Meet New AAPA11 Blogger Jason Hussey: We cannot move the profession forward without patients who understand our roles.

PAs??

During AAPA HOD Reference Committees A and C, the topic of AAPA's role in the education of the public and physicians will be discussed at the HOD. I wrote two resolutions that encourage PAs to educate physicians and the public individually and the formal formation of a physician and public education workgroup. There will be debate coming up to consider these and I am anxious to hear testimony. It is my contention that the AAPA has done an outstanding job at advocating for PAs to our government and getting us into the latest health care reform legislation but has fallen short on public and physician education. The Today Show's Dr. Synderman revealed the 800 pound gorilla in the room. She and many other physicians do not understand PAs, their roles, or responsibilities. The public is even less educated about PAs. We cannot move the profession forward without patients who understand our roles. Our patients love us and will advocate for us it they understand us as a whole. It falls to the AAPA, and its constituent organizations, to educate the public and the time to start is now. I invite everyone reading this to discuss the AAPA's role in educating the public and physicians.

Whew! Trying to Catch My Breath!

Golly good golly as we say in our PA oriented house.

This baby is running full steam ahead, and "as we get older," it seems to get a little rougher. Still fun, but rough. Let's look at today for example. I was working on HOD last night, and texting some PAs I need to talk to right at bedtime. I got up at 5am, got a few texts back, and shot them a few back. Hit the shower, scrambled to the fruit room (Resort Club, fruit central!).

Off to the HOD delegates orientation, but I couldn't stick around because I needed to meet with a colleague with concerns about a res I helped write. We met, it was productive, then off with my wife Pat to the opening ceremony. Nice and showey event, lots of music, emotion, flags, laughter. Great event.

So then it's back to HOD to meet many about resolution concerns. I slammed down a sandwich from the sando stand (I am an HOD alternate, but we don't get food anymore), revised a resolution in conjunction with my awesome council chair (best editer ever!), and now it's off to see my wife Pat present her PubMed Pearls talk.

Keep it coming!

Caught by the Kleenex Police

Conversation at BWI after I went through the body scanner.

“Sir, is there something in your pocket”

“I forgot to take out my wallet”

“No, your other pocket. A napkin or something?”

“It is a Kleenex.”

“OK, you can go.”

@djbunnell

Welcome PA Eric Smith to the AAPA11 Blogging Family: The AAPA House of Delegates- A Reflection

As I finish packing my bags for Vegas and prepare for my Monday afternoon flight to the City of Lights, I have quite a bit of excitement fueling me for the week to come.  For one, of course, I am heading to Las Vegas… one of the most exciting places in all the world to be, and the city that my wife and I tied the knot in only 8 years ago (Little Chapel of the Flowers!!!).  This city brings back so many amazing memories for my wife and I, and I would be lying if I said that we haven’t been looking forward to this trip for at least the past couple years.  However, I’m also excited for my prime reason for being in Vegas this year… attending the AAPA House of Delegates for what will be my sixth year.  I have been a Delegate of Florida throughout these years, but this year will also be in attendance as Chair of the Constituent Relations Work Group (known by most as CRC… more recently dubbed CRWG).  There is a lot of work on the agenda, and little doubt in my mind that the resolutions going forward from our committee will spark considerable debate, however it is all still quite exciting to me after all these years.  The whole process makes me reflect on how this little 3-day meeting every year seems to bring me such anticipation. 

I remember my first HOD five years ago.  To say I felt in way over my head would be the understatement of the year.  Arguments were sizzling, counterpoints were flying, votes on the amended amendment to the amended resolution were being taken… it was organized chaos!  One of my esteemed veteran fellow delegates leaned over to me during one of the sessions, noticing the perplexed look on my face, and said “when this is all said and done, you will either love this whole thing or hate it.”  She was right.  Turns out, I loved it.  By my second HOD, I was completely aware of everything going on and felt far more prepared than my first.  By my third HOD, I was in the mix, standing behind the mic to make arguments and counterpoints of my own.  Before long, I was helping write resolutions of our delegation’s own.  And last year I had my first term on CRC, helping review policy that too would be debated before the House.  This year, as I again represent the great state of Florida, as well as the CRC that I have chaired for the past year, I feel my time with the HOD has come full circle.  The excitement is still there… the passion has never left.  While some may see this whole process as “boring” or “dull”, I see just the opposite.  I see PAs standing strong for what they believe in, what their vision of the PA Profession is, and what direction they believe our Academy should go in to make that vision a reality.  No viewpoints heard on the House Floor during these glorious three days are ever “wrong”… they are all unique and hold merit.  However it will be the majority of the great leaders of this Academy who decide which of these visions and policy statements are the ones that carry our profession into the future.  Sorry if some folks out there see that as boring or dull.  For me, it is quite the contrary. 

