PAs Making a Difference

“I don’t know of anybody [else] who’s a PA who gets to fly into hurricanes, gain additional training as a dive medical officer and plan for natural disasters. Medicine doesn’t have to be a 9-to-5 position.”

As the 2018 Olympics began, PA Kyle Wilkens, 52, was on hand as director of medical services for U.S. Ski & Snowboard, the federation governing America’s national teams in those sports. He also works four days a month in a sports medicine and orthopedic surgery practice in Park City, Utah. Read about Wilkens’ preparation for and experience during and after the 2018 Winter Olympic games.

In 2016, Major Andrew Fisher, MPAS, APA, PA-C, saw a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study that found that up to 20 percent of U.S. trauma deaths could be prevented. Fisher had been involved for years with a bleeding control training program and became an instructor for the American College of Surgeons’ Stop the Bleed program. Then he partnered with others to start an advocacy campaign called National Stop the Bleed Day on March 31st.

It was around 10:08 p.m. that Stephen Paddock opened fire on the more than 20,000 people at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival from his hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. The shooting lasted about 10 minutes. Fifty-eight people died and more than 500 people had injuries. Here, three PAs share their stories about providing care in the hours following the tragedy.

U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel James Jones, PA, has experienced several dramatic medical moments in his near-decade at the White House. He has also visited 72 countries and every U.S. state in his job, which entails caring for the president, vice president, Cabinet secretaries, key White House personnel, some of their families and tourists visiting the building.

Self-defense instructor Katie Thompson worked as an emergency medical technician for several years in South Central Los Angeles, but she always felt she needed to do more. She began shadowing PAs and quickly realized it was the perfect career for her. Soon after graduating from MEDEX Northwest, the PA program at the University of Washington, Thompson accepted a position as a forensic examiner at the Center for Assault Treatment Services (CATS) in Van Nuys, Calif.

Christina Starks, PA-C, saw a job listing on Craigslist in 2016 for a PA at a rheumatology private practice in Honolulu. The job turned out to be a perfect fit. She became the first PA in rheumatology in the state of Hawaii. Since then, Starks has made an impact on both the profession and her patients.

A Day in the Life of a PA in Clinical Research.