Abstract
The ongoing need for healthcare providers across the United States has resulted in the growth of physician assistant (PA) educational programs and a high demand for PA faculty. Most PA faculty enter academia directly from clinical practice with little understanding of the academic faculty role. This transition to the academic role can be challenging for clinically based faculty and result in early job dissatisfaction and attrition. High PA faculty attrition rates and inexperienced PA faculty have become problems for PA educational programs attempting to retain sufficient faculty to provide quality instruction to students. Most research aimed at addressing this problem is quantitative in nature and focused on the correlation of job satisfaction measures with attrition and intent to leave academia. While these studies provide valuable information regarding predictors of intent to leave, there is little information about why faculty remain in academia instead of returning to clinical practice. Filling these gaps and understanding the experiences of faculty who have persisted in academia, despite those transitional challenges, could aid in developing retention strategies for PA faculty. This study aimed to provide insight into the phenomenon of persistence by exploring the lived experiences of PA faculty who entered academia directly from clinical practice and persisted in higher education for five or more years. A qualitative phenomenology design incorporating Hagedorn’s conceptual framework for faculty job satisfaction was utilized to identify themes of persistence among PA faculty.