Advocacy in Action: How Programs and State Chapters Are Helping Shape the Future of PA Education and the Profession
Since the profession emerged in the mid-1960s, PA graduates have played a critical role in addressing health care workforce shortages. Over the years, the profession has continued to evolve through the collective efforts of educators, students, clinicians, and professional leaders working toward a common goal: ensuring that patients have access to high-quality health care. While education and clinical excellence remain central to that mission, advocacy has become increasingly important in advancing and protecting the profession. Advocacy partnerships – especially those between PA education and state chapters – give all stakeholders an opportunity to shape the future of the profession.
The Importance of Partnerships Between Programs and State Chapters
For PA educators, advocacy is especially important because decisions made by state legislatures and regulatory agencies often have direct implications for educational programs and students. Policies affecting clinical site access, funding for PA education and the health care workforce, and practice regulations can ultimately influence the ability of programs to prepare future PAs to meet the evolving needs of patients and the communities they serve. Across the nation, PA programs and state chapters are discovering that meaningful advocacy partnerships can strengthen the profession, support students and graduates, and influence policies that affect the PA workforce. By combining a state chapter’s legislative expertise, advocacy infrastructure, and relationships with policymakers with PA programs’ faculty expertise, student engagement, and firsthand experiences, these partnerships create a powerful network of PA champions capable of delivering a unified message to decision-makers.
Partnerships can include:
- Joint participation in state advocacy days
- Legislative visits involving faculty, state chapter leadership, institutional leadership, students, and alumni
- Collaborative responses to proposed legislation and regulations
- Outreach efforts that highlight PA graduates’ impact
- Joint grassroots action campaigns and advocacy training
- Participation in forums, conferences, or virtual engagements
- Educational sessions on health policy and the PA profession
These and other activities can help build or reinforce a culture of advocacy within the program, develop future PA champions, and ensure that the voices of PA educators, students, and clinicians are represented in important policy conversations.
Partnerships in Action:
Through various collaborations, state chapters, PA programs, and students have demonstrated that sustained advocacy can elevate the voice of the profession. The most effective advocacy efforts are rarely the result of a single meeting or legislative session. Rather, they are built through years of relationship building and ongoing engagement from PA educators, students, clinicians, professional organizations, and other stakeholders. Therefore, strong partnerships between PA programs and state chapters will remain essential to advancing policies that support educators, practicing PAs, and patients.
Several PA programs have incorporated advocacy and leadership development into the educational experience, often in partnership with state chapters. For example, faculty, students, and alumni from Campbell University’s PA program joined other PAs for the North Carolina Academy of Physician Associates’ annual PA Day at the General Assembly in Raleigh this summer. During the event, they met with state leaders and discussed the role PAs play in addressing health care needs across the state. Similarly, in Virginia, James Madison University’s PA program participates in “White Coats on Call,” an annual grassroots advocacy event hosted by the Virginia Academy of PAs and the Medical Society of Virginia that brings PAs, PA students, and physicians to meet with their state legislators and discuss challenges facing healthcare in Virginia. As these examples demonstrate, collaborative efforts between PA programs and state chapters can amplify the profession’s voice, bridge the gap between educational and professional issues, and shape policies that benefit both patients and providers.
By engaging in advocacy, PA educators and students help ensure that decisions affecting the profession are informed by those who understand its value firsthand. Even small efforts can have a significant impact over time and together, educators, students, state chapters, and other stakeholders can continue to shape a stronger future for the profession.
As always, PAEA remains committed to highlighting opportunities for collaboration and stakeholder engagement to address programs’ core challenges. To learn more about state-level advocacy efforts and involvement with state chapters or to share information about advocacy efforts at your program, please contact Tyler Smith, chief policy officer, at tsmith@PAEAonline.org or Lizeth Zardeneta, state advocacy and external affairs manager, at lzardeneta@PAEAonline.org.
