James Van Rhee

In July 2016, Mr. Van Rhee became the new program director of the Physician Assistant Program Online at Yale University. Mr. Van Rhee began his career as a full-time physician assistant (PA) with Henry Ford Hospital Department of Internal Medicine in September 1989. In August 1990 he moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan and became a hospitalist PA at Butterworth Hospital. His interest in PA education began at that time. He served as a clinical preceptor in internal medicine for a number of PA students from a variety of PA programs. He also lectured to local PA programs on a number of internal medicine topics. In 1996, Mr. Van Rhee joined the new PA program at Grand Valley State University as their first academic coordinator. One year later he was hired as department chair and program director for the PA program at Western Michigan University (WMU) in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In 2004 he was promoted to associate professor and granted tenure at WMU. In 2006, he moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina and became the program director and first department chair of the Department of Physician Assistant Studies at Wake Forest University. In June 2009, he became the founding program director for the new Physician Assistant Program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. In August 2013, he joined the Yale School of Medicine Physician Associate Program as program director. During his entire academic career Mr. Van Rhee has maintained a clinical presence by working for a number of hospitals in in-patient internal medicine and oncology.

Mr. Van Rhee is professionally active locally and nationally. He has served as project director for the PAEA PACKRAT (Physician Assistant Clinical Knowledge and Rating Assessment Tool) exam for 10 years. He was an ARC-PA (Accreditation Review Commission on Physician Assistant Education) site visitor for sixteen years, served as chair of the commission for two years and vice-chair for two years. For 16 years Mr. Van Rhee has been the course director for a national PA board review course and now delivers the course on-line through Kaplan Medical. He is author of the Physician Assistant Board Review Certification and Recertification book published by Elsevier. He is also the consulting editor for Physician Assistant Clinics published quarterly by Elsevier. He has authored numerous articles on PA education and problem-based learning and has presented at both the national and local level on a variety of clinical and educational topics. In 1999, Mr. Van Rhee was awarded a six year, approximately $900,000 HRSA training grant to evaluate the use of problem-based learning in PA education. In 2007, he served as co-principal investigator on a 3-year $700,000 HRSA training grant to develop a health literacy curriculum for physician assistant students.

Mr. Van Rhee earned a BS in Medical Technology at Grand Valley State University, and after several years working in the laboratory, attended the University of Iowa PA Program. In 1998, he earned a MS degree in Physician Assistant Practice from Rosalind Franklin University.