PA Student Blog/Web Site

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Thursday March 31 at 4:52 p.m.

New York Institute of Technology PA student Stacey has an excellent Web site at www.pastudentdiaries.com. She's currently doing a clinical rotation in surgery in New York City.  

Link

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Virgin Islands PAs

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Thursday March 31 at 4:47 p.m.

Local physicians are urging legislators in the Virgin Islands to license PAs, according to the Virgin Islands Daily News.

"Recognition of physician assistants has the support of the physician community and is long overdue," Treasure said, speaking for the Medical Society and the medical staff at Luis Hospital.

One of the proposed bills - The Physician Assistant Licensing Act of 2005 - sets the requirements for those professionals to become licensed in the territory and their scope of practice once they are licensed.

Another proposed bill would allow advance practice nurses to prescribe.

Link

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Physician-Assisted Suicide in Vermont

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Wednesday March 30 at 5:00 p.m.

Assisted suicide supporters in Vermont are mounting an effort to pass legislation similar to Oregon's 11-year-old assisted suicide law. Oregon's popular law, originally passed in 1994, is the only one of its kind in the United States and has survived several challenges.

The Vermont proposal seems to have popular support and could be introduced into the state legislature next month.

Its supporters say they could make headway in Vermont, a state with a fiercely independent streak and small-scale government that tends to be swayed less by big outside campaigns than by what local citizens want.

In a Zogby poll conducted in Vermont in December, 78 percent of 500 randomly selected adults said they would support a bill to allow terminally ill patients to get medication from their doctors to hasten death.

Link

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Confusion in Connecticut Newspaper

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Wednesday March 30 at 11:15 a.m.

Is Michele Lee a medical assistant or a former Navy PA? Only her supervising physician knows for sure. Columnist Rich Koster of New London's The Day doesn't seem to have any idea.

From an article on physician poor handwriting:

Michele Lee, who is Walker's medical assistant at Sound Medical, basically agrees with his assessment of eroding penmanship. "There's only one doctor out of three here that has good handwriting," she said. "We definitely have to ask for translations."

A veteran physician's assistant who worked with Navy doctors in the service for five years, Lee said that the handwriting for doctors in general is "pretty sloppy." When informed of the Pilot Pen survey, she said, "Well, I'd say it's the other way around."

Link

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IMGs Interested in Family Medicine

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Tuesday March 29 at 6:08 p.m.

International medical graduates filled more spots in family medicine residency programs than graduating seniors from U.S. medical schools, according to Family Practice News.

Peter Nalin, M.D., wasn't particularly surprised by this year's Match Day results: Of the five seniors who filled slots in his residency program, only one came from a U.S. medical school.

"We currently have outstanding family practice trainees from five continents," Dr. Nalin, director of Indiana University's family practice residency program, told Family Practice News.

It's a trend that's prevailed in his program for at least 5 years-and seems to be indicative of what's taking place in family medicine training programs nationwide.

While the number of residency positions filled by graduating U.S. seniors dropped from 1,185 positions (or 41.4% of total positions offered) last year to 1,117 (40.5% of total positions offered) in 2005, family medicine residency programs filled a total of 2,275 positions this year, 19 more than last, according to statistics supplied by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP).

Link

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Breakfast at Burger King

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Monday March 28 at 6:58 p.m.

With a breakfast like this, will many people live until lunch?

Burger King began offering two new breakfast sandwiches Monday, including one that packs more calories and fat than a Whopper.

The Enormous Omelet Sandwich carries 730 calories and 47 grams of fat and comes with two eggs, sausage, three strips of bacon and two slices of melted American cheese on a bun. It's heftier than a Whopper hamburger, which weighs in at 700 calories and 42 grams of fat.

But does it come with hash browns?

Link

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APAP Tidbits

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Monday March 28 at 6:08 p.m.

The Shenandoah University PA program recently received $500,000 to provide scholarships.

The Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia, announced on February 11 that it had received $500,000 from the estate of Paul Mellon to establish the Paul Mellon Endowment. The perpetual fund will provide scholarships to students in the university's PA program. The bequest honors Dr. James Carter Laidlaw, who was a personal physician to Paul Mellon, as well as a founding director of the university's physician assistant program. Dr. Laidlaw, retired from Selma Medical Associates, is an associate professor and medical director for the physician assistant program at Shenandoah University.

Link to press release

P. Eugene Jones of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center PA program is the new editor-in-chief of APAP's offical journal.

