As demand for clinical care grows, physician assistants are expanding across specialties and regions. Virginia’s PA workforce has more than doubled since 2015, and new local training pathways aim to accelerate supply.
ECPI University launched a 24-month Master of Science in Physician Assistant program in Virginia Beach in 2026 to add an accelerated local training pathway.
PAs work across many specialties and can change specialties during their careers, giving systems flexibility as physician and nursing shortages materialize.
# Why PAs matter now
Virginia's projected shortfall of about 8,020 full-time equivalent registered nurses by 2038 and broader physician shortages increase pressure on systems to rely on a broader care team. PAs offer clinical versatility that can be deployed across settings to meet those needs.
# What the Virginia numbers show
PAs practice in many specialties. The three most common in Virginia were emergency medicine and family medicine (each 14 percent) and orthopedics (10 percent). Over the past decade the profession has spread across the state, filling roles in outpatient clinics, emergency departments, surgical services, and other settings.
# Adding education capacity: ECPI's new PA program
ECPI University opened a Master of Science in Physician Assistant program at its Virginia Beach campus in 2026. The program follows a 24-month, year-round calendar designed to move students through the curriculum on an accelerated timeline. A national survey found the median PA program length is 27 months, so ECPI's timeline is toward the shorter end of reported program lengths.
The program structure follows a common sequence: classroom instruction, lab work, simulation-based training, then supervised clinical rotations across specialties. Those rotations pair students with experienced clinicians for direct mentorship. ECPI ties the new PA curriculum to its existing nursing and health sciences experience dating back to 1992 and to local workforce efforts intended to place practical training in community settings.
# How PA education links to workforce needs
Two qualities make PA education relevant to workforce planning. First, the profession's flexibility: more than half of PAs report changing specialties at least once, which helps health systems redeploy clinicians as local needs shift. Second, the emphasis on experiential learning and supervised clinical time. Programs that combine simulation, technology-enabled learning, and hands-on rotations aim to build clinical judgment that translates into practice quickly.
# Practical implications for clinicians and systems
Overall, meeting growing healthcare demand will depend in part on enlarging and connecting education pipelines for PAs and other clinicians so graduates can enter practice with the supervised experience and team-based skills employers need.
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