ADVANCE Blog for PAs : NCCPA

Convicted Fake PA Gets 2 Years in California

Michael Gerchufsky — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:30:00 GMT

A California man has pleaded guilty to numerous felony counts for impersonating a PA and was sentenced to two years in prison. From the OC Register : Steve Armand Martinez, 60, San Juan Capistrano, pleaded guilty to four felony count of the unauthorized...(read more)

Physician Assistant Specialty Credentials: The Plot Thickens

Stephen Cornell — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:57:00 GMT

The NCCPA isn’t the only organization working on physician assistant specialty credentials.

Apparently, a relatively new group calling itself the American Board of Physician Assistant Specialists is looking into creating “board certification” for PAs in certain specialties.

The ABPAS recently sent out a message to the leaders of some PA specialty organizations, asking them to participate in an information session at the May AAPA conference in San Diego.

Today, the AAPA sent out a response e-mail referencing the ABPAS e-mail and emphasizing AAPA's intention to work with the NCCPA in the NCCPA’s efforts to create a specialty credential program no later than 2011.

After 40 years of little organized support for a PA specialty credential process, it suddenly seems that the profession is racing to create such a process.

The bottom line? Specialty credentialing is coming by 2011.

Will it be good for the profession? Don’t expect PAs to agree on an answer.

Practice-Focused PANRE Debut

Stephen Cornell — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:49:00 GMT

The NCCPA quietly rolled out the practice-focused PANRE this month.

Here's a little review from the NCCPA Web site:

Beginning in March 2009, PAs recertifying through PANRE will have a new choice to make. While 60% of the generalist exam will cover the same content as always, the remaining 40% can be directed in one of three areas:

Adult medicine
Surgery
Primary care

This new option gives PAs the opportunity to focus more of the exam on their general area of practice—or continue with “business as usual” by choosing the “primary care” option.

Link

NCCPA Will Develop Specialty Credential Program for Physician Assistants

Stephen Cornell — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:57:00 GMT

The NCCPA will develop a voluntary specialty credential program for physician assistants. The NCCPA has posted a statement on its Web site at www.nccpa.net/News_A_SpecialtyCredential.aspx.

After several years of thoughtful consideration of how to best serve the public interest and discussions with numerous PA and physician specialty organizations and others, at a February 8, 2009 meeting, NCCPA's Board of Directors reaffirmed its commitment to offering a mechanism for the achievement of a voluntary PA specialty credential. ...

The NCCPA is developing a model for the program and will launch the program no later than 2011, according to the statement. The statement also says that NCCPA will continue to work with AAPA, physician specialty organizations and PA specialty organizations.

How will voluntary specialty credentials affect the PA profession? Hard to say. But there has never been a shortage of opinions on the subject.

Link

12 Physician Assistant Moments for 2008

Stephen Cornell — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:07:00 GMT

This is the 448th and final post to the ADVANCE Blog for PAs in 2008. Check back on Jan. 2 for the first blog post of 2009.

Until then, here's a quick look back at some of the notable PA stories of the last year.

***

January
Annals of Family Medicine publishes a study that concludes, “Family practices employing NPs performed better than those with physicians only and those employing PAs.”
Link

February
Bill Leinweber officially joins the AAPA as its CEO and executive vice president.
Link

March
For the first time, ARC-PA grants accreditation to two clinical postgraduate PA programs: the MD Anderson Cancer Center postgraduate PA program in oncology and the Johns Hopkins Hospital Department of Surgery postgraduate PA surgical residency.
Link

April
The Society of Emergency Medicine Physician Assistants draws a record 400 PAs to its annual conference in Tucson, Ariz. Despite the shaky economy, many PA state and specialty conferences continue to draw crowds.
Link

May
PA Karen Bass is sworn in as the first African-American woman to serve as the speaker of California’s General Assembly.
Link

June
The Society of Dermatology Physician Assistants launches its Distance Learning Initiative to provide advanced training to experienced dermatology PAs.
Link

July
The NCCPA posts information about the new practice-focused PANRE on its Web site. Beginning in March 2009, PAs will be able to take recertification exams with some of the content focused on one of three areas: adult medicine, primary care or surgery.
Link

August
The Journal of Physician Assistant Education publishes a study about PA perceptions regarding entry-level doctorate degrees for the profession. The authors conclude that PAs participating in the study “do not favor the profession moving toward offering a DPA degree.”
Link

September
The number of accredited PA programs reaches an all-time high of 142.
Link

October
The Association of Family Practice Physician Assistants and ADVANCE name Washington PA Tom Hughes as the fourth Family Practice PA of the Year.
Link

November
AAPA president-elect Paul Robinson dies suddenly while returning from a meeting in Florida.
Link

December
California PA Steve Hanson wins a special election held to fill the vacant position of president-elect.
Link

Comments on ARC-PA's Standards

Stephen Cornell — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:47:00 GMT

On the topic of ARC-PA’s standards for PA programs, I have two questions.

One, why does a PA program director need to be a PA or a physician? It certainly should be a consideration, but not a requirement.