P. Eugene Jones, department chair at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center PA Program, was recently selected to head APAP's official journal, Perspective on Physician Assistant Education. As of April 1, Jones will replace Don Pedersen, Ph.D., PA-C, the journal's editor since its inception as a newsletter in 1990. Perspective was converted to journal format in 1998, and Jones takes over as editor at a time when it has gained recognition across the profession.

Link

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Losing Confidence in DTC Ads

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Friday March 25 at 3:16 p.m.

The recent discovery of previously undisclosed risks associated with some widely advertised drugs have caused consumers to look at direct-to-consumer drug advertisements differently. Consumers are paying less attention to the possible benefits of advertised drugs and more attention to the potential risks.

The findings of the eighth annual Rodale survey, which was conducted nationally among 1,504 adults from Dec. 28 to Jan. 12, suggest consumers are paying less attention to the likely benefits of advertised drugs - and increasingly scrutinizing the potential risks.

Results of the study, which has a margin of error of 3 percentage points, were presented at a luncheon in Midtown Manhattan for ad agencies, drug companies and others.

About 79 percent of respondents said they recalled risk information from drug commercials on television, up 3 percentage points from the year before. At the same time, 71 percent of respondents said they recalled benefit information from drug commercials, a 4 point decline.

Among those who asked their doctors about an advertised drug, the share who asked directly for the drug fell 5 percentage points, to 21 percent. That finding suggested increased reservations among consumers, Mr. Hugick said at the presentation.

The survey also indicated that the more consumers found the risk information to be useful, the more likely they were to ask for the advertised drug. "Good risk information is good business for pharmaceutical companies," Mr. Hugick said.

Link

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Pharmacy-Mixed Drugs

By Terri Swan

Email: tswan@merion.com

Friday March 25 at 2:19 p.m.

USA Today posted an interesting article about the safety concerns of pharmacy-mixed drugs.

Like millions of Americans, Margaret Copeland's 5-year-old son, Will, relies on prescription medications for his asthma and inhales the drugs daily with the help of a small, tabletop machine.

And, like Copeland, tens of thousands of those patients - and their doctors - may not know that they are using respiratory drugs that are mixed together in pharmacies from bulk-purchased ingredients: Those drugs are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and they are made with far less oversight than drugs produced by pharmaceutical companies.

At their best, such pharmacies produce a variety of medications for individual patients who can't get what they need from products made by brand-name or generic drug companies, such as flavored syrups for those who can't take pills and dye-free products for patients allergic to colorings.

But at worst, critics and regulators say, some pharmacies are skirting federal law by mass-producing drugs without FDA oversight, sometimes making contaminated, ineffective or too-potent products.

No one knows for certain, but they FDA estimates that about 3,000 of these pharmacies exist, making a minimum of 30 million prescriptions per year. Additionally, the article reports that patients often are not aware that their drugs are pharmacy-made.

After switching pharmacies last year to one that offered a lower price on the asthma drug her son Will uses, Copeland says she became suspicious because the drug looked and smelled different. She called the pharmacy and was told the drug wasn't Pulmicort Respules, the brand-name drug made by AstraZeneca that her son had been taking. Instead, the pharmacist told her, it was a generic.

But there is no FDA-approved generic for Pulmicort. Generics differ from compounded drugs in that they must receive FDA approval and are made in plants under FDA oversight, while compounded drugs are not.

"I'm mad," says Copeland of Winston-Salem, N.C. "I received a product that was not what it was supposed to be. This drug is a lifesaving one for us. I can't have a wrong dose or a lower dose."

Link

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Medical Art Exhibits

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Thursday March 24 at 6:11 p.m.

Art exhibits at two museums in Washington, D.C., focus on the beauty of the human body, according to American Medical News.

"The Human Body Revealed" is at the Human Developmental Anatomy Center at the National Museum of Health and Medicine until June.

"The Human Body Revealed" exhibit at the museum is artist and writer Alexander Tsiaras' interpretation of human anatomy. The exhibit, which runs through June, features 60 images from Tsiaras' book, The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman: The Marvel of the Human Body, Revealed. The display includes a 10-minute video that looks at the internal structures and processes of the body.

Tsiaras teams computer software with full-body scans, powerful microscope images and molecular surveillance views to craft the creations.

"Visual Anatomies" will be at the Office of Exhibitions and Cultural Programs at the National Academy of Sciences until May.

It showcases works that are based on medical images and concepts. The images depict the inner workings of the body while intertwining medicine, art and technology.

"It's 11 contemporary artists who use medical imagery as part of their artistic vocabulary," said J.D. Talasek, director of exhibitions and cultural programs at the academy.

