The Society of Army Physician Assistants
Welcome to the Society of Army Physician Assistant's (S.A.P.A.) Home Page. S.A.P.A. is a constituent chapter of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA). S.A.P.A. is a civilian organization to represent and support the the U.S. Army Physician Assistant, including, Former, Active, Retired, Reserve and National Guard PA's. The Society's goals are to provide a forum for discussion, representation with the AAPA, and to provide high quality, low cost CME (continuing medical education) to the Society's members and the PA profession.
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33rd Annual SAPA PA Refresher course is Preapproved by the AAPA for 35 Category 1 CME credits/hours (see below)
February 6, 2012 Bob Potter, Conference Coordinator orpotter@aol.com Society of Army Physician Assistants P.O. Box 623 Monmouth, IL 61462 Dear Mr. Potter: The Physician Assistant Review Panel is pleased to award a maximum of 35 hours of AAPA Category I CME credit to the program entitled 33rd Annual SAPA PA Refresher Course provided by the Society of Army Physician Assistants. This approval is valid for one year beginning April 23, 2012 if the program content does not change. Reference to AAPA Category I CME approval must be presented in the following form. This statement must be included on the certificate of completion distributed to all physician assistant participants. This program has been reviewed and is approved for a maximum of 35 hours of AAPA Category I CME credit by the Physician Assistant Review Panel. Physician assistants should claim only those hours actually spent participating in the CME activity. This program was planned in accordance with AAPA’s CME Standards for Live Programs and for Commercial Support of Live Programs.
Newsletter Updated - October 31st 2011
33rd Annual PA Refresher Course Information Updated October 25th 2011
SAPA Corporate Associate Program Updated October 2011
SAPA Scholarship Program - July 4th 2011
SAPA Conference Information Page SAPA Membership Page SAPA Links Page SAPA Corporate Associate Program
SAPA 2007 Scholarship Program and Application Newsletter Editor Board of Directors
29th Annual Conference Highlites The Captain Sean P. Grimes Physician Assistant Educational Scholarship Award
SAPA PA Jobs Page SAPA Mentor's Page Annual SAPA Scholarship Program
2011 -2012 Election Results
President Elect: Frank Piper
Active Duty Director: Pauline Gross
Retired Army PA Director: Casey Bond
Secretary: Karen McMillan
Treasurer: Jim Miller
Army Reserve Director: Tanya Moore
Army National Guard Director: Nolan A. Wright
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Annual Continuing Medical Education (CME) Conference
The 32nd Annual Society of Army Physician Assistants PA Refresher Course was held April 11 through April 15, 2011 at the I-95 Holiday Inn and Convention Center in Fayetteville North Carolina. There were 426 fellow PA's, NP's, RN's and physicians in attendance. This year the conference was fairly successful. The conference was approved through the AA PA 35 category one CME hours. This year, there were several new and several former speakers giving lectures on a wide variety of topics, both traditional and some nontraditional. Part of my goal as the conference coordinator is to change at least 80% of the lecture content from year-to-year. As always we strive to provide our members with high quality, low-cost CME. This was accomplished again. In addition to continuing the individual class evaluations and feedback on individual lectures, we added another new feature this year. This year, the conference was registered through the NCCPA in advance of the conference. By doing this, people are able to go directly to the NCC PA website and click on the conference link and log their hours for the classes that they have attended. This can speed the process of getting their hours logged with the NCCPA.
