Booth at PA Annual Conference Part of PAEA Campaign to Recruit Preceptors

Members attending the PA conference in San Antonio are invited to visit PAEA’s first annual conference booth in the exhibit hall. The booth represents the Association's commitment to increasing visibility for and knowledge of the profession's need for preceptors and is part of a campaign being initiated by PAEA to recruit preceptors and clinical sites. A theme, “Lead by Example: Be a Preceptor,” was developed for the campaign.

Last year, PAEA President Anita Duhl Glicken addressed the AAPA House of Delegates on the issue of precepting, and current President Dana Sayre-Stanhope considers the topic so critical to the professions' ongoing that she will expand the message to this year’s HOD. In 2006 the AAPA HOD passed a resolution supporting “efforts that promote and foster creative solutions to health care shortages that include expansion and access to physician-PA teams to meet anticipated requirements for health care services.”

Securing adequate clinical sites and preceptors has long been a major concern for many PA programs, particularly in areas of the country where there are several PA and other health professions programs competing for clinical sites. A recent PAEA survey found that limited clinical training sites and preceptors were the most significant barriers to PA programs expanding their enrollments. This challenge has loomed even larger in recent years as predictions by workforce researchers of a coming shortage of physicians, nurses, and other health providers have led to calls for training institutions to increase their output of these professionals. New medical schools and increases in enrollment are likely to place further pressure on clinical sites.

The booth — number 372 — was donated by AAPA. It will be staffed by Association board members and other faculty volunteers who will provide information to any PAs interested in precepting. Some of you may have the opportunity to encourage your clinical colleagues to stop by and discuss the possibility of their precepting students.