2023 Student Presentations

10:15 – 11:15 a.m. How to Ace Your Job Interview Through the Eyes of a Clinician & Faculty

• Presenters: Clay Walker, PA-C and Daniel Champigny, PA-C
• You have now passed all your end or rotation and program exams. You have excelled on your PANCE, but now one of the most significant feats is acing your job interview.
• The job interview process for newly graduated PA students can be a tremendous source of anxiety, leading to feelings of unpreparedness. Throughout our education, we are all well suited with the tools to appropriately evaluate, diagnose, and treat medical conditions – but have you been given the tools to excel in your job interview?
• In this small interactive session, we will cover general tips for success when applying and interviewing for positions as a PA, as well as how to attack commonly asked interview questions. We will also have interactive mock interview sessions with the participants, providing them with a safe environment to practice their interviewing skills, which is also a learning environment.

1:00-2:00 p.m. The New Grad’s Ultimate Guide to Salary Negotiation

• Presenter: Sami Ngo, PA-C
• This presentation will provide a quick guide for PA students to negotiate their first PA salary. We will address negotiation mindset, debunk negotiation myths, and address strategies to effectively negotiate salary and benefits. We will discuss Sam’s three-step negotiation framework: interview, contracts, and salary negotiation. We use the interview stage to collect data, the employment contract stage to synthesize the data, and the negotiation stage to leverage the data.

2:15-3:15 p.m. Networking Event: Neurology

• Presenter: Allyson Hamacher, PA-C, RD
• Neurologic complaints and exams can be intimidating even to an experienced clinician. Join PA leader Allyson Hamacher, PA-C, RD, for a brief session with case studies, and tips and tricks for neurology tests. The presentation and Q&A session will be followed by facilitated networking with PA Hamacher and PAs working in neurology.

9:00-10:00 a.m. NCCPA for Students: PANCE at a Glance

• Presenter: Jeff Boswell, NCCPA
• “PANCE at a Glance” focuses on helping students prepare for the PANCE – not like an exam review course, but in a way that builds confidence by helping to create a plan for exam day success. Students will get a full-picture view on the entirety of the PANCE experience, from how and when to apply for the exam through what to expect on exam day at a Pearson Vue testing center.
• PANCE at a Glance looks specifically at how clinically practicing PAs construct the questions on PANCE, dissects the current Content Blueprint for PANCE, and uncovers useful preparation tools that some students may not realize are available.

10:15-11:15 a.m. Networking Event: Emergency Medicine

• Presenter: Fred Wu, MHS, PA-C
• Emergency medicine is the third most popular specialty for PAs. Join emergency medicine PA Fred Wu, MHS, PA-C for a brief presentation and Q&A on tips for a successful emergency medicine rotation, how to enter the emergency medicine specialty, and where to look for a job. Student attendees are then invited to stay for facilitated networking with PA Wu and PAs working in emergency medicine.

12:45 – 1:45 p.m. Clinical Year: Being on the Other Side

• Presenter: Paul Gonzalez, MPAS, PA-C
• This session will cover how to succeed during the clinical phase of PA school, including study methods, test taking strategies, developing a study plan, and time management skills. We’ll review what study plans might look like; cover sample test questions and how to tackle them to ensure you’re answering the question; and talk about ways to commit large volumes of information to memory. We will cover what resources to use and which to avoid. This is a compilation of all of the things I’ve learned as a clinical year faculty member after successfully remediating clinical year students.

2:00-3:00 p.m. Networking Event: Navigating Parenthood & Your PA Journey

• Presenters: Stephanie Neary, MPA, MMS, PA-C and Mary Ruggeri, Med, MMS, PA-C
• This interactive session will bring students together with two parents, who are also PA faculty, to discuss the unique challenges facing students and early career PAs who are parents (or prospective parents). The session will begin with a brief presentation of the current literature supporting the need for more inclusive and accessible parental leave policies, and introducing students to ways they can advocate for change. Students will learn about advocacy efforts and form connections for support, and the presenters will learn more about the unique needs of this student population. The presentation and Q&A will be followed by facilitated networking with PA Neary, PA Ruggeri, and other practicing PAs juggling parenthood.

