Wake Forest University School of Medicine’s first Doctor of Medical Science (DMSc) graduates recently earned their new credential, but they’ve already been using what they learned to enrich healthcare leadership and practice.
In May, eight graduates completed the medical school’s inaugural DMSc degree, equipping these physician associates (PAs) with a pathway to advance their careers, elevate their profession and shape the future of healthcare. Adding to the significance of this milestone, the inaugural graduates include established clinical leaders at Advocate Health and an active-duty U.S. service member in Hawaii.
Each graduate entered the doctoral program when it launched in 2024 by the Department of PA Studies, which has been educating PAs since 1969. The fully online program is available to practicing PAs, who can choose from three educational tracks to fit their interests and career ambitions in leadership, research or education.
A defining feature of the program is its academically integrated approach with coursework through the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, School of Business and School of Law. There is also a unique focus on PA-led research, aimed at improving healthcare delivery, education and practice.
“The Wake Forest University School of Medicine DMSc program was intentionally designed to move beyond a traditional post-professional doctorate by integrating multidisciplinary learning in leadership development, research, healthcare policy and finance,” says Natalie Smith, DMSc degree program director. “Through partnerships with the Schools of Business and Law, students gain exposure to leadership and organizational strategy, systems thinking and the broader forces shaping healthcare delivery. Our program is distinct in its ability to equip clinician-leaders to navigate complexity, drive change and fulfill our mission to help shape the future of healthcare and the PA profession.”
This inaugural cohort focused their research in areas such as the quality improvement of triage protocols and factors that influence a provider’s decision to precept. Alisha DeTroye, DMSc, PA-C, DFAAPA, researched future applications for a hospital medicine care model that was implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.
DeTroye is already working to put her doctoral research into practice at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, where she is regional director of advanced practice, with oversight of about 1,300 APPs across eight hospitals. She’s also an adjunct faculty member in the Department of PA Studies.
With her DMSc degree, DeTroye became an esteemed “Triple Deac,” having earned her undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees all through Wake Forest University, an achievement shared by just over 200 other graduates.
After spending a decade as a PA in primary care and oncology, DeTroye stepped into her first leadership role and advanced her career from there. Although she had years of clinical experience, DeTroye wanted to build a stronger foundation in her knowledge of healthcare leadership and saw the DMSc program as the right next step. The degree not only deepened her understanding of leadership and systems-based practice but also reinforced the value of continued growth.
“It is enhancing your role as a PA but also those additional roles and really applying it back to your practice,” DeTroye says. “I can expand the voice of my teammates and really be an advocate for them and the profession.”
Her classmate, Peter Guertin, DMSc, who also holds an EMCAQ credential for advanced expertise in emergency medicine, took an entirely different path into his current role as an APP leader with the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Emergency Providers group.
Long before he stepped into healthcare leadership, Guertin had already built an accomplished career in emergency response, beginning as a teenage volunteer firefighter and growing into professional roles as an EMT, paramedic and firefighter.
At 30, his calling to help others changed directions when he traded his turnout gear for scrubs, and he went back to school to become a PA. In 2017, he began working at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and his career path to leadership accelerated quickly.
Although he had the clinical skills necessary to do the job, he also desired formal training in leadership and enrolled in the DMSc program. He said the program’s practical coursework, focus on change management and implementation science, and interprofessional approach made him a stronger leader and helped him better understand how to drive real-time improvements in healthcare.
“It’s not just me anymore making decisions for my patients — it’s me making decisions for my colleagues and, ultimately, the thousands of patients they serve,” says Guertin.
“I learned something and took it back to work the next day, and I could use it immediately. When you combine real-world experience with formal training, that’s when you can truly make meaningful change in healthcare.”
Logging into classwork from the other side of the world was their classmate, Sloan W. Kelly, DMSc, PA-C. Kelly started the program while stationed with the U.S. military as an operational physician assistant at Fort Bragg, N.C., but completed the final stages of coursework logging on from Hawaii, where he was reassigned nine months ago.
He was drawn to the Wake Forest program, largely because of the opportunity to conduct his own research — for which he already has several publications in the works — and gain insight into the future of the PA profession while growing as a healthcare leader to shape that outlook.
He credits the program for expanding his view beyond clinical practice, enhancing his research skills and providing a supportive professional network for future career development.
“It really broadened my horizons of thinking in different ways from outside of the clinical realm and more through the lens of leadership and education, while learning how to apply new information as we're integrating AI into everything, even in the military and medicine,” Kelly says. “It gave me more confidence of understanding how to research and how I could actually go through and build the process for it.”
Balancing work, personal life and all the priorities in between, these graduates took a giant step toward creating better healthcare outcomes, for all, from the middle of the Pacific Ocean to North Carolina and beyond.