At least two terrific PA educators were not PAs: PAEA immediate past president and University of Colorado Child Health Associate PA program interim director Anita Duhl Glicken, MSW, and former Northeastern University PA program director and APAP past president Suzanne Greenberg, MS.

In fact, a review of past APAP/PAEA presidents reveals several non-PAs: Ronald D. Garcia, Jesse Edwards, Denis Oliver, Stephen Gladhart and David Lewis.

Isn’t the pool of talented medical educators shallow enough? Why exclude qualified people simply because they are not PAs?

Also, why must PA program directors be currently certified? Many program directors do not remain in clinical practice. Current certification is seems irrelevant to the ability to run a quality PA program.

Link

NCCPA's Solution for Specialty PAs

Stephen Cornell — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:51:00 GMT

Back in May 2006, the NCCPA pledged to develop "a solution to meet the needs of specialty PAs."

Since that time, the NCCPA has done a great job creating productive debate about the problems facing PAs in specialties. But it really hasn't offered any solutions.

The NCCPA hasn't forgotten its pledge. At its August board of directors meeting in Banff, Canada, the NCCPA BOD again discussed the challenges facing specialty PAs and created a work group to come up with a solution proposal by mid-2010.

Discussion on Specialty Item Development
The Board engaged in a robust discussion regarding the potential need to begin development of specialty-related items to enhance NCCPA's current item pools and at the conclusion of the discussion authorized management to begin that process and provide regular reports to the Board. In a related discussion, the Board recognized that the organization had not resolved its response to the needs of specialty PAs and tasked an ad hoc workgroup to continue those discussions and offer a solution by mid-2010 to the Board for consideration. In so doing, the Board agreed that the organization should adopt as a philosophy that the evolving certification maintenance processes and the PA competencies should guide the workgroup's discussions.

Link

PA Certification Exam Video

Stephen Cornell — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:10:00 GMT

On YouTube, a rap video about the PA certification exam from PA J-riz (thanks to the PA Forum for pointing it out).

Link to YouTube video

Meet the Practice-Focused PANRE

Stephen Cornell — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:21:00 GMT

NCCPA has posted to its Web site information about the practice-focused PANRE.

Beginning in March 2009, PAs recertifying through PANRE will have a new choice to make. While 60% of the generalist exam will cover the same content as always, the remaining 40% can be directed in one of three areas:

Adult medicine

Surgery
Primary care

This new option gives PAs the opportunity to focus more of the exam on their general area of practice—or continue with “business as usual” by choosing the “primary care” option.

Link

NCCPA CME Deadline

Stephen Cornell — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:30:00 GMT

June 30 is the last day to earn and log CME and pay the certification maintenance fee without paying a late fee.

Link

NCCPA Removes DOD from BOD

Stephen Cornell — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:43:00 GMT

The Department of Defense will no longer have a representative on the NCCPA board of directors.

After nearly 18 months, it was with significant reluctance that the NCCPA Board of Directors acknowledged the Department of Defense's position that they could no longer appoint an individual to fulfill the requirements of service and participation on NCCPA's Board of Directors. When a participating organization cannot fill the obligations of service, NCCPA's Bylaws require the removal of that organization as a participating organization.
At the same time, the NCCPA Board of Directors recognized that scores of PAs proudly serve in the military and the profession has its historical roots in the armed forces. To ensure that NCCPA has an appropriately well-balanced Board, the Governance Committee was charged to evaluate the Board's overall composition in light of this change and report their findings and recommendations to the Board of Directors.

That's just one snippet of information from the NCCPA's report of its May 3 board meeting in Hilton Head, S.C. There's more on the NCCPA Web site.

The next meeting for the NCCPA BOD and the commission's committees will be in Banff, Canada, from July 31-Aug. 3.

Link

Join the NCCPA BOD

Stephen Cornell — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:41:00 GMT

The NCCPA is looking for a director-at-large.

Any certified PA is eligible for nomination; and candidates should possess most, if not all, of the following qualities:
Maturity, sound judgment, wide-ranging intellect and personal and professional achievement
Availability and willingness to commit time needed to prepare for and attend Board and committee meetings
Ability to understand basic statistics
Good communications skills
Knowledge and understanding of the role of governing bodies
Working knowledge of financial, legal, operational or other relevant aspects of national and/or not-for-profit organizations
Commitment to high quality patient care

Link

NCCPA Update

Stephen Cornell — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:05:00 GMT

The NCCPA has posted on its Web site a summary from its February board of directors meeting.

Link

10-Year PA Recertification Cycle?

Stephen Cornell — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:38:00 GMT

It seems as though Pennsylvania PA Bernie Stuetz's effort to increase the length PA recertification cycle to 10 years is gaining momemtum.

Stuetz wrote "A Plan to Revise PA Recertification" for ADVANCE in 2006 and introduced a related resolution at the 2007 AAPA House of Delegates.

Here's an excerpt from Stuetz's ADVANCE article.

Among the problems with the current recertification system is the lack of defining and proving competence in the PA profession. Another is the fact that PAs and physicians are being treated differently. PAs should recertify every 10 years, as the ABMS recommends for its physician specialty organizations. This could be gradually put in place to coincide with the dissolution of pathway II in 2010, as the American Board of Family Medicine is doing.

Link