Three PA Students Selected as Winners of the PAEA Writing Competition

Three worthy winners have been selected in this year's PAEA Student Writing Competition, sponsored for the eighth consecutive year by the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (JAAPA). PA students have come to anticipate the opportunity to submit papers featuring their medical writing skills and 88 submissions were received during the 2007-08 competition cycle that ended in mid-February. The student winners, funded by JAAPA for their travel and other expenses, will make brief presentations at an awards event in San Antonio.

The students and their winning papers for 2008 are

• First place: Katherine G. Footracer from the Seton Hall University PA Program in South Orange, New Jersey, for “Second Class: Immigrant Health Care.”

• Second place: Kelly Brooks from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California PA Program, for “Celiac Disease — The Clinician’s Role in Missing the Diagnosis and Treatment in the Adult Population: A Review”

• Third place: Leah Siegfried, MS, PA-C, from the Shenandoah University PA Program, Winchester, Virginia, for “Effects of an International Medical Mission Experience on Physician Assistant Student Attitudes toward Working with Underserved Populations”

Robert Hadley, faculty member at the University of Kentucky PA Program and chair of the PAEA Research Institute’s Subcommittee for Student Research Affairs, administered the competition for the first time. He has moderated the student awards event for several years and this year will be joined by PAEA President Dana Sayre-Stanhope. They will present certificates and checks in the amount of $500, $300, and $200 to the first, second, and third place winners, respectively.

Sixty-eight faculty from programs around the country volunteered to provide a first round of reviews for the student papers. This outstanding response made it possible for each paper to receive at least three unique reviews by faculty who were not affiliated with the programs from which the papers originated. Following this initial review, submissions that ranked highest underwent a final round of judging by Hadley and the members of the subcommittee: Theresa Hegmann, Claire O’Connell, Antone Opekun, Virginia Hass, and Eric Vangsnes.

Footracer, who placed first in the competition, said, “I am honored to have been selected for the first place in this competition. However, I am even more delighted that my topic — the intersection between health and immigration — is garnering attention.” She added that it was her hope that “as a profession we can help to remedy disparities in health care and contribute to creating a more just, compassionate society.” Siegfried, who placed third for her paper on medical missions, said that “PA education provides a great environment for fostering interest in service to medically underserved populations,” but acknowledged that “the establishment of such experiences for students requires significant time and financial commitment by PA program faculty and administrators.” Siegfried said that she hoped, by conducting the project, to provide data to illustrate the benefit of such programs to underserved areas and thereby motivate PA programs to expand these opportunities.

Faculty members are encouraged to attend the awards ceremony and the students’ presentation of their winning papers. The awards event is scheduled during the SAAAPA Student Professional Workshops at the Academy’s 36th Annual PA Conference in San Antonio, on Monday, May 26, from 11:00-11:50 a.m., in room 206 of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.