It is sure to be another great HOD this week.  For all you newbies out there… enjoy the ride!  You are either going to love it, or hate it.  Just be prepared though… if you love it, it will have a hold on you forever!

Eric S. Smith, MMS, PA-C

CRC Chair

Delegate-Florida

Showtime!

Calm Before the Storm: Showtime

All the hundreds hours of planning, labor, leg work, reservations, and the many other activities that go into planning for the conference all culminate in the start tomorrow. How much time goes into planning and preparing for one of these things? Think of the time AAPA staff puts in; the hours all the speakers use to prepare; the work of all the governance groups to prepare resolutions and review for HOD; the labor of all the delegates to read them all and prepare the solemn and serious business of creating and altering AAPA policy; all the time of every constituent org who meets, prepares, and contributes; related work by hotel and convention workers to meet our needs and keep us moving through the whole experience; it's mind-boggling.

I saw a speaker recently, who talked about an estimate he had seen of the number of hours that it has taken to create Wikipedia: 100 million! Wonder what the tally would be if you added up all the hours of every task done by anyone related to the annual conference. I bet it be a very big number. So thanks to everyone, anywhere, who has done anything to prepare for our visit. Let the three-ring circus begin!

Networking without Business Cards…(Welcome New AAPA11 Blogger Bianca Belcher!)

As a PA student, the opportunity to meet a future preceptor or co-worker is part of the appeal of attending the big show. Unfortunately, many PA programs do not provide their students with business cards.  So how can you still network effectively?

Well…You could try writing your email address on a napkin or scrap of paper and hope that it doesn’t get lost 15 minutes later, but there is a better way… The wireless business card.

First, add your own contact information to your cell phone’s contact list. Most smart phones have a very simple way to then share that contact information with someone else. With the iPhone for example, once you have clicked on a contact you can scroll to the bottom of the screen where you are given the option to “share contact”.

Second, simply ask your new network connection for their email address or their cell number, then you will be able to instantly share all of your information (email, phone numbers, website, blogs, etc).

Now, not only have you distributed your information to them, but you have also gotten their contact information as well. It is good practice to follow up after the conference with a brief thank you that will not only show appreciation for their time, but also serve as a little reminder of who you are and what you talked about. Happy networking!

Bianca Belcher, MPH, PA-S1

twitter. @B_Belcher

http://biancabelcherpa.blogspot.com/

A Cardiothoracic PA comes to Las Vegas

I have had the privilege to serve in Cardiothoracic Surgery and Critical Care for all of my PA career.  I have attended several AAPA conferences and have always found something in the world of surgery, cardiology, pulmonology, thoracic oncology, and critical care that has impacted my practice.   I am gaining a new perspective on conferences because I have spent the past year as the Speaker Chair for the upcoming APACVS Critical Care Conference in DC from June 22-25, 2011.  I now know the challenge of recruiting speakers for a four-day conference in one room.  It gives me a new respect for the complexity of what it must be like to put together something like AAPA’s conference.

 

I am coming to sit as an alternate in the HOD to represent APACVS.  I will have the honor to sit with Dana Gray.  Dana has a long history of service with APACVS.  He recently won the AAPA Paragon Physician/PA team award with Dr. Jonathan Hill.  The amazing thing about APACVS is the depth of our bench.  We have pioneers that have started the organization 30 years ago who continue to have a voice and talented new PAs that join the organization every year.  It is an amazing experience to be a part of that tradition. 

 

@djbunnell

 

www.apacvs.org

find us on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Association-of-Physician-Assistants-in-Cardiovascular-Surgery/269283986306  

Social Media at AAPA: Keep Connecting!



See you at the TweetUp



It's exhilarating to see the social media explosion at this year's conference. Connecting with colleagues online opens many possibilities in the medical profession as well as in my profession of medical librarianship. While many use twitter and Facebook to communicate with friends, in increasing numbers social media is being use to learn about developments in one's field, discover new possibilities for partnerships, and stay up to date on current happenings. Once your social network is underway, building that network strengthens your own awareness. Keep connecting! Hope to see you at the tweet up on Wednesday, June 1, 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. in the SpaceQuest bar at the Hilton.

Patricia Devine
Medical Librarian
Twitter @pat_devine

AOR, my AOR

Our Future!

