PAs Go Beyond

PA Kris Himmerick spent three months in Ireland as a Fulbright Scholar researching how graduates of the country’s only PA program are integrating into their healthcare teams. Himmerick shares what they learned through more than two dozen interviews with PAs and their colleagues, and how they built a career which allows them to shift between patient care and academia.

After the initial shutdowns at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, PAs like Michelle Petropoulos and Rob Knutson joined production crews to get filming back up and running. With three years of experience on the set of shows such as Succession and The Time Traveler’s Wife, they were able to expand on the critical skills needed to provide high-quality care to their patients.

Finding solutions for the large number of patients that don’t qualify for bariatric surgery is what led Karli Burridge to shift her career focus away from primary care and toward the field of obesity medicine.

PA Elochukwu Osoego wanted to decrease the number of patients going to overcrowded ERs in Jefferson City, Missouri. So, he and his wife, NP Dara Osoego, opened their own urgent care, Innovative Medical Clinic, with a focus on high-level services, transparent pricing, and stellar customer care.

Lieutenant Casie Parker, DMSc, PA-C, joined the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) to serve the underserved. She does this every day as a lead surgical PA serving veterans in Florida. But as an officer with USPHS, she has also stepped in as a medical provider on tours that offer unparalleled experiences, like her most recent stint on an NOAA ship traveling 100 miles off the West Coast.

Josanne K. Pagel, M.Div., MPAS, PA-C, DFAAPA, EBS, is the 2023 recipient of the Eugene A. Stead Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award. One of the first early PAs in administration, Pagel has been a committed advocate for the profession and is well-known for advancing PA practice in her home state of Ohio.

Mary K. Banahan, PA-C, is the 2023 recipient of the PA of the Year Award. An educator and volunteer, Banahan is passionate about raising awareness around perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and improving maternal mental health among Indigenous women.