Congratulations to Maryan Aideed, Class of 2023, for having been awarded the National Health Service Corps Scholarship. The NHSC builds healthy communities by supporting qualified health care providers dedicated to working in areas of the United States with limited access to care. The NHSC scholarship is a highly competitive award that pays for all PA school tuition, provides monthly living expenses while in school, and other costs like books, fees and medical equipment and in return, scholars work for two years in a medically underserved area in primary care. Awardees demonstrate their commitment to primary care and in serving communities that need medical providers most.

Maryan says about the scholarship; “I am so honored and grateful to be the recipient of the National Health Service Corps Scholarship. It is truly rewarding to be immersed in my passion and get an award for serving underserved and underrepresented communities in primary and preventative health care. This is in perfect alignment with my own mission and values, so I couldn’t be more grateful. Thank you to all who have helped with this achievement, including the remarkable faculty, and mentors here at Augsburg University and in the PA program.”

We are proud to have Maryan in our 2023 cohort, and we thank the National Health Service Corps for offering this scholarship to generously support Maryan in her PA studies at Augsburg University.

The post SCHOLARSHIP SPOTLIGHT: THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE CORPS SCHOLARSHIP appeared first on Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies.

Meredith Wold is a 2007 graduate of the Augsburg PA Program. Since graduating, she has worked with the HealthPartners Hospital Medicine team at Regions Hospital.  While at Regions, Meredith co-founded the HealthPartners Hospital Medicine APC Fellowship program, co-chairs the Regions APC Committee, and serves on the Regions Medical Executive Committee. Additionally, she maintains an adjunct faculty role at Augsburg and is a past president of the Minnesota Academy of Physician Assistants. Last fall, Meredith was promoted to Central Director of APC Fellowships across the HealthPartners system. Shortly after this announcement, we met with Meredith to dive deeper into her experience as a PA.

She was drawn to hospital medicine due to a combination of experiences while on her clinical rotations as well as her desire to have a career that reflected the breadth of what she had learned in PA school. Meredith remembers a specific preceptor at Fairview University Hospital, Dr. Rod McFadden, who was “a wonderful, wonderful hospitalist.” She recalls that Dr. McFadden “not only showed me the fun that came with the diverse clinical conditions in hospitalized patients,” but also demonstrated the curiosity and commitment that is integral to life-long learning. Meredith recalls, “He would sit down with me every day and deliver bite-sized lectures over lunch. He said it kept him learning, too.” After 3 years of PA school and this intriguing inpatient internal medicine rotation, Meredith knew hospital medicine would be a good match for her.

Shortly after entering practice, Meredith had a pull to give back to PA education. The idea of volunteer leadership was demonstrated from the beginning of Meredith’s PA education journey. “The folks that gave their non-clinical time to teach while I was a student were really impactful for me.” Finding her role in PA education is her way of showing her gratitude to those that came before her and following in their footsteps. Additionally, teaching was an early way in which she developed leadership skills. She is a Past President of the Minnesota Academy of PAs and currently co-chairs the Regions APC Committee. She encourages PAs that are looking to take their practice to the next level to look for opportunities within their own group or reach out to local APC schools and societies. She advises to start small and find opportunities that energize you.

In 2007 the Augsburg PA program was 3 years long and looked a bit different than it does today. The integration of electronics and real time access to a multitude of resources in the classroom is a notable change. However, Meredith believes that the biggest change since she graduated is in the education delivery. “Students are looking for a much more dynamic education delivered to them. Augsburg’s response to that has been to include the seminar courses and case-based learning which simulates much more of the thought process during an actual patient encounter,” she says. As adjunct faculty, Meredith lectures during the cardiology, GI and renal units. Because of her role as a hospitalist PA, she sees a variety of different patient conditions and often incorporates fun cases into the classroom.

When she is not in the classroom, Meredith routinely precepts students. A benefit of being a preceptor is that “it keeps me on my toes,” she says. Since she started 12 years ago, medicine has continued to evolve. She appreciates that these students are fresh from their didactic year and, as a result, are equipped with lots of clinical medicine knowledge. When a student rotates with Meredith, the student chooses a topic that they teach back to her the following day. If you follow the “see one, do one, teach one,” method of learning, the student is already into that “teach one” phase and will “inevitably find some of nugget of information that I [may have] forgotten about or describe it in a different way that might make more sense to me.” This is a win-win knowledge booster for both the student and Meredith.

