APAP Committee Report, April 18, 2003
Committee Name: APAP Research Institute
Committee Chair: Rick Dehn and Eugene Jones
Current Activities:
--Review of survey instruments utilized for surveying APAP member programs, faculty, or students. (ongoing).
--Peer-review of the APAP Research Institute small grant program applications as needed per grant cycle (ongoing).
--Peer-review of proposals for faculty research presentations for fall conference as needed (ongoing).
--Peer-review of proposals for research poster presentations for fall conference as needed (ongoing).
--The Research Institute has again conduct the student writing competition this year (ongoing). The APAP Student Writing Competition was conducted this winter and spring, and the winners have been announced:
The winners receive a check for $500.00, the second place winner receives $300.00, and the third place winner receives $200.00. The winners also receive support to attend the AAPA annual conference in New Orleans to present their papers. The contest is underwritten by the JAAPA, and the RI thanks JAAPA for their generous support of this important endeavor. The RI also thanks all faculty members who supported this contest by reviewing papers. I. Keir Todd, MEd, PA-C, from Oregon Health Sciences University PA Program again administered the competition. The number of entries totaled 151, more than double the number from the previous year.
--The restructuring of APAP's committee system is progressing with the current integration of the Research and Review Committee into the Research Institute. Plans are being drawn up to delegate Research and Review Committee activities to smaller task-focused subcommittees. Typically these committees will contain 3-6 members and will require a substantial work commitment for a limited period of time. The first attempt at this process was a subcommittee formed to re-write the small grants guidelines, and it has since been utilized for the NCCPA research reviews in the Spring of 2001 and 2002. In the Fall of 2001 a second subcommittee was formed to manage the Research Institute small research review process, and this has also been successful and was again successfully used in 2002. The intent is to develop a cadre of experienced subcommittee members for each activity in order to foster institution memory and stability in ongoing processes, and to compartmentalize the work demands on volunteers to predictable times. So far these experiments in organization appear to be quite successful and will be continued/expanded into other activities of the Research Institute and Research and Review Committee. The details of the process are currently under discussion with the RI co-chair and the APAP board liaison. It is anticipated that these subcommittees and chairs will be filled before the Fall 2003 APAP conference.
--Ongoing publication of Perspectives of Physician Assistant Education.
Completion dates: As above
Accomplishments/Success Stories:
--The process of approving survey instruments is ongoing and appears to be working smoothly. Approved surveys are posted on committee's web site at http://paprogram.medicine.uiowa.edu/randr. The process of reviewing surveys is intended to avoid duplication in surveys, improve the quality of research done on the PA education system, and to prevent "survey burnout" that would negatively impact all of our research efforts. Since last April 1,2002, 20 surveys have been approved with several others currently in suggested revisions. In the April 2001 to April 2002 time period 12 surveys were approved, therefore either a greater percentage of surveys are being submitted for approval, more survey research is being done on the PA education system, or both.
--As predicted by this committee last year, there has been an increase in both the number of original papers/abstracts and posters submitted for APAP meeting3. 17 papers/abstracts were accepted for presentation and 23 posters were accepted for display at the Fall 2002 meeting. Initially only 2 hours were allocated for abstract/paper presentations, but after negotiations with APAP staff 3.75 hours were made available, which was barely adequate. Since one of APAP’s missions is to provide a venue for faculty advancement as well as dissemination of PA education information, it is important that adequate time be allocated at the conference for this purpose. It is likely that the number of proposals will increase in the future given the current trend of PA faculty now occupying positions that require these types of activities for promotion. This committee and the board will need to continue to take actions that will ensure this time is available at future APAP conferences.
--The Research and Review Committee has been providing feedback on unsuccessful proposals to the grant authors beginning with the Spring 2001 cycle. This process was made available again for proposals from the Fall 2002 cycle. Approximately 40% of unsuccessful PIs requested feedback on their proposals.
--NCCPA/APAP Research Grant review subcommittee, consisting of co-chairs Emil Petrusa and Rick Dehn, and NCCPA members Ruth Ballweg and Dan McNeill, and APAP members Gary Bouchard and Pat Kelly, are currently reviewing the ten proposals submitted for the Spring 2003 cycle. NCCPA has contributed $20,000 for the spring research grant cycle, and awards will be presented at the May 2003 meeting in New Orleans. NCCPA should be recognized for its generous support of PA research.
--The 23 poster presentations were displayed at the November 2002 APAP meeting in Miami.
--The RI and the FDI combined to present a full-day workshop “Designing and writing a successful research proposal.” Attendance was within projections, with 29 registrants, and the workshop showed a small profit. Attended evaluations were very positive.
--Three APAP Research and Review Committee Members, Gene Jones, Dennis Blessing, and Pat Kelly, have been appointed to the AAPA-IAC - Research Advisory Subcommittee for 2002-2003. Discussions continue to be held about cooperation with research activities. This committee’s chair is proposing to allocate $20k for research grants and $5k for administration to APAP annually for an AAPA/APAP grant cycle structured similar to APAP’s arrangement with NCCPA. Apparently this will be presented to the AAPA board at their May meeting.
