I appreciated MortenSickel's answer, but I wanted to use named parameters to be on the safe side:
$keys = array_keys($a);
$sql = "INSERT INTO user (".implode(", ",$keys).") \n";
$sql .= "VALUES ( :".implode(", :",$keys).")";
$q = $this->dbConnection->prepare($sql);
return $q->execute($a);