Dr. Phil Tobin found his calling in health care as a youth in St. Paul, Minn.
“When I was 9, one of my friends jumped off a fence and landed on a board with a nail sticking out of it that went through his shoe,” Tobin said. “I pulled out the board and helped him get home, and after that I was always known as ‘the medical guy.’”
Tobin, a retired Air Force officer, joined Touro University Nevada as director of the School of Physician Assistant Studies in April 2016.
Under Tobin’s leadership, the 2018 graduating PA Class at Touro University Nevada received a 100-percent first-time pass rate on the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam, a first for Touro’s PA program.
“I try to operate on three premises: to educate caring PAs to be empathetic to their patients; to prepare my PA students to pass their national boards; and to develop my faculty so they are the best teachers they can be,” Tobin said.
The PA program prides itself on its outreach, with a mobile health unit that goes to Catholic Charities and Veterans Village. “We also operate a clinic within The Shade Tree, where I have been newly elected to the board of trustees,” he said.
Tobin joined the Air Force straight out of high school, working as a surgical technologist and then a urology technologist before being accepted into the Air Force Physician Assistant program. He earned a bachelor’s of arts and master’s degree in physician assistant studies from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and a doctorate of health sciences from Nova Southeastern University in Florida.
He taught at a PA school in Arkansas for six years and was program director for Mercer University’s PA program for four years. He joined Touro in April 2016.