(This is excerpted in part from the April 2011 JAAPA Inside the AAPA Policy Manual)

While the House of Delegates proceedings and the whole conference experience can feel frenetic and fast-paced, no delegate or fan of HOD should miss the opportunity to take in some of the Student Academy (SAAAPA) version of HOD. Called Assembly of Representatives (AOR), this compact and turbocharged 2-day session is an amped-up version of HOD that's just plain fun to watch.

This year's Las Vegas SAAAPA AOR takes place all day on Tuesday and Wednesday, with proceedings going on simultaneously with HOD. That can make it a challenge for the HOD-goer, but stepping out of HOD for a moment or taking advantage of an HOD break and checking out AOR will be most instructive to anyone interested in policy-making.

What's so compelling about the SAAAPA version? It's the discipline, the intensity, and the restraint, two of which can admittedly be in short supply in the much bigger House of Delegates proceedings usually going on nearby. We PAs, delegates, alternates, and interested parties can flap our lips like nobody's business, and we'd all be well-served to watch how they do it in AOR. While student delegates are well-prepared and speak strongly for or against whatever the issue may be, leadership at the front of the room moves things along with a firm hand, which is almost always met with cooperation on the part of the delegates. At AOR, they start on time, finish on time, and take care of an absolutely amazing amount of business in an efficient, almost buzz-saw fashion.

In my regular visits to AOR, I'm always struck by the collegiality of the student delegates, even when discussing “hot-topic” issues. Certainly those who run the show at HOD do a superlative job at herding around high-energy cats during HOD proceedings, and this is no knock on HOD, those who direct it, or the rest of us delegates, alternates, and interested PAs. But the precision of the SAAAPA AOR proceedings are a good lesson to us all about what how much work can get done in a short period of time, and attending part of AOR should be required duty for all delegates.

Of course, the other reason we should check out AOR is to honor and congratulate the students who have shown the commitment and even courage to jump into leadership in the midst of what can be an overwhelmingly demanding schedule for PA students. While HOD proceeds in the brighter lights, bigger room, and with refined and sophisticated leadership from the house officers with years of expertise running such a proceeding, the AOR is where our future leaders are being formed. This year, take a minute, go over to AOR, watch the action, and shake the hand of a delegate or two. Congratulate them on their commitment to the future of our profession, and invite them to stay in leadership as they move in the not-too-distant future to our sides as colleagues and future leaders.

My Conference Clothing Dilemma

While I do enjoy the excitement of packing for a conference, it tends to ebb around the two am mark the night before I leave, as I stand in a room strewn with shirts, pants, suits, ties, and electronic devices with their cords twisted in a heap. It starts off logically enough. My traveling partner, fellow AAPA member and wife always tries to set me up: make a list, put things in piles, then put them in the suitcase in an orderly fashion. She usually gives up and goes to bed around midnight, after she has quickly and efficiently packed her suitcase. Meanwhile, I try another pair of pants on, hoping that I might have lost a pound or two in the twenty minutes since I last tried them on. I change my angle, thinking maybe it's just a problem of visual perception. And so it goes in getting ready for Vegas. But this time it will be different. This time, I'm making a list.

Jim Anderson PA-C
@jimeddypa
j.eddy.anderson@gmail.com

What I learned about medicine from GWU, JACC, and Sid the Science Kid

It's Sid!

When I was in PA school at George Washington University I was told that half of what I was being taught was wrong.  Unfortunately, nobody could tell me which half so I had to keep reading as science develops.  I was reminded of this when I read the most recent issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in an article that was titled, “Diuretics: Are Our Ideas Based on Knowledge?”.  Something as simple as diuresis in heart failure has room for critical questions.  Finally, my three year old and I love to watch Sid the Science Kid.  He is the kid who wants to know “everything about everything”.  He generally starts his morning with a question about the world that he then discusses with his Mom, Dad, Friends, Teacher Suzy, and his grandmother.  At night he reflects on what he learned.  He would do well in PA school and I would do well to follow his example.  He starts his day admitting he does not know something and spends his time trying to remedy that problem.  

GW and JACC have encouraged me to stay curious and question everything.  Sid has taught me that instead of trying to be the person who knows that maybe I need to be the person who wants to know more.

Stay curious my friends, and enjoy the conference! 

~dave

@djbunnell

Cardiothoracic Surgery and Critical Care

APACVS Board Member

Speaker Chair for the APACVS Critical Care Conference in DC  June 22-25, 2011  www.apacvs.org     

Meet Blogger Patricia Devine: Viva Health Information Literacy, PubMed, and Las Vegas!

