Moves & Milestones: November 2016

Two PA Educators Appointed to Federal Advisory Committee

Patricia McKelvey Dieter, MPA, PA-C, and Vicki Chan-Padgett, MPAS, PA-C, have been appointed by Health & Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell to the Advisory Committee on Training in Primary Care Medicine and Dentistry (ACTPCMD). Dieter is a professor and PA division chief in the Department of Community and Family Medicine at the Duke University School of Medicine. Chan-Padgett, now retired, was the founder and director of Touro University Nevada’s PA program for over 12 years. She is currently vice chair of the committee and will serve as the next chair — the first PA to do so.

ACTPCMD is a federal committee that provides recommendations to the Secretary and Congress concerning policy, program development, and other matters of significance concerning the HRSA Bureau of Health Workforce. The 17-member committee is comprised of physicians, dentists, a dental hygienist, a nurse, and two PAs.

Penn State PA Students Receive Tuition Help 

Penn State’s PA program, partnering with their College of Medicine, has been awarded the HRSA Primary Care and Enhancement Grant, which will defray expenses for students performing primary care rotations in underserved communities. This grant helps further the program’s goal of offering an educational experience that will attract, enroll, and support diverse, academically qualified students. For the program’s first three enrolled classes, 40, 43, and 53 percent of their student body self-identified with one or more disadvantages or as part of an underrepresented population.

This HRSA grant joins several other supports in place to help Penn State PA students with tuition costs. For example, the program has frozen tuition and student fees for the 2016–17 school year to save students more than $1,650 each, and the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center — of which the PA program is a part — offers a recruitment and retention bonus of $25,000 to graduates who stay to work for at least three years.