Expanded Awards Ceremony Recognizes Many Faculty

By Steven Lane

At the Semiannual Meeting’s annual awards luncheon, President Elect Patrick Knott recognized several PA faculty selected for exemplary service in PA education, and checks were presented to winners in this year’s APAP grants program. Knott commented, “We have a wonderful group of award winners this year, and I am very proud to be part of an Association with faculty like these.”

The New Faculty Award for Professional Excellence, for faculty with less than three years’ experience in PA education, went to Monica Medina from the Drexel University PA program in Philadelphia. Medina has directed courses in emergency medicine and biopsychosocial issues and also implemented a service learning component to introduce students to community health efforts. She also served as the program’s liaison with Philadelphia’s Chinatown clinic, which provides free medical services for uninsured patients of Asian descent. A grant proposal she wrote brought in $125,000 that allowed the clinic to hire a new nurse manager and expand its hours.

The Rising Star Award, inaugurated this year for faculty with three to seven years’ experience, went to Theresa Hegmann of the University of Iowa PA program. Hegmann, according to her nominating letters, brought her experience as a sought-after preceptor into a new role as clinical coordinator for her first years with the program. Since then she has taken on responsibilities with admissions, curriculum planning, student testing and evaluation, and program evaluation. This year she became the program’s director of curriculum and evaluation. She has been an active researcher and grant writer, winning three APAP research grants and several from her institution and publishing in both the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants and Perspective on Physician Assistant Education.

Moving up the experience scale, the Master Teacher Award, for faculty with at least seven years’ experience, was presented to Kristine Healy of the Midwestern University PA Program in Downers Grove, Illinois. Healy has taught professional seminars, physical diagnosis, clinical medicine courses, and special programs in community health and community-oriented primary care. She teaches students about practice in medically underserved areas, based on her considerable experience in this area, much of it as a volunteer at the Hispanic Jorge Prieto clinic in Chicago. Healy has won several research grants from APAP and other bodies. Her most recent award was used by six teams around the country to help develop the Genetics Interdisciplinary Faculty Training (GIFT) project.

Winner of the APAP Research Achievement Award was Bert Simon, director of the St. Francis University PA Program in Loretto, Pennsylvania. Simon has served in many capacities over the years, including as president of APAP, director of the Faculty Development Institute, and on the editorial advisory board of Perspective on PA Education. In the research arena, perhaps his greatest contribution is as director of the APAP Annual Report for the last eight years. In compiling the annual report, Simon gathers and reports on data provided by programs, allowing programs to see trends in the demographics and behavior of applicants, students, and faculty, as well as funding sources and curriculum.

The winner of the Outstanding Service Award was Elaine Grant, longtime director of the Yale University PA Program, now its director of clinical curriculum and special projects. Grant has been active in many PA organizations, having served as president of NCCPA and Speaker of the AAPA House of Delegates, as well as in many roles for APAP. She is perhaps best known as the Association’s parliamentarian; in this role and as chair of the bylaws committee she guided APAP as its rapid growth and enlarging business meetings began to require more rigorous procedures and structures. Grant was a key figure in the early development of the Central Application Service for Physician Assistants and is also on the board of the Society for the Preservation of PA History.

APAP’s second annual Diversity Award was presented to the SUNY Downstate Medical Center PA Program in Brooklyn, New York. The program was recognized for its commitment to enrolling and retaining a high percentage of underrepresented minority students and for its emphasis on community service. Downstate’s admissions process gives weight to applicants’ record of community service, and students engage in service learning projects that focus on community health promotion and education.

Two special awards were made to Don Pedersen, director of the University of Utah PA Program, and to Jerilin Nunu for their work over the past six years in establishing and producing APAP’s official journal, Perspective on PA Education. Pedersen founded the journal in 1998 and since then has served as its editor in chief, while Nunu has run its day-to-day operations as managing editor, coordinating the manuscript review process and overseeing layout and production. Management of the journal is being moved to the APAP national office in Alexandria.

Research Awards

APAP Research Institute Chair Rick Dehn presented six awards to APAP faculty under the Association’s Small Grants Program. The following faculty members received grant funds:

Carl Fasser, Baylor College of Medicine PA Program, and Dennis Blessing, UT Health Science Center in San Antonio, $4,995 for “Consensus Approach to Online Course Development: History of the PA Profession.”

Bridget Calhoun, Duquesne University PA Program, $3,980 for “The Use of Standardized Patients in the Training and Evaluation of PA Students.”

Leslie Freels-Lloyd, Bret Simon, Fred Isberner, and Laurie Dunn, Southern Illinois University PA Program, $2,000 for “How PA Programs Define and Implement Complementary and Alternative Medicine.”

Michel Statler and Debra Sullivan, Midwestern University Glendale PA Program, $3,000 for the “Impact of Promotion and Tenure on PA Faculty.”

Phoebe Foltz, Midwestern University Downer’s Grove PA Program, $2,000 for “PA Education on Spirituality and Medicine.”

Jeff Nicholson, University of Wisconsin-Madison PA Program, $4,000 for “A Survey of Accredited PA Programs to Determine Magnitude and Distribution of Instructional and Noninstructional Responsibilities of Faculty and Staff.”

Main