Sunday afternoon, the hotel again provided a Carolina picnic with pulled pork, barbecued chicken, hot dogs and burgers with all the trimmings. The food was great, and the hotel the next year it will be even better. In addition to this, we had music provided by our favorite DJ, "Jammin Jimmy". Monday night was the President's Reception. After a few words by our current president Sherry Womack, PAC, an enjoyable evening was had by all. The only way to describe the food was "WOW". The display was tremendous and the food exceptional. We will have photos up on the website later showing this display. This was followed by music by The Band of OZ", followed by DJ music and karaoke with "Jammin Jimmy". Tuesday night was the evening of choices. The Deuces Wild crew had their Third Annual Casino Night. All funds raised for this activity goes to the SAPA Scholarship fund. This year they raised about $800 during this activity. In addition, Baron's restaurant had DJ music and karaoke with "Jammin Jimmy" going on well into the night. Wednesday evening, again became an evening of choices. Karen Reedy and Regina DeMarco started a movie night with donations going to the scholarship fund. Through this they raised $68. In addition, the musical voices of karaoke were going full blast in Barron's restaurant with "Jammin Jimmy". Thursday evening was the 32nd Annual SAPA Banquet and Dining Out. This allows the organization to recognizes individuals who have excelled. The evening began with the posting of the colors by the 82nd Airborne Colorguard. The national anthem and several other songs were also provided by the world famous 82nd Airborne Chorus. The winners of the annual poster contest were announced and they receive their winnings and their certificates if they were present. Winning first place in the poster contest was Ronald E Ellison, PAC with a poster entitled "Keeping Up with the Kids: The Army Learning Center. Second place was won by major Roberto E Marin, PAC, the poster entitled:" Blood Lead and Zinc Protoporphin Surveillance". Third place was won by Lieut. Cmdr. Josef Rivero, PAC, with a poster entitled: "Unique Roles of PHS PAs at Federal Bureau of Prisons". Congratulations to all three of our winners, and hopefully next year will we have even more entries. Individuals who had assisted with the conference either in advance or at the conference were presented President's Certificates. Those individuals receiving present certificates were: Lori Wysong, Bob Egberg, Tom Matherley, Rita Ward, Phyllis Lowe, Nicole Potter, Judy Potter, Irv Fish, Gene Crandall, Christa Waller, Karen Reedy, Regina DeMarco, Taryn Hutchison, Sue Johnson, Jimmy Malone, Megan Malone, Carol Sterche, John Wooten, Ron Monce, Zabulon Wilkin, Becky Morgan, Ed Limonte, Jonathan Greene, Christopher Adams and Thomas Walker. This was followed by the recognition of the former winners of the Scully Award. The Scully Award is an award is presented annually by the president of the organization to the person that they feel has done the most for the organization over the last 12 months. This year's recipient was presented by Pres. Sherry Womack to John Detro, PAC. John has taken over the job of newsletter editor and has turned the SAPA newsletter into an outstanding document. Our newsletter now competes with any of the other chapter newsletters of the AAPA. This was followed by the recognition of the members of the society Hall of Fame. Each of the attending members of the Hall of Fame were asked to stand. This is an award presented to individuals for their career long devotion to the organization. This is not given annually, but is only given when recommendations are made. This year's awardee was Stephen W Ward, PAC. Steve has been a past president, past board member, and head of numerous committees to include the sales committee and the IT committee. Steve plans to retire from medicine this year and devote his time to the ministry and to medical missionary work.. We want to wish him well for his future. He has promised to come back and provide a lecture next year on stress fractures on the active-duty soldier. We are going to hold them to this. We had several special guests also in attendance, the 18th Airborne Corps Surgeon, Lt. Col. Dwight Rickard, Combat Artist Steward Wavell-Smith, Frank and Diana Delpalazzo, and our guest speaker, FORSCOM Surgeon Col (BG Designee) Brian Lein. After Col Lein's spoke, the SAPA Grog was prepared and consumed.
This was followed by the Annual Auction for the scholarship fund. Through the sales of the auction, and individual donations by several in attendance, $2405 were put towards the scholarship fund. In addition, Steve Ward the chairman of the sales booth committee reported that an additional $4145.54 were the profits from the sales booth this year and that will be going also directly to the scholarship fund
As with everything, there was always room for improvement, Lt. Col. John Balser was able to attend this year, and provide a briefing for the active-duty PAs and anyone else interested. Additionally, he provided a lecture for all of the personnel attending the conference. Due to the last minute changes due to the possible government shutdown, the HRC represent it was not able to attend again this year. We will try again to have that person attend next year. Our membership director Paul Lowe reported that we currently have 731 members. With this, this still gives us lots of room to improve.