Along with teaching PA students both in the classroom at Augsburg and on rotation at Regions, postgraduate APC education has become a passion for Meredith. She and fellow Augsburg University PA classmate Gary Bowrey founded the Hospital Medicine APC Fellowship in 2016 with the goal of providing a structured, comprehensive curriculum that accelerates an APC into a career in hospital medicine. At the time of the program’s inception, Regions was growing its Hospital Medicine APC team and needed practice-ready clinicians that could care for the complexities of hospitalized patients. “We had an opportunity, we had a problem to solve.” The program has recruited 100% of their fellows and fellowship-trained APCs now make up approximately 20% of the Hospital Medicine APC team.

In her new role as Central Director, Meredith is overseeing all APC Fellowships within the HealthPartners system. Currently Regions has three APC Fellowship programs: psychiatry (also started by an Augsburg Class of 2007 alumnus, Tracy Keizer), emergency medicine, and hospital medicine. Meredith says that “HealthPartners as a system is looking at fellowships to aid in workforce development. We hope to turn APC students into fellows and then retain them as long term employees.” She’s excited that later this year HealthPartners will accept its first primary care APC Fellows and anticipates its first orthopedic APC Fellows early 2021.

The post Alumni Anniversary Series: Leading by Example appeared first on Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies.

Vinh Dang earned his undergraduate degree from Hamline University, Masters of Physician Assistant Sciences (MPAS) degree from St. Francis University in Pennsylvania and completed a surgical residency program with Yale University and Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut. He began his orthopaedic career in 2002 with Sports & Orthopaedic Specialists. He provides sub-specialized continuity of care for shoulder, elbow and sports-related disorders. Currently, he assists in surgery and sees consults and established patients in clinic. He is a mentor to undergraduate and PA students while also serving as an adjunct professor and preceptor for local PA programs. Furthermore, Mr. Dang has published peer-review articles for the PA profession and provided many lecture presentations at local, regional, and national conferences. In 2017, Vinh was accepted as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (DFAAPA). To date, less than 1% of actively practicing PAs have achieved this honor. To be considered a Distinguished fellow, a PA must be in practice for at least 12 years and demonstrate distinction in medical practice, education, research or healthcare management, leadership in medicine and healthcare, professional involvement, commitment to lifelong learning and community service.

Vinh opened up his address by reminding students to thank those that helped them along the way. He noted that commencement is a day well deserved of family and friends since they’ve supported students through their journey. Vinh requested that students be grateful for their staff always. “Thank your staff before the day starts AND after the day ends. You are not possible without them. Help out – clean rooms, clean instruments, empty sharps bins. Various little things. We are not above anyone else.”

He then urged students to remember the emotional quotient component in addition to the science. Building rapport with patients is looking at their faces instead of hiding behind a computer screen. Vinh says, “You will instantly receive a smile from that patient,” if you remember something from their life the last time they were in. Patients will share their story and PAs need to listen. By being honest with a patient that you may not know something, it demonstrates to them that you are human. If you respond that you are unsure, but you’ll look into it and get back to them, then the patient knows they are being heard. As a career progresses, graduates will learn how to marry the science with the art of treating patients.

Vinh encouraged graduates to provide for those who have too little and think beyond a financial contribution. “Think about being a mentor, return to Augsburg and teach a class, adopt a pet, adopt a child, volunteer.” As a PA, the graduates possess wisdom and intelligence worth sharing with the next generation. Pay it forward in the same way that “you would not be here today without the volunteers, professors, mentors who have paved the way before you. No one can do this alone.”

Elected by his peers, Nathan Kleppe gave the student address. Nathan remarked that “time is a funny thing.” Just getting into PA school requires dedication and time spent building patient care hours, enrolling in prerequisites and then focusing on the application. Once admitted into the 2019 cohort, a whole new set of challenges arrived. Countless hours would be spent in lecture and lab preparing them for a year of clinical rotations. He recounted one of the first days of class: “When we were all still in a daily controlled panic, Dr. Batten calmed us down and encouraged us by telling us to just enjoy the process. He reminded us that we have been given this amazing opportunity to be in school – and learn as much as possible – so that one day we can go help people.”