Ann Margaret and Elvis Presley in  Viva Las Vegas

As I am looking forward to next week's conference I'm thinking about my theme song for the week. It's Viva Las Vegas, of course! Start listening now to get into the mood, and let's all make this song the ring tone on our phones:

http://www.last.fm/music/Elvis+Presley/_/Viva+Las+Vegas

"Viva Las Vegas" was written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman and recorded by Elvis Presley in 1964 for the film of the same name.

It's inspiring me to get excited about seeing my AAPA colleagues and networking about health disparities, health information literacy, patient education, and other important issues. I will be presenting a session called "PubMed Pearls: Making the New PubMed Work for You" at 2:00 on Tuesday. I'll be in the exhibit Hall at the National Library of Medicine Booth on Wednesday and Thursday, and co-presenting a poster on Health Information Literacy on Friday at noon. I hope to see you all.

Bright light city gonna set my soul on fire! Let's go, and let me know if you are planning a karaoke event.

Patricia Devine, Medical Librarian
National Network of Libraries of Medicine

devine@uw.edu
@pat_devine on twitter

Overflowing Suitcases, an iPad2, and a First Class Upgrade

Travis on the way 

24 hours to go until my flight leaves for LA where I will spend the weekend with friends before heading to Vegas. It will be a long day at work, for sure. Weather forecasts for LA and then Las Vegas look pretty good, and I can't wait to relax and sit by the pool after being in the concrete jungle of NYC for too long. My upgrade thankfully cleared on the best flights in the United system, but my suitcases are already overflowing and I haven't finished packing yet! Fortunately, with my trusty iPad 2 at my side, I won't have to print much this year, but I still have to get everything into Dropbox and organized. Conference agendas, LBGT PA Caucus events, CME selections, House of Delegates materials-it's overwhelming at times thinking of it all. But as I think of all I still need to do before I leave tomorrow, I remember the pool that awaits me and everything is good again.

Travis Sherer PA-C
Twitter @PATravis

New Blogger Dave Bunell Looks at His Watch

I was impressed that someone was thinking about putting together a blog for the conference because it was so far away.  
(Pause for two beats as I flip to my calendar.)  

‘Holy-jumpin-up-and-down’* I fly out on Monday.  

My wife confirms, in a knowing way of someone who has seen this movie before, that Memorial Day is next week.

I have some preparation to do. 

--finish reading House of Delegates resolutions

--remind my colleagues that I will be out of the game for a week

--watch “Ocean's Eleven” for inspiration

(watching “The Hangover” is probably the wrong way to go)

see you in Vegas,

Dave Bunnell

twitter @djbunnell

*quotation in honor of my great uncle’s favorite exclamation 

My 2004 Las Vegas Initiation into the Family of Physician Assistants

Not the Elks Club

It's exciting to return to Las Vegas, where I attended my first AAPA conference in 2004. I'd been a PA for four years, was new to an AAPA committee, and was selected to do a CME topic. And I was absolutely blown away. The size, the scope, all floored me. Speaking of the floor, it was also in Las Vegas where I saw my first HOD, and I'll never forget the impression it left. I thought it would be more like an Elks Club meeting, and instead it was like seeing the US Congress in action. All the crazy rules, ceremony, testimony. Wow!

My AAPA committee had a somewhat controversial resolution on the docket, and testifying on that was also surreal, standing at a microphone in my new suit purchased just to look good for HOD, and seeing my face projected in front of me at a gargantuan and frankly disturbing scale. As I spoke nervously, it was incredibly distracting to see my mug towering over me and my frail and reedy sounding voice.

Our resolution passed! It was convoluted and wild, but it passed. Then I got very very sick for the last day, and spent it face down in my room. Before I left, I squeezed in another CME talk, practically crawling to hear pain specialist DO William Vilensky, speaking in a room the size of a battleship, packed to the gills with PAs. Vilensky almost knocked me out of my chair, challenging every pre-conception I'd ever held about opioids and treating pain. My wife took it in too, and as we dragged my ill self to the airport to fly back to Seattle, we looked at each other, shook our heads, and said "unreal." So this, we thought, is what it means to be part of the PA family.

Las Vegas Here We Go!

This is an informal and unofficial blog of the AAPA 2011 conference. A random group of PAs and FOPs will be throwing down a paragraph or two here daily. Join us with comments and let us know your thoughts. Contact me, Jim Anderson, directly at j.eddy.anderson@gmail.com with thoughts about the blog.