As many can see, this year we were down both in numbers of attendees and were still low on exhibitor's. We are going to try to put out information to more of the PAs located in the region to Fayetteville that we have in the past. Hopefully this will improve our attendance for next year. As for the exhibitors, I have been looking for many new sources of exhibitors over the last several years, the area where I am having the most trouble finding exhibitors is contacting the local representatives in the Fayetteville area. To correct this, if anyone is practicing in the civilian market in the Fayetteville area please contact me. What I would like for a few people to do, is to collect business cards in September and the first two weeks of October and send those business cards to me. I would make all contacts from that point to bring more of the local exhibitors back to the conference. Additionally, another good source of new contacts is anyone who is attending another conference. Here again, if you were to go through the exhibit hall, collect business cards of anyone exhibiting. Send those to me and I will contact them to see if they would like to exhibit at our conference in the future.
This year, several people step forward and offer to present classes for next year's conference. In addition, several have stated that they would be faxing in the speaker forms for next year. I am always looking for additional speakers, as I try to rotate most of the speakers from year-to-year. Some that I did not use in 2011 I will be using in 2012. If you have a subject that you are passionate about please fill out one of these forms and fax it into me so that we can add you to our speaker database.
Lastly, the 33rd Annual SAPA PA Refresher Course will be held April 23 through April 27, 2012 at the same location, the Holiday Inn at I-95 Hotel and Convention Center. Please keep this in mind for next year's conference and hope to see everyone next April in Fayetteville. Keep an eye out on the website for updates and the projected schedule, and also for the mailing of the hard copy packets in January of 2012.
Thank you Bob Potter, PA-C, MPAS SAPA Conference CoordinatorGO TO NEW PAGE LISTING CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE 29th ANNUAL PA REFRESHER COURSE.
Nurse Practitioners: According to the American Nurses Credentialing Center, you are now permitted to earn and file CE credits for programs accredited by the AAPA. For more information, please visit: http://www.nursecredentialing.org/Certification/CertificationRenewal/UniqueRequirements/ContinuingEducationHours.aspx
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The following was Adopted in 1995 and Amended in 1996 by the AAPA House of Delegates.
Physician Assistants are health professionals licensed or in the case of those employed by the Federal Government, credentialed to practice medicine with physician supervision. Physician assistants are qualified by graduation from an accredited physician assistant educational program and/or certification by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants. Within the physician/PA relationship, physician assistants exercise autonomy in medical decisionmaking and provide a broad range of diagnostic and therapeutic services. The clinical role of physician assistants include primary and specialty care in medical and surgical practice settings in rural and urban areas. Physician assistant practice is centered on patient care and may include educational, research, and administrative activities.
The modern physician assistant profession officially began on October 6th 1967. This was the date the first Physician Assistant class of four students graduated from the Duke University PA Program. From this humble beginning, there are now over 35,000 graduate PA's and 96 accredited programs. The profession continues to grow.
As a profession, PA's can trace a similar history to the Middle-Ages. At that time, the name used was Barber -Surgeons. Barber-Surgeons were trained through an apprenticeship. During this time in history, formally trained physicians were available only to the rich and titled. Barber-Surgeons were the traveling care providers for all others.
The first use of non-physician care providers in the United States was during the Civil War. The term used for the profession during this period was "Surgeon's Assistants". The Union Army utilized these to the extent of making it's own branch called the Surgeon's Assistants Corp.
Each time the profession has reappeared, there was a physician shortage. The most recent shortage and rebirth was during the 1960's. The founding fathers of the PA profession saw this shortage and a potential solution. Dr. Eugene Stead and other physicians at Duke University saw a group of individuals with a tremendous amount of hands on experience, but lacked formal training and recognition.These were the combat medics from the Armed Services who had served in the Republic of Viet Nam. These physicians began the first formal Physician Assistant Training Program, at Duke in 1965.The program was developed, based on a medical model, similar to the way physicians were fast track trained during World War II.
The U.S. Army was also losing many physicians to civilian practice. They quickly saw the benefit of PA's. Congress authorized the training of four hundred Army PA's. The training began in 1971, with the first class graduating in July of 1973. The other services quickly followed the Army's lead and established their own programs.