Now the transformation from student to a provider is official, but that does not mean that the learning ends. Since healthcare is ever-changing and each patient is unique, there is no room to become comfortable. The PA license alone requires 100 hours of continuing education every two years and recertification every ten years. Nathan called upon his peers to “continue to be a student of medicine who always strives to become better so that we can serve our patients.”

Another highlight of the ceremony is the presentation of the Clinical Preceptor of the Year Award. Graduates Amina Iman and Rachel Gratz both nominated Dr. Farhiyo Abdulle for her outstanding teaching, encouraging words and including them within the healthcare team. Dr. Abdulle is an OBGYN physician with Allina Health and has precepted several PA students on rotation. Upon receiving the award, she commented that the students have in their own way made her a better provider. It is her own personal health goal to be a good example and be a compassionate, hardworking provider.

Congratulations to the newest Augsburg PA alumni! We are proud to call you our colleagues.

The post Augsburg Physician Assistant Studies 23rd Commencement appeared first on Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies.

As a freshman at the University of Minnesota in Morris, Peter attended a Sports Medicine Club meeting that had invited a PA guest speaker. Until that point, he was unfamiliar with the PA profession. Peter was an EMT with an ambulance service during his undergraduate years and obtained his paramedic license following his undergraduate studies. His decision to apply to PA school was driven by a desire to have a bigger scope of practice, more stable hours, better compensation and more responsibility in patient care.

Peter worked in family medicine for five years and had a full scope practice, excluding obstetrics. It was a good chance to practice the full breadth of medicine from infants all the way to geriatrics. The practice ran the whole gamut from dermatology to orthopedics. When he first started, it was at the time of health maintenance organizations (HMO) so the practice had a set number of insures. As time went on, there came to be increasingly more time commitments but fewer hours in the clinical workday to complete those tasks. He began a per diem position in a level II trauma emergency department. He subsequently left family medicine to practice emergency medicine full time with Mille Lacs Health System. They had just started staffing the night shift with PAs so that physicians would have the opportunity to sleep and then attend to patients the next day. Peter remembers receiving one of the best compliments while at Mille Lacs. The Chief of Staff at the time noted that since implementing E.D. staffing with full-time PAs, the amount of complaints decreased while the overall quality of patient care increased. Mille Lacs decided to permanently staff its emergency department 24/7 with PAs.

In the years since Peter graduated, there is significantly more access to information. He says that many students are not aware of how quickly, almost immediately, information can be available. Students should proactively be reading and staying up to date on the latest in technology and medicine.

Peter advises soon to be graduates to not sell yourself short! The nature of your clinical education is to give you a well-rounded experience. These rotations are an opportunity for both yourself and the health system to “kick the tires” and see if this might be a good fit. Often connections made during a rotation, or a preceptorship, can lead to a job, even if it is years down the road. For example, a mentor had called Peter to start up an emergency general surgery service at North Memorial 17 years after he had completed an elective rotation at North Memorial in Trauma and Surgical Critical Care.

The nature of healthcare is quickly changing. In the coming years, health systems will be grappling with the aging baby boomer population as well as a physician shortage, among other healthcare factors. Due to these pressing issues, the PA role may further evolve and develop. Peter notes that it is still up to PAs to recognize and understand their limitations while employers demand more autonomy of PAs. The practicing PA needs to be confident yet humble enough to ask for help when necessary. He would encourage PAs to develop expertise in a specific area and be the “go-to person” in their practice for questions in that area. This is value added to the health care team and benefits the patient. Pete says “we can’t lose focus of patient care. While patient satisfaction is the buzzword, we need to be evidence-based and measure outcomes all the while providing quality, cost-effective care.”

Healthcare is a team-based profession and there are various avenues to realize a career in this field. It is detrimental to the team to speak ill of another profession. When we recognize the value and merit of each health profession, the team succeeds and so does the overall care of the patient.

The post Alumni Anniversary Series: 22 Years in Practice appeared first on Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies.

The post EdTalk – How PAs Think: A Glimpse into PA Education appeared first on Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies.