About
Olivia Ramos is a 2006 MPAS graduate of Alderson Broaddus University and returned to her alma mater in 2019 as an Assistant Professor. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 2022 and was named Director of the MPAS Program in 2024 — only the fifth person to hold that role since the program was founded in 1968. She is the first AB MPAS director who is herself an AB graduate.
Before returning to teach, Ramos practiced for fifteen years in family and emergency medicine in Bluefield, West Virginia — a small Appalachian coal town near the Virginia line where she served as the lead PA at the Bluefield Regional Medical Center's Family Practice Clinic. During that time she completed her Doctor of Medical Science (DMSc) degree at the University of Lynchburg, with a capstone project on rural primary-care workforce sustainability.
As MPAS Director, Ramos oversees the 27-month residential program from admissions through ARC-PA accreditation, the simulation curriculum, the 1,800-hour clinical-rotation network across more than 60 partner sites, and the program's ongoing 97% PANCE first-time pass rate. She continues to practice clinically one half-day per week at the Davis Memorial Hospital Family Practice Clinic in Elkins.
Education
- 2017D.M.Sc., Doctor of Medical Science — University of Lynchburg. Capstone: Pipeline Models for Rural Primary-Care PA Workforce Sustainability in Central Appalachia.
- 2006M.P.A.S., Master of Physician Assistant Studies — Alderson Broaddus University. Class Valedictorian.
- 2004B.S., Biology (cum laude) — West Virginia Wesleyan College. Minor in Spanish.
Teaching
Dr. Ramos teaches in two MPAS didactic-year courses and leads the program's clinical-year integration seminar. She is the program's academic advisor for all first-year MPAS students.
- MPAS 510Clinical Medicine I: Cardiopulmonary & Renal SystemsA 6-credit fall didactic course covering pathophysiology, clinical assessment, diagnostics, and pharmacologic management of common cardiovascular, pulmonary, and renal conditions in adult primary care.
- MPAS 615Rural Primary Care PracticumA clinical-year seminar paired with a 12-week primary-care rotation at one of AB's 18 rural critical-access partner sites. Case-based curriculum on rural-specific challenges.
- MPAS 720Capstone Project & Program IntegrationFinal-semester course in which each MPAS student presents a publishable-quality capstone on a problem encountered in their clinical rotations.
Research & Clinical Practice
Dr. Ramos's scholarship focuses on the rural primary-care PA workforce: the pipeline that produces rural PAs, the educational interventions that sustain them in practice, and the policy levers that affect their long-term retention in underserved areas. She is the principal investigator on a $480K HRSA grant supporting AB's Rural Primary Care Track and co-PI on a multi-institutional NCFMR study on rural PA retention.
Clinically, Ramos continues to see patients at the Davis Memorial Hospital Family Practice Clinic in Elkins one half-day per week — a discipline she insists is non-negotiable for any clinical educator. "If I stop seeing patients," she has said, "I lose the right to teach the people who are about to start seeing them."
Selected Publications & Presentations
- 2024"Rural Pipeline, Rural Practice: A 15-Year Retrospective." Journal of Rural Health.
- 2023"Sustainability of the Rural PA Workforce in Central Appalachia." Journal of the American Academy of PAs.
- 2021Co-author, The Rural PA Field Manual. American Academy of PAs Press.
- 2019"Clinical Reasoning in the Single-PA Rural Clinic." JAAPA, October.
- 2025Plenary, AAPA Annual Conference, "Why Rural PA Programs Need to Stop Apologizing."
Honors & Service
- 2024Appointed Director, MPAS Program.
- 2023AAPA Mentor of the Year, Mid-Atlantic Region.
- 2021AB Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching.
- 2017DMSc with Distinction, University of Lynchburg.
- 2006MPAS Valedictorian, Alderson Broaddus University.
I came back because the program that made me a PA is — still — the best small-town primary-care PA program in the country. And it deserves a director who knows that from the inside.— Dr. Olivia Ramos, PA-C, DMSc
Beyond the Classroom
Ramos lives in Philippi with her husband Carlos (a high-school AP Biology teacher in Buckhannon) and their three children. She is an active member of First Baptist Church of Philippi, an avid trail runner on the Tygart Valley Greenway, and a volunteer medical preceptor at the annual Remote Area Medical (RAM) Clinic in McDowell County.
A fluent bilingual speaker (Spanish/English), she leads the AB MPAS program's annual short-term medical mission to Antigua, Guatemala — a partnership with the Hermano Pedro Clinic that has run continuously since 2014.