Today, PA's work in all types of medical and surgical practice situations. Advanced training in the form of formal residencies are available in some of the specialties. October 6th has been designated as National Physician Assistant Day in honor of the first graduating class. October 6th 1997 will be the 30th anniversary of the profession. From 4 to 35,000 in 30 years, good growth. The future for the profession continues to look extremely bright.
The American Academy of Physician Assistants
The American Academy of Physician Assistants was founded in 1968 to provide a national professional society to represent all physician assistants in every area of medicine and to promote the profession to the public. The AAPA is structured to provide a chartered constituent chapter for each state, the District of Columbia, Guam, Veteran Affairs and each of the Uniformed Services. The AAPA House of Delegates, consisting of delegates from each chapter, is the policy making branch of the AAPA. The Society of Army Physician Assistants is one of these chartered chapters. Visit the AAPA Web site at aapa.org.
History of the Society of Army Physician Assistants
During the summer of 1976, a group of Army PAs, stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, saw the need for a civilian organization to represent the Army PA. The first recorded official meeting was on September 24, 1976. A proposed Constitution and By-Laws were adopted at this meeting. These documents were forwarded to the AAPA for approval. Mr. Woodrow Ace, PA-C was notified on November 26, 1976 by Martha L. Wilson, Executive Assistant of the AAPA, that SAPA's application had been received and forwarded to the Constituent Chapter Committee Chairman, Mr. James Konopa, for approval. SAPA was approved as a chartered constituent chapter of the AAPA on April 4, 1977. The official charter document was received on July 25, 1977. The SAPA Board of Directors during the application process were as follows: President-Woodrow Ace, Vice President-Danny Englund, Secretary-Phillip Cordova, Treasurer-Michael Newman, and Student Representative-Michael Williams. A new Board of Directors was appointed in April 1977 concurrent with the approval of The Charter.
The 1st SAPA Board of Directors, as a chartered chapter of the AAPA, were: President-Rafael Oscar San Juan, Vice President-Robert A. Jones, Secretary-Paul Cephus, and Treasurer-Charlie Mitchell. Committee chairmans were CME-Francisco Bernal III, Public Affairs-Timothy Davis, Conus Coordination-Donald Mangarelli, and Overseas Coordination-Christopher Luck.
Due to the frequent movement of military personnel, SAPA struggled throughout the 1970's and early 1980's. The Society planned and held a small CME in 1979 at Ft. Belvoir, VA. This initial meeting was well received by all who attended. The U.S. Army Surgeon General, in 1980, indicated that he wanted an annual medical conference for the Army PA. The first was held in Fayetteville, N.C. in 1980. The first Army Annual PA Refresher Course was attended by about 60 Army and Air Force PA's. This started a relationship that lasted until 1994. Throughout this time, the conference was known as "The Office of the Army Surgeon General, in conjunction with the Society of Army Physician Assistants Annual PA Refresher Course." The annual conference provided a vehicle to conduct the Society's business and have formal meetings in conjunction with the high quality, low cost CME.
The mid-eighties brought new life to the society. This was the latest proposal for commissioning of the Army PA's. During this period, membership grew to over 800. The commissioning of Army PA's began in February 1992. After this peak, the society's membership has stabilized at around 600.
Starting in 1995, the society assumed full responsibility for the annual conference. This conference is the 2nd largest PA conference in the US, drawing attendees from all branches of the uniform services, retired, and civilian PA's. The Society of Army Physician Assistants Annual PA Refresher Course remains the most cost effective, high quality CME available. Visit our conference web page for more information.
Other benefits of membership include a high quality, bi-monthly newsletter. With membership spread worldwide in peace and war, interesting articles are available. See the newsletter web page for more information. Members are also provided with a lapel pin and a membership directory. There are membership categories for all PA's and other groups. See the membership page for more information.
The vision a few dedicated Army PA's had in 1976 has grown beyond anything that they imagined possible. The Society is a dynamic, healthy, and exciting organization. The future for the Society is extremely bright. Make yourself part of the Society's future, visit our membership home page.