Know Your Candidates: Responses to Committee Questions

The PAEA Nominations and Awards Committee poses questions to the candidates for PAEA office to help faculty become acquainted with them and their views about PA education. This year's candidates, Justine Strand and Frank Acevedo for president elect and Connie Goldgar for director at large, have replied to three questions, with each response limited to 250 words. The second and third questions and answers are published below; the first set appeared in the September issue of the Networker.

Members will also have the opportunity to hear the candidates speak and to ask them questions at the Candidates Forum in Tucson, to be held on Thursday, October 25, from 4:15–5:00 p.m. This session has been renamed "Business Meeting #1," in order to allow an opportunity for nominations from the floor. All attendees are encouraged to attend. Balloting will take place as usual prior to Business Meeting #2 on Saturday, October 27.

Candidates

President Elect

Justine Strand, MPH, PA-C, Chief
Duke University Medical Center Physician Assistant Division
Durham, North Carolina

Frank A. Acevedo, PA-C, MS, Academic Coordinator/Associate Director
New York Institute of Technology Department of PA Studies
Old Westbury, New York

Director at Large

Constance T. Goldgar, MS, PA-C, Associate Program Director
University of Utah Physician Assistant Program
Salt Lake City, Utah

Candidate Responses to Remaining Committee Questions

Justine Strand, President Elect

2. One important part of the Association’s mission is to assist programs and faculty to “foster professionalism and innovation in health professions education.” Explore three innovations to PA program curricula that need to be implemented over the next three to five years.

I find this question a bit awkward to respond to, because I believe the wisdom to inform our curricular efforts should “bubble up” from our member programs, and PAEA should mobilize efforts to respond to emerging curricular needs. Having said that, if I had to personally choose three areas for curricular innovation, I would look at 1) technology, from Web-based delivery of curriculum to human simulators, 2) genomics, and the future application of genetic information to prospective human health, and 3) evidence-based medicine, and the best methods of helping graduate PAs incorporate EBM in their practice of medicine.

3. Summarize the three most important experiential components of your career as a PA educator that best exemplify your qualifications for Association office.

In addition to my current role at Duke, I have served as president of the Texas Academy of Physician Assistants and the North Carolina Medical Society Foundation, with significant budgetary, leadership, and strategic planning responsibility in these roles. I am completing the doctorate of public health in health policy and administration, and would bring skills learned in finance, public relations, and evaluation to the role of president, if elected.

As director at large of PAEA from 2004 to 2006, during the exciting period of exploring, planning and implementing our transition to an autonomous organization, I served as liaison to the Research Institute and CASPA, and was inaugural liaison to the International Affairs Committee. I learned a great deal about the organization, which I believe would enable me to serve the organization well as president.

From lobbying the first PA licensing and prescribing laws in Texas, to service as chairman of the AAPA Political Action Committee, to leadership of the North Carolina Medical Society Foundation during a fundraising campaign for our Community Practitioner Program which raised over 15 million dollars, I have learned a great deal about advocacy and negotiation, and would bring passion on behalf of PA education, the profession, and our patients if afforded the privilege of serving as president of PAEA.

Frank Acevedo, President Elect

2. One important part of the Association’s mission is to assist programs and faculty to “foster professionalism and innovation in health professions education.” Explore three innovations to PA program curricula that need to be implemented over the next three to five years.

Innovations for physician assistant education that need serious consideration for implementation are:

• Curricular components that widely address medical informatics are needed by every program. Whether they are actually developed by programs or made available through educational modules developed by PAEA does not matter. What does matter is that all graduates of PA programs be thoroughly exposed to practicing twenty-first century, technology driven medicine. Though our emphasis should remain on patient centered care we need to make sure that graduates become facile and literate with informatics tools used in everyday practice.

• Distance learning should be looked at as something everyone can participate in. Currently many programs are looking for faculty to meet current needs or for expansion. Through the use of distance learning we will be able to recruit more educators to academia who may not be willing to make the commitment that takes them away from their clinical sites for prolonged periods of time.

• Public health curricula need to be strengthened and in some cases developed across the PA educational spectrum. Graduates need to be prepared to revitalize a public health infrastructure that has fallen into disrepair. A strong public health curricula will help in addressing the health care needs of the underserved.

Though these innovations may help us we cannot be sure unless they are thoroughly evaluated into the PAEA research agenda. This will allow us to document effectiveness and develop best practice templates for distribution throughout the profession.

