As a PA working at the designated Local Mental Health Authority in El Paso, Texas, Elisa Hock serves on the frontline of mental healthcare. Speaking from her own experience, she is adamant that PAs are integral to ensuring patients have timely access to psychiatric care.

When PAs Mary Banahan and Amy Roberts learned that Indigenous women have higher rates of pregnancy-associated suicide, they set out to make a difference. Both women are open about their own past mental health struggles and hope their stories help to raise awareness.

Greg Cain, PA-C, owns three primary care clinics in rural Tennessee. Having been born and raised in a small town in rural Tennessee, Cain has a unique perspective and endearing approach that resonates with each of his patients.

Because of restrictions in PA practice laws in Colorado, PA Susanna Storeng had to stop offering services that she has long provided, including placing IUDs and offering Hepatitis C treatment and PrEP medication for HIV prevention at her rural community health center. Storeng explains how state law limits access to care for her patients and affects her work as a PA.

What was it like to start working as a newly graduated PA at the onset of the pandemic in a rural South Dakota clinic? PA and SDAPA President Audrey Smeenk shares about her own mental health, her experience providing rural healthcare, and her commitment to serving the community of Philip, South Dakota.