Informing the Clinical Doctorate Dialogue

Clinical Doctorate Summit Taking Shape

By Ayeshia Ellington Pompey and Timi Agar Barwick
Members, PA Clinical Doctorate Sponsor Group

As the PA Clinical Doctorate Summit, March 25-27 in Atlanta, Georgia, draws closer, the sponsor group — charged with overseeing the planning, research, and educational process that will support the final recommendation — has been active designing a process that is transparent, inclusive, timely, and evidenced-based. This process will conclude with a set of recommendations for PAEA and AAPA to act on during their next membership meetings. The members of the sponsor group are

Matt Dane Baker, PA-C, DHSc
Dawn Morton-Rias, EdD, PA-C
Donna Sewell, MS, PA-C
Patricia Guerra, PA-C, MPAS
Timi Agar Barwick
Ayeshia Ellington Pompey
Bob McNellis, MPH, PA
Cheryl Holmes

At its first face-to-face meeting in early January, the group developed a model representing the career of a physician assistant. The model maps out the stages of the profession beginning with the pre-applicant’s first contact with the PA profession and ending with the PA’s retirement. Building a visual model of the profession pushed the group to consider the range of stakeholders involved as we developed the participant list for the summit, conducted research, developed surveys, and began to identify key questions for the summit process. Stakeholders we considered included applicants, students, PA programs, practicing PAs, physicians, accrediting bodies, and regulatory bodies.

One of the sponsor group’s first tasks was to identify several perspectives important to be heard in the doctorate dialogue. A participant list of approximately 50 individuals with the knowledge and unique experience to represent those perspectives has recently been finalized. The full list of “invited perspectives” can be accessed on the PAEA Web site, where you can also find more detailed information on all aspects of the summit and the issues surrounding the PA clinical doctorate.

During December and January, group members focused their research efforts on other health professions, including physical therapy, nurse practitioner, occupational therapy, and social work, that have moved to the doctoral degree. Articles identified through the literature search are available online at the PAEA Web site. 

In order to capture the perspectives of stakeholders outside the summit process, the sponsor group has developed a survey, which will be distributed by mid-February to the PA population. The survey results will guide the recommendations to the profession on the role of the doctorate.

The Facilitation Process

To facilitate the summit, PAEA has retained the consulting firm Innovations Labs (IL), which has a wealth of experience with both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, including the American Medical Association, the Federation of State Medical Boards, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Energy.  IL solutions use a creative and interactive process based on individual, small-group, and large-group activities. Each planned summit activity will have an assignment and a deliverable as part of the process. The deliverables will be posted following the summit so that stakeholders have visible record of ideas generated throughout the summit.

At the conclusion of the summit, the recommendations generated will be brought forward to the AAPA and PAEA memberships for consideration and debate.

Please watch the PAEA Networker and especially Informing the Clinical Doctorate Dialogue section of the PAEA Web site for regular updates on the sponsor group’s activities. And please make use of the comments feature on that page to participate in the dialogue yourself. These comments will be reviewed by the sponsor group and distilled to provide an additional perspective for the summit participants.