3. Summarize the three most important experiential components of your career as a PA educator that best exemplify your qualifications for Association office.

Experience in anything we do is valuable. In seeking the position of president elect for the Association I bring 24 years of experience as a physician assistant with over 22 of them in PA education. Over that time I feel that three components of my experience prepare me particularly well for this new challenge.

• Firstly, as a PA educator I have participated as full-time faculty, adjunct faculty, clinical preceptor, clinical coordinator, academic coordinator, and program director. Each of these positions has enriched my understanding of the challenges all PA educators face on a day to day basis. This broad understanding of PA education will allow me to participate in dialogue that affects all of us.

• Secondly, as a member of the Academic Senate and American Association of University Professors (AAUP) at my institution I have had an opportunity to see first hand how we are perceived by others in academe. Perspective on how other academics perceive our profession is important in any dialogue on tenure and promotion issues. Tenure and promotion is and will continue to be an important issue in PA education and an adequate understanding of it will be necessary to move our profession forward in this area.

• Lastly, my recent experience on the board positions me to participate as president elect in a seamless manner as we implement our strategic plan. First hand knowledge of how and why it was developed will allow for a smooth implementation process of this plan, which is so essential to our Association.  

Constance Goldgar, Director at Large

2. One important part of the Association’s mission is to assist programs and faculty to “foster professionalism and innovation in health professions education.” Explore three innovations to PA program curricula that need to be implemented over the next three to five years.

a. Genetics and Molecular Medicine
As evidenced by the recent NIH/NHGRI [National Institutes of Health/National Human Genome Research Institute] meeting, the four PA organizations have agreed to make genetics a priority to incorporate into health care. The importance of clinical genetics in the practice of medicine cannot be overstated. PAs can be at the forefront of devising educational models as well as role models in implementing genetic concepts into everyday clinical care. We have the capabilities to create the “PA Genetics Dashboard,” which could have far-reaching implications as a prototype for other health professions education.

b. Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) Development
Although the OSCE in not new to medical education, the shift toward competency-based education requires rethinking of outcome assessment. The OSCE can standardize tasks that students perform, sample competencies widely and at different developmental levels, and provide helpful formative feedback. It can help assess performance areas that written exams do not. This area is wide open in terms of range of OSCE formats, what they can assess, and research devoted to this type of framework.

c.  Interprofessional Learning/Training
Interprofessional training, as well as research on subsequent defined outcomes should be a goal for PA educators and implemented wherever possible. The “Renaissance School” of medical training (BMJ 2001;323:1454) asks for clinicians “who think in terms of patients rather than organs and are strong, multiprofessional team players.” If students of different disciplines learn together, all graduates will be better equipped learning from each other, imbuing the tenet of lifelong interprofessional learning. There are many common pathways to explore — construction of interprofessional modules can only be a win-win innovation.

3. Summarize the three most important experiential components of your career as a PA educator that best exemplify your qualifications for Association office.

a. Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) Curriculum Development
Together with David Keahey, UPAP faculty member, we developed a master’s level EBM curriculum for PA and postgraduate PA students. After a few years we felt we had a practical, clinically oriented, well-packaged curriculum that we could share with other PA educator colleagues. Subsequently we have shared this EBM curriculum with more than 100 faculty nationwide. Some personal qualities exemplified by developing this product include: innovation, sharing, perseverance, mentoring, collaborative spirit, ability to “package” and distribute a product to PA faculty nationwide.

b. National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics (NCHPEG) sponsored “Genetics in the Physician Assistant’s Practice” Web site
Together with a group of educators, we applied for and were awarded a grant to create a Web site specifically for PAs, PA students, and PA educators. This required devising appropriate patient cases, envisioning facets making this a worthy learning activity, and applying foundational genetics concepts. This project just recently came to completion, and is AAPA-CME linked. The site can be accessed at: http://pa.nchpeg.org. Personal attributes exemplified: vision, teamwork, responsibility, innovation, genetics and resource expertise, meeting deadlines, and attention to detail.

c. PAEA/NCCPA Foundation Ethics Project
A group of PA educators was assembled to develop a video product (and facilitator’s guide) with actors portraying scenes of ethical and professional dilemmas specific to PAs and PA students. During the course of the project I was asked to co-write the facilitator’s guide and also was named co-editor of the project for my contribution. Personal attributes exemplified: creativity, collaboration, reliability, attention to detail, resourcefulness, writing and editorial skill, meeting deadlines, delivering a quality product.