PAEA to Honor Students and Faculty With Awards for Writing and Research

Three PA students were selected to receive cash prizes for their winning entries to the annual PAEA Student Writing/Nyquist Competition and are scheduled to present their projects at PAEA’s awards presentations in San Francisco. Two faculty members will receive research funding checks from the jointly sponsored AAPA/PAEA Research Grants Program. PAEA invites all faculty and PA students to attend.

The PAEA Student Writing Competition

The winning students and their submissions are

• Amanda Pinkert, from the Duke University Medical Center PA Program, for “The Effect of Treatment Options on Quality of Life in Patients with Persistent or Recurrent Atrial Fibrillation: A Review of the Literature.” As the first-place winner, Pinkert was also designated the Nyquist winner in commemoration of J. Peter Nyquist, for whom the competition was originally named.

• Theresa Jones, from the Medical University of Ohio at Toledo PA Program, for “Analyzing the Attitudes and Practices of Residents of Lucas County, Ohio, in Regard to Advance Care Planning”

• Ryanne Coulson, from the Chatham College PA Program in Pennsylvania, for “Community-Acquired Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus Infection: The New Common Cold?”

Many groups within the PA community contributed to the success of the 16th rendition of the PAEA Student Writing Competition. Support for a sixth consecutive year was received from the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (JAAPA), whose generous funding provides the cash prizes for the students and covers their expenses for travel, hotel accommodations, and meeting registrations. Student winners will receive checks for $500, $300, and $200, respectively, for placing first, second, and third.

Theresa Hegmann, University of Iowa PA Program, chaired the PAEA Research Institute Subcommittee for Student Research Affairs and coordinated the judging. More than 80 faculty from 60 PA programs reviewed the papers, so that in the initial round of the contest, each entry could be reviewed by at least two faculty not associated with the student authors’ programs.

“It was exciting to see such enthusiastic student participation in the contest, with 120 entries meeting the criteria this year,” said Hegmann. “Based on feedback received from faculty around the country at the 2005 November APAP Education Forum in Puerto Rico, the contest guidelines were revised for this competition cycle to explicitly include a number of different paper formats, including essays on medical topics, clinical review articles, evidence-based reviews, and reports of original research projects. This change seemed to result in increased student participation, with many high quality entries.”

Pinkert’s project explores whether patients’ quality of life and subjective experience are different when using rate- versus rhythm-control treatment methods. Jones said that her project, which deals with the attitudes and practices around advance care planning, grew out of a volunteer position she held in a hospital and represents a first step in identifying and then eliminating the ambiguity and misinformation that is present in this area. Coulson was also influenced in the choice of her topic on Community-Acquired Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus by a pediatric rotation, when she witnessed how common the community-acquired strain was becoming.

The AAPA/PAEA Research Grants Program

Faculty who will receive funding for their research proposals submitted to the AAPA/PAEA Research Grants Program are

• Perri Morgan from the Duke University Medical Center PA Program. Her proposal, “Effects of Physician Assistant Care on Patient Satisfaction, Provision of Preventive Services, Healthcare Utilization, and Healthcare Expenditures: A Case-Control Approach,” will be funded at $8,892.

• Roderick Hooker, employed at the VA Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, will receive $11,108 for his proposal, “The Expansion of Rheumatology Services with Physician Assistants.”

The winners were chosen from among 12 entrants. James Cawley, George Washington University PA Program, representing AAPA, and Richard Dehn, University of Iowa PA Program, representing PAEA, co-chaired the committee and facilitated the judging process. This program was developed to encourage research on the PA profession, particularly in the area of the profession’s contribution to the health care workforce, characteristics of PA practice, and research that will contribute to more effective utilization of PAs in the future. PAEA is pleased to have joined with AAPA for a second cycle of this program.