3:15-4:15 p.m. Student Leadership Panel

• Moderator: Student Academy President Natalie Crump, MS, PA-C
• Panelists: Patti Cuartas, PA-C, MBA, PMP, FACHE, ACHIP, Executive Director & Associate Chief Medical Informatics Officer at Mount Sinai Health System; Beth R. Smolko, DMSc, PA-C, DFAAPA, Associate Corporate Medical Director at JP Morgan Chase; and Brendan K. Lucas, MPAS, PA-C, PA with DispatchHealth
• Join the Student Academy President Natalie Crump, MS, PA-C as she moderates the 2023 Leadership Panel. Panelists will share their leadership and career paths and will also take questions from the audience. PA students, pre-PAs, and early career PAs are invited to attend this session.

9:30-10:30 a.m. Learning Clinical Skills Does Not Need to Be a Bore!

• Presenters: Victoria Ho, MPAS, PA-C and Sandy Narciso-Owen, MS, MSPAS, PA-C
• Do you remember the process of learning clinical skills in school as a structured, impersonal to-do list? Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. During this presentation, you will learn about other techniques, resources, and unique ways to hone valuable clinical skills and procedures that are not only memorable, but fun. Learning clinical skills as a student is an opportunity for you to shine and utilize your medical foundational building blocks. This is an important part of your education and PA school experience, as it usually signifies the transition from your didactic year to your clinical year. It should be more than being taught the skill and then replicating it as you check it off your list! Ways to break the monotony while making learning fun and competitive include incorporating scavenger hunts, relay races, trivia, and team bonding. See how one PA program incorporated this into their curriculum and why it became a success with students.

10:45-11:45 a.m. Networking Event: Cardiothoracic Surgery

• Presenter: Kaci Hardsock, MS, PA-C
• Join AAPA Graduate Advisor Kaci Hardsock, MS, PA-C for a brief presentation on the critical role cardiothoracic surgery PAs play both in and out of the operating room. During this session, the speaker will discuss the types of patients treated, the surgeries performed, and the variety of settings one can work. Disclaimer: You do not have to like the operating room to work in this specialty! The presentation and Q&A will be followed by facilitated networking with PA Hardsock and PAs practicing in cardiovascular surgery.

1:00-2:00 p.m. Cognitive Bias: How Do We Rethink How We Think?

• Presenter: Darcie Larimore-Arenas, PA-C, MSPAS, MPH
• Cognitive bias is pervasive in clinical practice and is implicated in hundreds of thousands of medical errors in the United States annually. Cognitive biases, or heuristics, are mental shortcuts that impact medical decision-making. This presentation is designed to help learners reduce misdiagnosis by recognizing and limiting the effects of cognitive errors in clinical year rotations and future practice. Students will learn about the errors our minds make when evaluating patients, analyze how errors may have contributed to problems in past cases, learn how to decrease cognitive error and misdiagnosis in our own practice, and apply this knowledge and skill during real patient encounters on rotations. In both the main presentation and small group activities, students will identify cognitive contributors to misdiagnosis and form an appropriate preventive response for use in future patient care.

2:00-3:00 p.m. Networking Event: Addiction Medicine

• Presenters: James Anderson, PA-C, MPAS, DFAAPA and Bernard Stuetz Jr. PA-C, MA
• More than 20 million adults in the U.S. have substance use disorders (SUDs). This is a public health crisis with an enormous cost, manifesting itself from exam rooms to the criminal justice system. While all providers need to have a better understanding of treatment options available for patients struggling with addiction, there are also increasing opportunities for early career PAs in the specialty of Addiction Medicine. Join PAs Bernard Stuetz Jr. PA-C, MA and James Anderson, PA-C, MPAS, DFAAPA for a brief presentation that will cover tips for new providers and resources for working in addiction medicine followed by a Q&A. This session will also include facilitated networking with PAs in Addiction Medicine.