Cultural Humility in Assessment Volunteers Improve Exams With EDI Review 

This month, we delved deeper into the Cultural Humility In Assessment initiative, or CHIA, and spoke to the volunteers who make this work possible. 

PAEA Assessment Editor in Chief Melinda Blazar, EdD, MHS, PA-C, chair of the CHIA Exam Development Board, Jo Rolls, MEHP, MPAS, PA-C, and Vice-Chair David Walker, PA-C, MPAS, describe the other volunteers with whom they work as passionate and enthusiastic. They said the energy in the room at this year’s Exam Development Summit was palpable as CHIA members provided suggestions to make items more inclusive and to identify themes in the item bank for consideration of future form and style changes.  

Considering the current state of EDI in higher education, Rolls spoke to how grounding it is to work with her peers to reduce bias in item writing and the effects that she hopes it will have. Ultimately, the goal is to impact patient care by creating exams that represent the population of patients that students will be called upon to treat.  

There are many outcomes of this work however, including removing items that had biased language or cultural assumptions that could be micro-aggressions to the student taking the test. Even more so, when some pre-PAs go on to become PA faculty and the students become the teachers, they will be able to use the un-biased and culturally competent language that they were taught.  

To understand where we are today, it is important to look back at the origin of this work, almost 10 years ago at PAEA, A group including PAEA staff Chief Experience Officer Olivia Ziegler, PA, Director of Assessment Services, Emily Yunker, MPA, PMP, Director of Research & Publication, Denise Rizzolo, PhD, MPH, PA-C and volunteers Jacqueline Barnett, DHSc, MHS, PA-C and Kim Cavanagh, DHSc, PA-C, developed the original content for the cultural humility in item writing training that was delivered to hundreds of PAEA members.  

Their work was eventually accepted at IAMSE (International Association of Medical Science Educators), Duke Ahead (the Academy for Health Professions Education and Academic Development), and ABMS (American Board of Medical Specialists).  

Even back in 2016, the LGBT PA Caucus publicly recognized how PAEA was “enhancing the breadth of patient demographics represented within PACKRAT® to include same-gender couples and their dependent children, and not limiting their presence to infectious disease (ID) questions.”  

While creating culturally competent exams for PA students might appear to be a niche topic at first glance, its impact is far reaching and the work that has gone into it has been a decade in the making. Without the dedication of PAEA’s hard working volunteers, none of this would have been possible.  

A special thank you to the CHIA Exam Development Board Members: Sara Aoun, DPS, PA-C, Damian Bedoya, MD, FACEP, Amanda DeVoss, MMS, PA-C, Aubrey Fiacco, PA-C, Tracy Jackson, EdD, MA, PA-C, Brittany Macon-Davis, DMSc, PA-C, Don Martinez, MMS, PA-C, Erica Parks, PhD, PA-C, Theresa Riethle, MS, PA-C, Abby Saunders, PhD, PA-C, Daniel Tolomeo, MPAS, PA-C.  

Gratitude is also extended to the CHIA Item Bank Review Team: Maria Gluys, PA-C, MPAS, Eunice Goetz, MS, MPH, PA-C, Nicholas Goodman, MMS, PA-C, Jennifer Pantaleo, MPAS, PA-C, Sachi Patel, PA-C, Rachel Porter, PhD, MEd, Brendan Riordan, MS, PA-C, Kathy Robinson, DHSc, MPAS, PA-C, Amy Wierbowski, DMSc, MFA, MSPAS, PA-C, Brittany Wilkerson, MPAS, PA-C.  

Please look out for opportunities to be involved with CHIA coming this fall.