Concerns:
--APAP member faculty are responding to increasing pressure due to the demands of promotion and tenure. This is likely due to several factors, including the conversion of programs toward awarding advanced degrees and a generalized movement of PA programs away from special program status toward joining their institution’s mainstream academic units; this has resulted in increasing numbers of PA faculty being required to perform academic promotion and tenure activities. Since participation in professional academic activities on a national level is typically an important part of academic promotion and tenure processes, this committee has seen a sharp increase in the number of proposals for presentation of original work. In order to effectively provide for our members' needs in this area, APAP will need to provide adequate time and resources for faculty presentation activities at out national meeting(s) since APAP is one of the only national venues available to PA faculty where this can be done. As one variation of how to accomplish this, a poster-presentation option was revived for the Fall 2001 conference, and has proved to be very popular. In response to the unprecedented number of faculty presentation submissions, an extra hour of faculty presentation time was scheduled for the Fall 2001 meeting. This proved to be barely enough, and again in 2002 we had proposal increases that necessitated four hours of conference time. This trend is likely to increase; therefore more time should be scheduled at the October 2003 meeting for faculty presentation, and plans should be made for a larger number of poster displays. In anticipation of next year's demand, possibly as much as six hours of presentation time should be allocated, as well as room for as many as 30 posters. Beyond the Fall 2003 conference, this trend is still likely to continue, so APAP will need to devise ways to accommodate member PA faculty demand for presentation of original work.
--PA students are beginning to submit their research as poster presentation. This is an excellent opportunity for students work to be acknowledged, and is a great way for PA faculty to display their research skills in how they mentor their students. Additionally, this process can be developed to provide APAP with an opportunity to positively interact with the student population on a national level. Similar to the increase in faculty presentations, demand for this venue will certainly increase as student research activity increases, thus accommodations will need to be made in conference planning to make sure our conference can support this likely growth.
--This committee has found it difficult to plan and implement research curriculum at APAP meetings. This is due to this committee’s duties and responsibilities in this area overlapping with those of the Education Committee. For example, the Research Track presented at the October 2001 meeting (a well-received series of presentations) took three years to bring to our members because it was derailed in 1999 and 2000 by this committee overlap. Similar problems of overlapping committee responsibilities have occurred with other R&R activities. This structural problem works to the detriment of this committee being able to offer research resources to the APAP membership, and thus should be addressed by the BOD. The November 2002 research workshops (with the exception of the add-on day workshop) were reviewed and selected by the Education Committee without any Research and Review Committee input, as were the research presentation accepted for the May 2003 conference. This committee believes that research curriculum for the APAP conferences should be selected and reviewed by this committee, not the Education Committee. It is hoped that future APAP committee reorganization will address this problem.
--In response to a 2002 survey of program directors that collected data on what program directors wanted from APAP as far as research-related faculty development curriculum. The top-rated topic was covered at the add-on research workshop at the Fall 2002 conference. An add-on all-day workshop is planned for the Fall 2003 conference titled “Designing and Implementing a Research Curriculum,” which was the second-rated topic according to the data. The RI and FDI will work with APAP management to plan and implement this workshop.
Budget Issues:
--The Spring 2003 NCCPA/APAP research grant process will receive a $25,000 contribution from NCCPA for APAP to administer $20,000 in research grants for Year 2003 awards.
--APAP staff administers the funding ($6000 from JAAPA) for the J. Peter Nyquist Student Writing Contest.
--$20,000 will be required to fund the APAP Research Institute Research Grants fall 2002 cycle (allocated). Similar funding will be necessary in 2003.
--The Research Institute endowment fund recently received a generous $500 donation from the Association of Post-Graduate Physician Assistant Programs. Our sincere appreciation goes to the leaders of APPAP.
--The committee is considering an add-on day dedicated to “Research in the PA Profession” for the October 2003 fall APAP meeting directed at showcasing all the research done on the PA profession, which is projected to be funded by an additional registration fee and possibly some outside grant money. Rod Hooker will be responsible for developing this proposal.
Board Action Required: The Research and Review Committee will likely send proposals to the BOD at the November 2003 meeting that need attention:
--The Research and Review Committee requested at the May 2002 BOD meeting that APAP establish a student research award to be given annually at either the fall or spring meetings, and that development of this award be moved forward so that a funding source can be found. The board advised a specific proposal be developed, and Dennis Blessing has agreed to construct a plan to present to the board in November 2002. At that time he said he was close to a funding source, and the issue should be presented to the board at their May 2003 meeting.
--The Research and Review Committee again requests that the board consider that additional time and space be made available at the fall conference for paper/abstract faculty presentations and poster presentations.
--The Research and Review Committee requests that board consider restructuring how the content of APAP conferences is determined, particularly in how much time is allocated to research-related curriculum, and also consider that research curriculum be selected and peer reviewed by the Research and Review Committee or the Research Institute rather than the Education Committee.
Respectfully submitted
Rick Dehn
Eugene Jones