Florida Physician Assistant Programs — Dismissals & Appeals

Q: Which Florida PA programs are on accreditation probation?

One. Miami Dade College’s physician assistant programme was placed on Accreditation-Probation by ARC-PA in September 2025, cited with 39 areas of noncompliance. Four other Florida programmes hold Accreditation-Provisional, the entry status for new programmes. The remaining fifteen hold Accreditation-Continued.

Written by Zachary Gaynor, attorney · The Florida Bar, admitted 2016 · court admissions. Reviewed 3 September 2026.

Which Florida PA programs are on accreditation probation?

One. Miami Dade College’s physician assistant programme was placed on Accreditation-Probation by ARC-PA in September 2025, cited with 39 areas of noncompliance. Four other Florida programmes hold Accreditation-Provisional, the entry status for new programmes. The remaining fifteen hold Accreditation-Continued.

Miami Dade College — what the accreditor actually found

From ARC-PA’s own published accreditation history for the programme:

September 2025: adverse action, Accreditation-Probation, on 39 areas of noncompliance plus five new observations. The grounds included failure to demonstrate that the sponsoring institution was responsible for hiring sufficient faculty and staff, insufficient clinical placements, no effective programmatic self-assessment process, faculty qualifications, and inadequate principal faculty.
A focused probation visit will take place before the October 2027 commission meeting. Maximum class size is capped at 55.
July 2026: the Commission requested further information on Standard A1.07 (insufficient human resources), A3.13a (published policies on admission and enrolment practices that favour specified individuals or groups) and A3.14 (admission decisions made according to clearly defined published practices). Additional evidence was due 15 September 2026.
The programme was also placed on probation once before, in March 2006.

Two of those July 2026 citations — A3.13a and A3.14 — concern whether the programme follows its own published admission practices. A programme that an accreditor has questioned on whether it applies its published rules consistently is a programme whose application of any other published rule is fairly open to the same question.

What this does not mean. Probation does not invalidate the programme, does not affect a graduate’s eligibility to sit the PANCE, and is not a defence to a dismissal. It is context, and it tells a student which documents to ask for.

The twenty Florida PA programs and their status

Current as of 3 September 2026, from ARC-PA’s published list of accredited programmes.

Accreditation-Continued: AdventHealth University (Orlando) · Barry University (Miami Shores) · Florida Gulf Coast University · FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine · Florida State University · Gannon University (Ruskin) · Nova Southeastern University (Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Jacksonville and Orlando — four separate programmes) · South University (Tampa and West Palm Beach) · University of Florida · University of South Florida · University of Tampa.

Accreditation-Provisional — all four accredited in 2025, none yet at a first review: Larkin University (Miami) · Lincoln Memorial University (Tampa) · Palm Beach Atlantic University · South College (Orlando).

Accreditation-Probation: Miami Dade College.

Provisional status is not a criticism — it is simply where every new programme starts, and it is capped at five years from the first class. But a provisional programme is one still building its policies, and a student there should expect procedures to be less settled than at a programme accredited since the 1990s.

Where the policies actually live

PA programmes are unusual in publishing progression and dismissal policy as separate documents rather than burying it in a university handbook. Several Florida programmes post theirs openly — Florida Gulf Coast University publishes individual policy PDFs including a student grievance policy and a professional standards policy; Florida State University publishes a full 2026-2027 programme handbook; Gannon, Larkin, Lincoln Memorial, Palm Beach Atlantic, South College, UF, USF, Miami Dade and the University of Tampa all post programme policy pages.

For Barry University and FIU no public PA policy document could be located — FIU’s clinical policies sit behind a SharePoint login, and Barry publishes catalogs only. If your programme is one of those, request the current handbook in writing and record the date.

What usually ends a PA student’s programme

The didactic-to-clinical gate. Most programmes require every didactic course to be passed before any clinical rotation begins, so a single failure late in the didactic year can cost a full cohort year rather than a course.
End-of-rotation and summative examination benchmarks used as progression conditions, where the question is whether the published policy authorises the consequence being applied.
Professionalism findings, which in PA programmes are frequently assessed against a published professional-standards document rather than a conduct code — which usually means fewer procedural protections.
Preceptor evaluations, where the evaluator is outside the institution and the student often never sees the assessment before it is acted on.
Cohort structure. PA programmes run in lockstep, so a student removed from a cohort may face a year’s wait even where the underlying issue is resolved — which makes the timing of an appeal as important as its content.

Common questions

Does my programme being on probation help me fight a dismissal?

Not on its own. What it does is make the programme’s compliance with its own published policies a live and documented question — which is useful when the dismissal turns on whether a rule was applied to you the way it is written.

Will accreditation probation affect my PANCE eligibility?

No. A programme on probation remains accredited, and its students and graduates remain eligible to sit the examination. The risk is that probation can, if unresolved, lead to withdrawal of accreditation — which is why keeping your own transcripts and rotation records matters.

What is the difference between provisional and probation?

Provisional is the entry status every new programme holds until its first full review. Probation is an adverse action taken against an established programme found out of compliance. They look similar on a list and mean opposite things.

My preceptor failed me and I never saw the evaluation. Is that allowed?

It depends on what your programme’s published policy says about access to and challenge of clinical evaluations. Many programmes do provide a route, and the deadline to use it is usually short. Ask for the evaluation in writing as soon as you learn of the outcome.