PAs Go Beyond

PA Jenna Everett is the clinical lead for the Multi-Visit Patient Program at MedStar Harbor Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, which focuses on providing resources and support to underserved patients who frequently visit the emergency department for care. Everett talks about how she became passionate about providing care to undeserved communities, and how addressing patients’ unmet social needs can ultimately make it easier for them to obtain medical care.

With a remarkable journey that led him to positions at the White House and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Bernard Toney Jr., DMSc, MPH, PA-C defied all odds and surpassed everyone’s expectations, including his own.

After her personal experience with obesity, PA Ledyenska “Ledyi” Baez Ballesteros launched an obesity medicine program to serve her primarily Hispanic patient population in San Antonio, Texas. Ballesteros talks about how the way we look at obesity medicine has changed, how she structures her program, and the adaptations she makes to better serve her patients.

Knowing how to give patients with suicidal thoughts the support they need is becoming increasingly important for all providers—not just mental health professionals. For the past two years, Lisa Riley, PA-C, MHP, and Ali Walker, PA-C, RRT, have been working with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to develop a formal education module for PAs on suicide prevention.

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.