In lieu of my comments about conferences, I thought I could encourage any of you PA student or future PA student readers to make a concerted effort during your student years to make it to the AAPA's IMPACT annual conference because it's stellar. The hashtag of this year's conference was #PAsTakeDC and was held at one of Washington's biggest ...

A thought struck me this week as I stood at the steps of the U.S. Capitol building. It hit me again as I ran past the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. I am young. I don't mean young as in ''young, up-and-coming PA'' or, ''Boy, you look way too young to be holding that scalpel.'' I mean that I realized my life has been just a ...

For the PA profession, the AAPA's annual IMPACT conference is like Thanksgiving Day wrapped in Halloween and smothered in the Fourth of July. It really is the center of the social, educational and leadership universe around which the rest of the PA calendar rotates. If you don't believe me, ask anyone who ventured to Vegas two years ago (what ...

A new patient (below), a 60-year-old woman, presented for ''spongiotic dermatitis'' diagnosed after a biopsy in March 2011.  At the time, she received cortisone cream and no follow-up appointment. She comes to my office because she is concerned that the spot never went away and now it is very sore and tender. A shave biopsy shows this to be ...

The time has come! I've passed boards, obtained my state license and I am scheduled to have ''temporary privileges'' at my facility next week! This is such an exciting time for my family and me! We've worked so hard for so many years and this is it. The really amusing thing? I opened the mail a couple of weeks ago when my license came through ...

Editor's note: This blog is written by Anthony J. Hall, RN, BSN, behavioral health charge nurse at Atlanta Medical Center. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) means major changes in the way Americans view health issues and treatment options. While there is increased optimism building around the plan's effect on patient care, ...

The real tragedy of getting a medical education is not the understanding of your own mortality or quantification of personal risk factors. It's not even the fact that friends and colleagues want you to look at something awful that is growing out of their body (I was sure that was a myth). It is the loss of good television. An EMT friend of mine ...

Each month, ADVANCE for NPs & PAs compiles your comments on the latest issues in our Comments & Feedback column. We'd love to hear from you with topics of concern, the latest news for NPs & PAs, what your state organizations are up to, or anything else that piques your interest. Below are three of our latest Comments & ...

Was it losing weight? Spending more time with your family? Dragging your body to the gym? Reading more books? When's the last year you set a new year's resolution? And how far did you get before you broke it? And why are you so discouraged about trying again in 2013? We students in the medical field are required to study behavior change ...

On www.advanceweb.com/NPPA, our most commented articles were: Teams, Practice Models and Patients: ''As a full time clinician my team and I have been doing outcomes research on an interdisciplinary model of stroke rounds in an acute care setting. The four habits mentioned in this article we have used in our model. In fact I recently took a ...