In a forward to the exhibit, Institute of Medicine President Harvey V. Fineberg, MD, PhD, writes: "The artists ... expose us to our inner selves, highlight selected parts and juxtapose (and sometimes rearrange) the physical elements within and around us. The works draw from ancient anatomy and from modern imaging technology."

Link

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Can Yoga Be Copyrighted?

By Terri Swan

Email: tswan@merion.com

Thursday March 24 at 1:53 p.m.

If you're familiar with yoga performed in a hot room, then you've heard of Bikram Yoga. Started by Bikram Choudhury, this form of yoga consists of 26 poses and two breathing exercises performed in a room heated to more than 100 degrees. Choudhury considers his sequence intellectual property, and is now fighting a lawsuit in San Francisco to protect it.

The legal protection he is allowed may depend on whether yoga is defined as an exercise regimen, a sport, a spiritual practice or a choreographed form of expression, like music or dance. The case, says UCLA law professor Neil Netanel, "really depends on an issue that isn't covered in the law: What is the nature of yoga?"

Some legal experts believe the case could have broader implications, not just for yoga but for many forms of physical exercise.

Stanford University Law School professor Paul Goldstein said a decision in Choudhury's favor would have "clear implications for any other activity that entails a combination of movement and environment," such as choreography or martial arts. "It could also have implications for basketball plays, or football plays, if it were decided that way."

Adds Jim Harrison, a Sacramento attorney representing a group of yoga teachers and students who filed the lawsuit against Choudhury challenging his copyright claims, "If Bikram is successful, people will run to copyright bench-pressing and stepping."

According to the Los Angeles Times, there are 1,300 Bikram Yoga studios in the world (1,200 are in the Unites States) with certified Bikram teachers. Choudhury estimates that 400 of these instructors teach their classes correctly, while the rest offer modified systems. He has taken legal maneuvers against those who are not following his system exactly.

Choudhury has tried various legal maneuvers to protect what he considers his intellectual property. For example, teachers at his franchised studios are supposed to follow an approved text, or "dialogue," that he has copyrighted. He has also copyrighted the name of his studios (Bikram's College of India) and the name of his yoga program (Bikram Yoga).

Interestingly, the article also mentioned that Choudhury-who claims to have revived the careers of basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and tennis player John McEnroe and cured Richard Nixon of phlebitis-wore a pinstriped suit and a diamond-studded watch to a hearing in January. Not your typical yoga attire.

Link

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Florida PA Program Accredited

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Wednesday March 23 at 5:08 p.m.

The physician assistant program at Nova Southestern University in Naples, Fla., received provisional accreditation from the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant at the ARC-PA meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz. from March 9-13.

The Naples program is the second PA program for Nova Southeastern, which has operated a PA program at its Fort Lauderdale campus since 1993.

The Naples program is entirely separate from the Fort Lauderdale program and is the first PA program on Florida's west coast. Thirty-five to 40 students will enter the program in June.

There are now five PA programs in Florida and 136 PA programs in the United States.

Link

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PA's Book Re-Released

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Wednesday March 23 at 3:27 p.m.

The West Virginia University Press will release a second edition of PA Richard Currey's book 'Lost Highway' this spring.

Included in this second edition is a chapter omitted from the first release, as well as an introduction by James Lee Burke. Initially published in 1998, the novel garnered several admirers and was celebrated as a superior contribution to Appalachian fiction.

The novel follows the life of Sapper Reeves from the small town of Maxwell, W.Va. Venturing from his hometown, he aspires to achieve recognition of his talents as a country musician and respect as an individual.

Spanning over half a century, readers follow Sapper's saga beginning in an impoverished, coal-mining town. Dramatic travels slingshot him from youth to adulthood with combat in Vietnam, the birth of his son, a quest for fame in the back roads of Appalachia, and a cherished love affair.

In epic tradition, the tale highlights the plight of the common man. Readers may readily identify with the humanity of the character, his flaws and perfections, and the series of events that shape his life experience.

Richard Currey, a Parkersburg native, was born in 1949. After serving in the U.S. Navy and attending Howard University, he met vast acclaim with his skills as a writer. His works include the Pulitzer Prize-nominated "Crossing Over: A Vietnam Journal" and the internationally popular "Fatal Light."

Link to www.richardcurrey.net

Currey, a 1979 graduate of Howard University's PA program, has written four books. His first book, 'Crossing Over: A Vietnam Journal' was a collection of prose and poetry and earned a 1980 Pulitzer Prize nomination for poetry.

Link to a good Richard Currey bio.

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NCCPA Web Redesign

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Wednesday March 23 at 12:10 p.m.

