Mission
Is to provide high quality education and training opportunities in primary care and medically underserved communities to students, recruited from diverse cultural backgrounds, who are interested in providing health care services to medically underserved residents in urban and rural communities, especially those in Illinois, upon graduation.

Definition, History and Sponsorship
Physician assistants, as defined by the American Academy of Physician Assistants, are "health professionals licensed  to  practice medicine with the supervision of licensed physicians. Physician assistants are qualified by graduation from an accredited physician assistant educational program and certification by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants. Within the physician/PA relationship, physician assistants exercise autonomy in medical decision-making and provide a broad range of diagnostic and therapeutic services.”

Physician assistants, as described by the PA education accrediting agency, are "academically and clinically prepared to provide health care services with the direction and responsible supervision of a physician. ... Physician assistants are responsible for their own actions as well as being accountable to their supervising physicians."

The Physician Assistant Program, established in 1987 as a jointly sponsored program between John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County (previously known as Cook County Hospital) and the City Colleges of Chicago, joined the Health Sciences Department at Malcolm X College in 1992. The mission statements of each sponsor and the PA Program focus on minority, disadvantaged and indigent communities in the Chicago and Cook County region. Each organization strives to improve conditions of access and opportunity.

The SHCC/MXC PA Program was the first physician assistant program established in Illinois and remains the sole publicly sponsored program in northern Illinois. It was first accredited by the Committee on Allied Health Education and Accreditation (CAHEA) in 1988 and remains accredited under the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA). The graduates have a cumulative pass rate comparable to the national rate for Passing. They are offered many excellent professional placements.

The Cook County Bureau of Health Services provides the settings for the majority of clinical instruction for Physician Assistant students. John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, (SHCC) the largest public teaching hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area, is a major tertiary care teaching hospital with a network of ambulatory primary care and specialty clinics. It is accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). Its post-graduate medical education programs, of which there are over twenty-two, are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and the individual Residency Review Committees. 

Malcolm X College, the "beacon college for health sciences education" among the City Colleges of Chicago, is a comprehensive community college. Founded in 1911, it was the first college to be included in the City Colleges of Chicago system. There are eleven allied health professions educational and nursing programs at the college.