Nevada has a shortage of healthcare workers. To combat this problem, the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine is starting a physician assistant studies program.
Nevada ranks 48th in the United States for available physicians. With the state appearing near the bottom of most healthcare lists, there are now more efforts to raise the ranking. The medical school at the University of Nevada, Reno is looking to help bolster the available medical staff by ushering in a new program to help prepare students to be physician assistants.
Melissa Piasecki is with the medical school at UNR.
"We're going to see new healthcare professionals enter into the community", she said. "25 a year is a really important number of healthcare professionals entering Northern Nevada communities, so we are really proud because we believe this is going to make a difference in terms of access and service that people are going to feel and see right away."
The first cohort of students are slated to start this July and graduate within two years.