Written by Kim Cook, MS, PA-C
Director of Clinical Education

The Program is very pleased to have more than 10 new rural clinical partners in the 4-state area, in the disciplines of Family Medicine/Urgent Care, Women’s Health, and Psychiatry. We are very grateful for our ongoing partnerships with so many clinicians in the area, many of whom take multiple students for rotations year-after-year. Each year we are pleased that more and more of our alumni become active preceptors, and this year is no different.

It’s very exciting for us when our students are precepted by former students. One alumni who became a new preceptor this year was Kelley Menefee, PA-C, ATC. Kelley practices in orthopedic surgery with her collaborative physician, Dr. Dolce, in Ft. Worth, Texas. We were very pleased to have Kelley precept Rachel Peth for her Directed rotation.

We also love it when clinical students drop by to say hi during their clinical year. We miss them!

As has always been done in the past, the faculty continues to review and revise the clinical curriculum and work to enhance assessment processes.   This is done with internal evaluations, as well as alumni feedback.  A couple of changes that have been made this year are: several new presentations have been added to the return-to-campus days at the end of each rotation, and the students now have an OSCE at every EOR call-back experience. Another addition has been student presentations at EOR.

The Program partnered with Mercy again this year for the annual Sports Physicals clinic in Aurora, Missouri. This was a fun, successful event as it has been many years in the past. The students performed over 150 sports physicals for Aurora-area student athletes. Our students really enjoy the interaction with the athletes, and it’s a great opportunity for them to practice establishing rapport with adolescents. Depending on where the students are placed for their Clinical Practicum experience, it is sometimes the main experience our students have with children and adolescent patients. The Mercy clinicians that served as preceptors for this year’s event were all from the Emergency Department at Mercy Hospital in Aurora; they were: Dr. Jeffery Diehl, Dr. Travis Hawks, and Jared Pendergrass, PA-C and MSU alumni.

Clinical Practicum I, which is the 2-week rotation students do at the end of their summer semester, went very well this year. Students were placed with preceptors in various disciplines, primarily in the greater Springfield area. The majority of these preceptors are MSU Physician Assistant alumni. We are very grateful that we have so much support and willingness of our former students to want to help train their future colleagues.

Clinical Rotation #MedLifeMonday Facebook Features:

• Hannah Garrad
• Anna Biernbaum
• Sarah Phillips
• Gerri Idos
• Leah Krafft
• Cassidy McCandless

 

 

 

 

 

Written by Nathan Miracle, MS, PA-C
Director of Didactic Education

The summer semester brought for our students a heavy dose of medicine (no pun intended)! They traversed eight sections of Clinical Medicine in just 9 weeks, where they began to learn the nuts and bolts of medical knowledge and application. Pharmacotherapeutics introduced them to a whole new vocabulary as they learned hundreds of medications and their applications. The student’s physical exam skills were bolstered by learning special examination techniques including male and female GU examination. We are very thankful for our new partnership with the University of Missouri Simulation Center, here in Springfield, which allowed our students the opportunity to practice these examinations on standardized patients without having to leave the area. For our alumni, you can appreciate how beneficial this experience is and to not have to travel four hours away to complete this experience is such a blessing! While the summer semester went by in a flash our students still found opportunity to get together in the great outdoors and expend some pent up energy, either on the sand volleyball courts or around a spikeball net. As they move into their final semester of didactic education, our students will be provided with more opportunities to further their medical knowledge, learn clinical procedure techniques, and further their knowledge of pharmacology as they prepare for their next phase of education. This portion of their education will culminate in a White Coat Ceremony on December 10^th where our students, with friends and family in attendance, will recite the Physician Assistant Oath and be given their white laboratory coats symbolizing their transition into their clinical phase of education. The faculty and staff of the MSU PA department look forward, with great anticipation, to helping this cohort complete their didactic phase of PA education this fall semester!

Class of 2023 links:

• Clinical Medicine I with dermatology inspired cookie art (post found within facebook page)
• Licensing Presentations
• First OR Procedures Lab
• Didactic Student Scoop Kaci Hultz
• Didactic Student Scoop Sadie Turner
• Didactic Student Scoop Gabriela Sappington
• Didactic Student Scoop Ashleigh Sharkey
• Didactic Student Scoop Samuel Wilson
• Didactic Student Scoop Courtney Weatherford
• Didactic Student Scoop Ryan Liddell
• Didactic Student Scoop Olivia Eikel

The 2022-2023 application cycle officially closed on July 15, 2022, resulting in a very competitive, high-quality applicant pool with more than 720 prospective applicants including 326 verified applications. After thorough review by the Admissions Committee, sixty-four candidates received interview invitations. Throughout the month of September interview candidates will be invited to campus for Pre-Interview Orientations held each Thursday followed by individual interviews with Admission Committee members on Friday.

A note of thanks to the many volunteers from both the didactic and clinical cohorts who will facilitate pre-interview orientation student Q&A panels and facility tours.

Thanks to the MSU Advisory Board members who assist with interviewing hopeful candidates. Your dedication to the excellence of MSU PA program and the quality of the PA profession is appreciated.

Written by Roberto Canales, DHSc, MS, PA-C
MSU PA Department Head/Program Director

PAS continues to grow and make changes to meet the mission and goals of the program. The PA accreditation organization recently approved the program’s request to expand the class size from 30 up to 36 students beginning January 2023.  PAS recently updated it’s Become a Preceptor section of the website to reflect 1) the new Missouri Preceptor Tax Credit, 2) the department’s ability to provide a Faculty Appointment to eligible clinical preceptors, and 3) award CME Category I to eligible PA trained clinical preceptors. Catch up on PAS Department News below:

• Become a clinical preceptor
• PAS Staff Appreciation
• Celebrating Associate Professor Shannon Hauschildt’s birthday (post found within facebook page)
• Springfield News-Leader article featuring PA clinical student Cassidy McCandless

 

If you missed the last PAS newsletter, you could view it here: Spring 2022 Newsletter