A Time to Be at the Table

By Kirsten Thomsen, PA
Director at Large

Information sharing about issues that affect our programs, students, patients, and communities is critical. PAEA is working hard to increase communication opportunities with and among members through the Networker, Webinars, e-mails, list serves, and its new Web site. But it is not enough just to exchange information; we need to have educators participating “at the table.” Health care reform, health homes, practice team compositions, primary care provider shortages, and many other issues are being discussed without PAEA voices.

Since the beginning of my first term on the board, one of my responsibilities has been to contact and work closely with PAEA liaisons to external groups (such as, for example, the Society for Teachers of Family Medicine, whose recent meeting our STFM liaison, David Keahey, covers here). I also attend many meetings around the country, sometimes wearing my board hat and sometimes in connection with other activities. During the past month alone, I attended the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Workforce Conference, the Congressional Black Caucus Health Brain Trust Annual Health Conference, the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Town Hall Meeting, the Federation of State Medical Boards Annual Conference, and health care reform hearings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Let me update you on just two of these meetings:

At the AAMC Workforce Conference, Mary Wakefield, PhD, RN, the new administrator of HRSA, indicated that $300 million in additional funding will be available for the NHSC. Also, the adoption of continuous enrollment and prequalification for NHSC loan repayment and scholarships should help to meet the need for clinicians in rural and underserved communities. Some of your students and PA colleagues may be interested in this information.

There seemed to be general agreement at the workforce conference that there is a serious undersupply of primary care providers of all types. A real focus on primary care was evident with heightened attention being given to PAs and NPs to fill workforce shortages. This bodes well for the future as the new administration begins work on health care and heath education reform. Recurrent themes, particularly relevant for PA/NP research and education, were “comparative effectiveness research” and “medical teams/medical homes.” Along with Mary Warner and Rick Dehn, who also attended the AAMC Conference, I sensed an air of enthusiasm for problem solving workforce issues in a more collaborative manner.

Patrick Auth (who hosted the NHSC meeting held at Drexel University), Theresa Horvath (NHSC national advisory committee member), and I were the PAs in attendance at the NHSC meeting. During the meeting it became clear to me that NHSC loan repayor clinicians could be asked to precept students in an attempt to increase the preceptor pool, which would benefit all PA programs. To this end I suggested that PAEA could help provide tools for preceptors, since we can’t assume that all clinicians know how to precept, even if they have an interest in doing so. We PAs offered to work with the NHSC and share precepting tools, like those currently available on PAEA's preceptor site and others now in the planning stage. Our offer was greatly appreciated and illustrated again how working together always gets us farther than working alone.

I would also like to encourage you to attend conferences whenever possible to add to the number of voices and expertise brought to the discussions. I am more convinced than ever of the truth of the saying, “The world is run by those who show up.” Now it is time for us to show up to advocate for health care reform, Title VII funding, new ways to encourage preceptors to participate in educating our future clinicians, and other issues needing our immediate attention. While PAEA is committed to increasing its external outreach, we also need to have our member educators participating at the table (and then writing about the experience for the Networker). My hope is that we in PAEA will seize this opportunity to be part of many different groups to explore and resolve the health care reform issues that are critical to the well being of our communities.