Nurse practitioners and physician assistants are advanced healthcare practitioners with similar responsibilities, such as diagnosing illnesses and prescribing medications. However, their training and paths toward certification differ in significant ways. This blog post unpacks the key differences between NPs and PAs to help you determine which career path best aligns with your goals. What Is a Nurse Practitioner? A nurse practitioner (NP) is a licensed clinician who provides comprehensive healthcare to patients of all ages. An NP can work in virtually any healthcare setting, diagnosing patient conditions and prescribing medications. As of October 2022, nurse practitioners have full practice authority in 27 states, meaning that they can practice Read more
Melanie Davis, DHED
Vice President, Accreditation and Assessment
Melanie Davis, DHED joined the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences in March 2021. Dr. Davis worked in K–12 education for 13 years, first in the classroom and then as a curriculum and assessment administrator. In 2009, she joined A.T. Still University of Health Sciences (ATSU), where she was director of the Office of Assessment and Accreditation.
Dr. Davis earned a Doctor of Health Education from ATSU. Her dissertation was on increasing the inter-rater reliability of standardized patients.
She also has a Master of Arts from Southeast Missouri State University in teaching English to speakers of other languages. Dr. Davis is an evaluator for the American Osteopathic Association’s Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation and was recently trained as team chair.
She has given several presentations on assessment and accreditation topics at conferences and recently co-authored a book chapter titled “Assessment and technology use in a graduate health university,” published in Transforming Digital Learning and Assessment by co-editors Peggy Maki and Peter Shea.
The University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences (USAHS) Vice President, Accreditation and Assessment has overall responsibility for institutional and programmatic accreditation. This person works with departments throughout USAHS to improve processes, gain efficiencies and ensure consistent data and performance information to meet accreditor requirements at institutional and program levels and to support academic quality.
Based at our Austin, TX campus, Dr. Davis is responsible for oversight of accreditation and assessment at all five USAHS campuses.
