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Know Your Candidates for
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I respectfully declare my candidacy for the president elect position. It has been my privilege to work in Physician Assistant education for the past 23 years. Since 1997, I have served APAP in a number of leadership roles, continually inspired by the talent, motivation and hard work of my colleagues. Currently I serve as: chair, Faculty Development Institute; project director, Basic Skills Faculty Development Workshop; APAP representative, joint committee for competency-based curriculum (ARC-PA, NCCPA and AAPA) and Advisory Board member for the journal, Perspective on Physician Assistant Education. I recently completed a three-year appointment as project director and advisory board chair for APAP’s federally funded contract for Faculty Development Education and Practice. |
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We can only achieve this goal, however, through the active participation of all of our members. We need to assess how the organization can best meet the needs of individuals, while at the same time finding out what each individual has to offer the association. Much as we built the foundation and infrastructure for APAP’s independent management, the next several years challenge us to look for innovative strategies to move the organization forward. This includes an organizational and meeting structure that provides building blocks for faculty development and nurtures new leaders for the Association. Creating new mechanisms for involvement will help assure ongoing dialogue, allowing us to explore our similarities and differences so that we are challenged to reach beyond the routines of what we do now to what we might accomplish. Working together we have the opportunity to re-create a professional organization that serves all PA educators and promotes the type of fluid educational model that future medical training will require. I welcome the opportunity to serve as APAP’s president elect and appreciate your support and consideration of my candidacy. |
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Frank
A. Acevedo
Director at Large
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While working as a physician assistant for the past 21 years, I have had the opportunity to blend both academic and clinical career paths. Though my clinical experience had been primarily in general surgery and surgical critical care, I have always had an opportunity to employ my primary care skills in all practice settings. Our primary care foundation helps to eliminate the tunnel vision of specialty practice and allows us to provide the best patient care possible. We need though to find ways to allow for specialty growth without losing this identity. |
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As a physician assistant in academia I have seen our evolution from the letter of review process to our present evolving accreditation standards. Having had the opportunity to function in various PA academic positions I have had an opportunity to experience first hand the many challenges that face our member faculty on a day to day basis. It is this very experience that I believe provides me with a key qualification to serve the membership of APAP. While meeting the demands of PA education and clinical practice, I have also been able to participate as a member of the New York State Society of Physician Assistants (NYSSPA) in key leadership positions. These positions have allowed me to keep abreast of the issues affecting clinical physician assistants and how they relate to PA education in general. Wearing these many hats has provided me with a multi-oriented perspective that I also wish to bring to the APAP Board of Directors. As a member of APAP, and a candidate for the position of director at large, I have seen many successes over the past couple of years and many challenges that lay ahead. Some of the opportunities and challenges I look forward to participating in include:
I thank you for your consideration and support of my candidacy. |
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Mary Ann J. Laxen
Director at Large
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My name is Mary Ann Laxen. I am the director of the PA Program at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences. The PA profession is no longer in its infancy. With APAP in transition from an organization tied to AAPA in much of its administrative structure, to a “stand alone” structure, the profession has reached another step in its maturity. Four independent entities oversee all aspects of the profession: APAP — PA education, ARC-PA — program accreditation, NCCPA — individual certification, and AAPA — clinician representation. To continue to |
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| grow, the groups
need to foster harmonious interdependence based on entity
independence. However, this is not always easy since many
individuals are tightly bound to more than one organization.
So it becomes a role of the members of the Board of Directors
of each group to help the organization identify and articulate
these roles and boundaries.
Part of APAP’s mission is to “foster faculty development.” I believe an emphasis on preparing educators and leaders for the field is another key role for the Board. Many of our “pioneer” educators are retiring, some, like Dr. Stead, have died. The members of the board have a duty to encourage, and mentor the organization’s future educators, writers, researchers, and scholars. At the University of North Dakota, PA faculty help teach the medical students and medical faculty lecture for the PA students. And, for the last two years I have been a member of an Interprofessional Task Force developing a course on professionalism that will be taken jointly by PA students, medical students, and students from physical therapy, clinical laboratory science, occupational therapy, and nursing. Thus, I have first-hand knowledge of, and believe in, the continued “promotion of interprofessional education” (mission statement). Such activities help the organization “forge linkages with other organizations to advance APAP’s mission” (mission statement) and are of major importance as the profession matures within the United States health care and educational system. Having personally worked with educators from Queensland, Australia, and Manitoba, Canada, and having taken PA students to get experience in Haiti for nine years, I have special interest in the work the profession and organization has done in assisting other countries in understanding the unique role of a trained and educated PA. These are some of the issues that I would promote if elected a member of the APAP board. |
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