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June 2009 |  |
PAEA Student Writing Competition Winners Honored at AAPA ConferenceBy Ayeshia Ellington Pompey The three students selected as winners of the 2009 PAEA Student Writing Competition were honored at an awards ceremony on May 25 during the SAAAPA Student Professional Workshops at AAPA’s 37th Annual PA Conference in San Diego. The Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (JAAPA) funded the competition for the ninth consecutive year, including the winning students’ travel, conference expenses, and prize money. Sixty-two PA students submitted papers featuring their medical writing skills for this cycle, which ended in mid-Feburary. Each of the winning students gave brief presentations of their entries to an audience of their teachers, mentors, and fellow students. The winning students and their papers for 2009 were:
Cu had this to say about her entry: “Writing a paper on the challenges faced by the hospitalist movement made me realize that the PA profession needs to adapt to the changes in the way that health care is delivered in the United States. We need to recognize hospital medicine as a new niche where physician assistants can become part of the solution.”
Roman said that he chose this topic “because it has received considerable attention in the popular press and therefore is likely to be on the minds of many patients. The more that we students and physicians understand how cognitive activity may influence the course of Alzheimer’s disease, the better we can counsel our patients and their families on how they might try to stem the onset of this serious condition.”
Koiro said, “My background is in orthopedics and rehabilitation and it was my desire to write an evidence-based research paper that tied the two together. In completing my research on mirror therapy, I was afforded the opportunity to explore a novel modality for phantom limb pain that may have the potential to impact millions of individuals who suffer from this debilitating condition.” Robert Hadley, faculty member at the Jefferson College of Health Sciences PA Program and chair of the PAEA Research Institute’s Subcommittee for Student Research Affairs, which administered the competition, also moderated the awards event at the conference. He was joined by PAEA President Justine Strand and JAAPA’s Sarah Zarbock, editor-in-chief, and Tanya Gregory, editor. Together they presented certificates and checks in the amount of $500, $300, and $200 to the first, second, and third place winners, respectively. PAEA extends its thanks to JAAPA for its generous funding of the competition for another year and to the 58 faculty volunteers who provided a first round of reviews for the student papers. Their rankings formed the basis for the final round of judging conducted by the members of the subcommittee: Theresa Hegmann, Claire O’Connell, Antone Opekun, Virginia Hass, and Eric Vangsnes.
Last Year's Competition Winner Published Recently in JAAPA As an interesting footnote to last year's competition, Katherine Footracer, MS, PA-C, CMT, the 2008 first place winner from the Seton Hall University PA Program, was published in this year's April issue of JAAPA. Her prize-winning competition submission, “Second Class: Immigrant Health Care,” can be found at http://media.haymarketmedia.com/Documents/2/Immigrant0409_1531.pdf entitled, "Immigrant health care in the United States: what ails our system?"
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First place: Jennifer Estacio Cu, Baylor College of Medicine PA Program, Houston, Texas, for “PCP Satisfaction and Perception of Communication with Hospitalists at Texas Children’s Hospital.”
Second place: Christopher Roman, Midwestern University PA Program, Downers Grove, Illinois, for “Do Cognitive Activities Protect Against Alzheimer’s Disease?” 
Third place: Carol Koiro, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey PA Program, Piscataway, New Jersey, for “Does Visual Feedback Therapy Reduce Phantom Limb Pain in Patients with Limb Amputation or Deafferentation?” 
