2020 STAR Recipient Selected 

PAEA is pleased to announce that Quincy Jones, MSW, MHS, PA-C, assistant professor at the Duke University PA program, has been selected as the 2020 PAEA Support to Advance Research (STAR) Program awardee. As the recipient, she will be able to include her own survey questions in PAEA’s annual Program Survey to advance her research.

Jones’ study, LGBTQ Curriculum in Physician Assistant Programs, focuses on the amount and delivery of curricular content related to caring for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) populations. As principal investigator, Jones is joined by co-investigators:

• Mara Sanchez, MMS, PA-C, RD assistant professor at the Duke University PA program
• Susan Hibbard, PhD, assistant professor at the Duke University PA program
• Joanne Rolls, MPAS, MEHP, PA-C, assistant professor at the University of Utah and recipient of the 2018 PAEA STAR Program award

Jones, who cares for LGBTQ patients as a family medicine PA, recognizes the need to be prepared to care for sexual and gender minority (SGM) patients to reduce the health disparities experienced by these populations. However, the current medical education literature regarding the adequacy of medical learners’ preparation to provide quality care for these populations has multiple gaps. For instance, it is unknown how much time PA programs devote to teaching LGBTQ curricula and in various settings and courses, and which subgroups of the SGM population are addressed. Jones and her fellow researchers seek to establish benchmarks to guide PA educators in their inclusion of LGBTQ curricular content.

“By shedding light on how and when PA programs are educating their learners on this content, resources that are used to support content delivery, and barriers faced, programs can better evaluate their own delivery of LGBTQ content in their curriculum,” explained Jones. PA programs may find additional benefits from the implications of this research “as they assess their curriculum and ensure alignment with the ARC-PA Standards related to caring for sexual and gender minorities.”

PAEA annually provides one PA faculty researcher the opportunity to include their own survey questions in the PAEA Program Survey, which is typically administered annually to all PAEA member programs and routinely obtains response rates of over 90 percent. This unique opportunity allows the awardee to receive de-identified data from their survey questions to analyze for their own research. Led by chair Trenton Honda, PhD, MMS, PA-C, the PAEA Grants & Scholarship Review Committee conducted the application review process. Jones’ project was selected out of a competitive pool of applicants, whose blinded applications detailed the goals of their research projects and proposed survey questions.

To read our full interview with Jones and her colleagues click here.

Due to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 crisis and the subsequent suspension of the 2020 PAEA Program Survey, the questions developed by Jones and her team will be included in the next planned administration of the Program Survey in 2021. PAEA will not hold a separate STAR competition in 2021. Though delayed, PAEA looks forward to the scholarly work and anticipated impact this research will likely produce.

Congratulations to Quincy and her team!