Spring Is Here

Patrick Knott, PhD, PA-C
Past President and Chair of the Transition Task Force

March is always an interesting month in the Midwest. We have made it through the really cold months of December, January, and February, yet I am writing this column on a day when we are getting several inches of newsnow outside! Tomorrow we will probably be in shirtsleeves watching it all melt. This is a month when you have to be ready for the unexpected.

I feel the same way about the Association business this month. We signed the lease on our new office space — it took effect on March 1 — and everything is falling into place for the move. The furniture and computer workstations have been ordered, the carpeting and painting are finished, and we are cleaning up all the final details. By this time next month the staff should be working from their new space. (For complete contact information, click here.) Yet there is always the chance of a little unexpected “snow”!

During the next few weeks, I hope you will be patient with us as we transition. Keeping regular Association business running smoothly is a priority for us, but there are likely to be multiple tasks competing for each staff member’s attention.

New Opportunities

This is also a good time for the board and the membership to be thinking ahead about new opportunities. The primary reason for this transition to independent management was to allow us to expand our core business, and now is the time to begin to plan those activities. Where should we focus our energy next? There are a number of potential projects and relationships that could present important opportunities for us. Here are some of them:

• Our applicant pool is growing, and the job market for PAs remains very strong. This spring will certainly bring talk about how programs should respond to these two market demands. We also need to develop ways to increase the pool of clinical rotation sites and increase the number of PA faculty.

• Our independence brings with it new opportunities to collect and study data about the education of PAs that will benefit the profession. Several studies about our CASPA data are due out in the next few months. These will likely elicit needed discussion and renewal of interest in research.

• With the recent cuts in HRSA funding, we have an opportunity to increase our efforts to develop additional sources of educational grants and to lobby to protect the federal funding that we believe is so important to program success.

• We have an opportunity to collaborate with the ARC-PA on a project that could make the accreditation process much more streamlined and easier to participate in.

These are just a few of the opportunities that lie just ahead on our horizon. There has never been a better time to get involved with your Association and contribute your talent. Think about what things interest you most and how you might help. We will keep you up to date as the weather becomes a little more predictable!