The NCCPA has redesigned the PA Online section of its Web site.

After signing in to our secure section, you'll be able to:

 > Change your address and phone numbers  > Log CME  > Pay your CME logging fee (at the discounted online rate)  > Find out when you're scheduled to log CME and recertify  > Apply for a recertification exam  > Check on the status of your certification

Link

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AAPA Election Begins

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Tuesday March 22 at 6:38 p.m.

Actually, the AAPA election began last week and I am a little late with the story. Vote before April 30.

Link

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Body Integrity Identity Disorder

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Tuesday March 22 at 6:30 p.m.

The New York Times has an article on people with body integrity identity disorder. These people have an obsessive desire for limb amputation.

Dr. First is among a small group of psychologists and psychiatrists who are trying to define the disorder, understand its origins and decide whether to include it in the encyclopedic bible of psychiatry, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or D.S.M., as a full-fledged disease. At the same time, the disorder is turning up as a plot device or documentary subject in a handful of films, plays and television shows.

The idea of having extreme elective surgery, even when it involves mutilation or removal of healthy tissue, has met at least some acceptance in cases like sex reassignment, or cosmetic surgery for those who hate their noses or breasts even when those body parts are objectively fine.

But an obsessive desire for a limb amputation - one that drives people to cut off healthy arms and legs - tests the tolerance of even the most open-minded.

Body integrity identity disorder has led people to injure themselves with guns or chain saws in desperate efforts to force surgical amputations. A few have sought out amputations abroad, including one man who died of gangrene after an elective amputation in a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico.

Link

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Rubella Eliminated in the United States

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Monday March 21 at 6:43 p.m.

Rubella has been eliminated from the United States, according to Centers for Disease Control. there were nine rubella cases in the United States in 2004, and all nine orginiated in other countries.  

"During 1964 and 1965 a rubella epidemic in the United States caused an estimated 12.5 million cases of rubella and 20,000 cases of congenital rubella syndrome which led to more than 11,600 babies born deaf, 11,250 fetal deaths, 2,100 neonatal (newborn) deaths, 3,580 babies born blind and 1,800 babies born mentally retarded," the CDC said in a statement.

A vaccine was licensed in 1969 and since then the rubella virus has been included in the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) combined vaccine routinely given to babies and young children.

Link

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Michigan PA Counsels Kids

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Friday March 18 at 4:27 p.m.

PA Wendy Meredith spoke to teenagers about careers in health care at a Michigan health fair.

A health fair at the GASC Technology Center this week was designed to give teenagers direction on future careers, but they also got a dose of advice for making long-term health decisions.

"A rose tattoo poking out of your shirt at age 16 may look nice, but at 80 it could be down here," said Wendy Meredith, a physician's assistant specializing in dermatology, as she pointed to her torso.

Meredith was among a dozen experts who talked with teenagers about quitting smoking, safe sex, drinking, abstinence, diabetes, exercise, body piercing, tattooing and tanning.

Link

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ADVANCE Author Wins PAragon Award

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Thursday March 17 at 3:13 p.m.

Allan Platt, PA-C, a member of the faculty at the Emory University PA program in Atlanta, won third place in the AAPA PAragon Publishing Awards for the article "Sickle Cell Disease Management," which was published in the January/February issue of ADVANCE for Physician Assistants.

Platt will be honored at the 33rd annual PA conference in Orlando in May.

ADVANCE authors have won four PAragon Publishing Awards in the last three years.

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ARC-PA Accredits First Arkansas PA Program

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Thursday March 17 at 12:06 p.m.

The physician assistant program at Harding University in Searcy, Ark. received provisional accreditation from the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant at the ARC-PA meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz. from March 9-13. It is the first PA program in Arkansas.

The first class of 16 students will begin the didactic phase of the 26-month, master's degree program on June 6.

Michael Murphy, MD, is the program director and medical director. Gary Hill, MPAS, PA-C, is the clinical coordinator. Peggy Huckeba, RN, MSE, is the academic coordinator. Marcia Murphy, BSN, RN, is the admissions director and administrative assistant.

The Harding PA program Web site is www.harding.edu/paprogram/.

ARC-PA accredited another new PA program at the meeting, but an ARC-PA representative refused to identify the program because it had not been formally notified.

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University of Iowa PA Program Web Site

By Stephen Cornell

Email: scornell@merion.com

Wednesday March 16 at 3:54 p.m.

The University of Iowa has one of the better PA program Web sites that I've come across at www.medicine.uiowa.edu/pa/index.htm. It includes a nice little history and description of the PA profession, a history of the PA program and interesting faculty bios.

Link

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