Here is today's question for the candidates, followed by answers from each of them (listed in alphabetical order by office):
With the political face of America becoming ever more diverse, do you believe the Academy's membership, leadership and the profession reflect this diversity? If not, how would you propose the Academy increase diversity in these areas?
President-Elect
Treasurer
Director At Large
Patti Pagels, MPAS, PA-C: "Are the Academy and the profession as diverse they could be? I think we all know the answer is no. It is my belief that this problem is best tackled at the local chapter level. We need to develop and present informational programs to high school and college students in communities that are under-represented. We can create and provide scholarships to encourage application to PA programs. Just think if every member of the academy gave $100 toward scholarships for diverse students we would have more than $3 million to help fund their education. The Academy will need to determine what barriers exist toward membership for ethnic and under-represented minorities. Once these barriers are identified then we can work to remove them. As leaders we must view this lack of diversity in the profession and in leadership as a serious issue that impacts not only our members but the patients we have vowed to serve."
Robert Wooten, PA-C: "Currently I do not believe that the Academy's membership, leadership and the profession emulate the diversity of the U.S. population. Members of the caucuses have invested ties and access to the communities and can be very helpful in this effort. Working with national organizations that represent diverse populations is another way to reach the people we are trying to attract to the profession. We must promote an awareness of the PA profession among diverse populations and encourage everyone to recognize the highly positive attributes of the PA profession as a lifelong career choice. To attract diverse PAs to leadership, we must identify and mentor talented potential leaders and provide them with leadership development opportunities to maximize their abilities. Attention must be paid to leadership development as it pertains to not only the AAPA but also its constituent organizations, committees, councils, and the board of directors. The Committee on Diversity has laid the ground work by creating a document entitled "Promoting a More Diverse AAPA: Business Rationale for Diversity as a Strategic Management Imperative and Associated Leadership Criteria"and this would be a good starting point for enhancing professional activities in this area."
Linda L. Contreras, MPAS, PA-C: "Diversity does not only involve the dimension of race. It also includes factors such as: ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, and political beliefs. More importantly, it addresses our ability to understand each other and our ability to move beyond just tolerance, to celebrating and embracing our differences. Our current BOD reflects the lack of diversity in our membership and therefore our profession. If we are successful in expanding diversity within our profession, then diversity within our leadership will follow. The first step is to raise awareness by promoting our profession to students at a very early age. We also need to make PA education affordable. More practicing PAs could serve as mentors and encouragers of PA students and PAs new to our profession by exposing them to all aspects of diversity in their clinical practice. We need to incorporate diversity topics in our core ciriculums, CME programs and medical journals. While we still have a long way to go, I can assure you the AAPA is dedicated to promoting diversity not only within the AAPA leadership, but more importantly within the PA profession."
Bruce Fichandler, PA: "With about a 10 percent minority membership in the AAPA, clearly we do not reflect the national average of 34 percent minorities in this country. At the same time I believe we do have substantial group of minorities involved in the Academy leadership at virtually all levels. They serve on the board as well on committees and councils and in several liaison capacities. We need to take into consideration the composition of all groups as we select the members and try to make them as diverse as possible. We should encourage PAEA to expand their efforts into the minority communities to recruit more minorities into the profession as well as encourage the PAF to look for more ways to support minority education efforts. And, through our efforts noted in [my answer to last week’s question about health disparities], we can heighten our profile in the minority medical arena and perhaps attract more minorities into the profession. As one example of that, our representative to the AMA Coalition to End Health Care Disparities recently spoke at a meeting of students and made them aware of the PA profession for the first time."
Michael C. Doll, MPAS, PA-C, DFAAPA: "I believe that we can increase diversity within our profession by the following means:
• Go to the inner city high schools and universities to introduce the PA profession
• Advertise the PA profession within well-known and highly populated minority paper publications and Web sites
• Give scholarships from the PA foundation that are specifically focused upon minority pre-PA students • Partner with inner city hospitals and health care systems to offer scholarships to pre-PA students with the goal to have those students pay back their scholarships by working at those inner city areas for a predetermined period of time.
In order to assure that transition amongst leadership, I would support a Leadership Fellows Program within the board. The focus of this program would be to find and mentor young PAs who in the future could lead our profession. Certainly, diversity amongst the fellows could be a selection criterion of the program. Currently within the APACVS, we have a similar program which has been very successful and rewarding for both the board and the fellows. In fact, the majority of the graduating fellows have gone on to become board members."
Lawrence Herman, MPA, RPA-C, DFAAPA: "Virtually every medical society in the country struggles to achieve adequate diversity. Unfortunately, while the Academy has made significant progress to achieve diversity in our membership and leadership, we have not yet fully achieved this goal. This begins with recruitment of a diverse student body, and PAEA continues to struggle with this goal. The Academy will profit from joint PAEA/AAPA accomplishments in this arena, because diverse students ultimately result in a diverse membership, and with a diverse membership comes a corresponding enhanced leadership opportunity. By partnering with PAEA to develop a reasonably diverse student body, AAPA will have made considerable assurances of reaching each successive level of diversity."
Sandra Keavey, MPAS,PA-C: "Improving diversity within the profession is one of the components in decreasing disparity in health care. By 2050 the PEW Research Center predicts the America population will be 47 percent Caucasian, 29 percent Hispanic, 15 percent African American and 9 percent Asian. To assure that this changing landscape of America is to be reflected in the applicant pool of PA programs and subsequently in the demographics of the Academy we should take a proactive approach. In working toward equity the Academy should develop an outreach program to target minority students. The Academy should also reach out to minority members of professional groups that routinely choose to advance their careers and become PAs (such as nurses, respiratory therapy, paramedics, etc.) The profession should be presented as option for their future. As part of this outreach program members of minority groups should be encouraged to act as preceptors for students and potential PA program applicants. One avenue for the Academy is to increase outreach by working through the special interest groups that are already members of the Academy that are representative of minority groups. Active participation of minority students and members in the House of Delegates and Committee membership at the state and national level should be pursued aggressively."
Next Thursday: How should AAPA reach out to “pre-PAs”---those who are considering entering the profession? Why is this important?
Today is one of a series of posts related to the 2010 General Election of the AAPA Board of Directors. Each Thursday between now and April 1 (the day voting begins) and throughout the voting period (April 1-30) we'll be posting a question on PA Pro NOW for each of the candidates to answer. We encourage you to join the discussion by posting your own questions, comments and opinions about the future of AAPA and your profession.
Want to know more from the candidates? Post your own question or comment related to diversity and the PA profession.
