they responded.”

The national first-time pass rate is 91%. While most of the class began getting their individual results in October, a few students didn’t take the exam until February, and their results didn’t come in until last week.

The perfect score by all 43 students caps a two-year effort by the PA faculty that included implementing a holistic admissions process, establishing a competency-based advising program, providing individualized student support, and redesigning the program’s course review process to conduct more systematic evaluations of course effectiveness across the curriculum. 

“Certainly, every course in our program should support students’ success on the licensing exam, so I conducted an analysis to examine that alignment,” said Denault, who took over as interim chair in January of 2025. “The results showed a positive correlation between coursework across both years of the program and performance on the exam, and we continue to look for ways to strengthen that alignment further.”

Program faculty and advisors then worked closely with students to identify their strengths and areas for improvement. Students who needed additional support received individualized advising and were offered optional remediation activities to support their progress. 

“It helped students understand that they're not yet where they want to be in terms of success on the PANCE,” noted Denault. “You could pass a course but still be weak in certain areas. So, we were deliberate in our advising and mapping out the competencies that they're gaining in the medical knowledge domain.

“I'm just thrilled about the trajectory of the program and proud. We still have more work to do, and I want to build on this momentum. Our goal is simple: to graduate the very best PAs, and I am incredibly proud of the dedication and commitment our faculty bring to that mission every day.”