Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination (PANCE)
PANCE
To become a certified PA, you must pass the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam (PANCE), a computer-based, multiple-choice test comprising questions that assess basic medical and surgical knowledge.
NCCPA’s certification and recertification exams can be organized in two dimensions:
- Organ systems and the diseases, disorders and medical assessments physician assistants encounter within those systems. https://www.nccpa.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/CoreBlueprint-ContentCategory.pdf
- The knowledge and skills PAs should exhibit when confronted with those diseases, disorders and assessments. https://www.nccpa.net/become-certified/pance-blueprint/
To be eligible for the PANCE, you must graduate from a program accredited by the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA) as a Physician Assistant Program or a Surgeon Assistant Program. PA-program graduates will be deemed to have graduated from an accredited program if their PA educational program was accredited at the time of their matriculation.