This was sent to us by a friend. It is a terrific example of Veterans helping others!!!

This is what veterans do...

Dear fellow members,

As you may have noticed, we removed the banner announcing our 2013 conference.  This is because we have had to cancel our conference due to the VA's restrictions on travel.  It's a long story, but here is a quick version of what happened.

Recently there were two conferences at which VA employees attended. One was done by the GSA and the other by VA HR.  Both of them spent exorbitant amounts of money and even had some contracting officers allegedly taking gifts from vendors.  This prompted a swift knee-jerk reaction by the VA, in which they have essentially made it so difficult for any conference to get their attendees approved for funding, that essentially no VA employees will be allowed to go to nearly ANY conference in 2013.

Since over 90% of our attendees are employees of the VA, and about 70% received some or most of their funding to come from the VA, we are therefore forced to cancel since there will be few able or willing to afford attending and paying for the entire amount out of their own pocket.  We apologize for the few who might have done so, but with so few that we estimate would be attending, we had no choice but to cancel versus suffering financial losses that would put the entire association in trouble.

SURVEY RESULTS

We recently put out a survey. The results confirmed that there was NOT enough people willing or able to pay their own way to come to this conference in 2013. There were only about 50 people who said they would definitly or probably come to the next conference regardless of funding. We need at least three to four (3-4) times that amount to make this a viable conference and not lose money or put our organization deeply in debt.  We asked for comments about where to hold a conference.   Some complained that having it at Shades of Green was too far, too expensive, and some gave other places.  We had moved the conference to Orlando because flights were cheaper there (by almost 50% in some instances) than in Asheville.  One person commented that "DC, VEGAS or CHICAGO" would be better "where both the conference venues and accommodations are cheaper".  Obviously, you never tried to run a conference in those cities, because we held it in Orlando BECAUSE the venue was cheaper (when compared to Chicago) AND EVERY person got the government rate for rooms, not the Disney rates. That's because it was a GOVERNMENT venue. Shades of Green is run by the US Army.  It is too bad that the other conferences messed this up, because we would have liked to have made this our home base, just as Fayetteville is for SAPA.  The difference would be that flights are cheaper to Orlando as it is a major destination / hub for many airlines.

CONCLUSION

We will be working with the VA to try to resume our conference in 2014, however, it is unclear when or what the next year will bring forth changes. It is very possible we may have to hold it at a Motel 6 in the middle of a frozen cornfield in Nebraska in January due to the restrictions put forth by the government about resorts and such.  Pray we don't!

Sincerely,

Joseph Streff
Chair, (of the former) VAPAA 2013 CME Conference 

 

Greetings all,

Recently I have been reflecting on the significance of the date 6 October and want to share my thoughts.   The date “October 6th” has significance for many reasons.  On this day in 1989 I married my lovely wife and started a journey that continues to this day.  Actress Elisabeth Shue, former NFL player and Coach Tony Dungy, and actress Carole Lombard were all born on October 6th.  On October 6th in 1884 the Naval War College of the United States was founded, Thomas Edison showed his first motion picture in 1889, in 1939 Germany’s invasion of Poland ends, Pope John Paul II becomes the first pontiff to visit the white house in 1997, and in 1995 51 Pegasi is discovered to be the first major star apart from our sun to have a planet orbiting around it.  These are all significant, but the event I want to reflect on is the beginning of our profession.

The concept of non-physicians providing medical care is not new. We can trace this idea back to the mid-1600’s when Feldshers, originally German military medical assistants (“field surgeon” or barber surgeons), are introduced into Russian armies by Peter the Great.  In 1778 an enlisted man, John Wall, is assigned by the US Navy as a “loblolly boy” to assist medical officers on the USS Constellation.  In 1891 Capt. John Van Renssalaer Hoff, MC, organizes the first company of “medic” instruction for members of the Hospital Corps at Fort Riley, Kansas. Fast forward to 1961when Dr. Charles Hudson proposes in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the concept of  "mid-level" providers from the ranks of former military corpsmen.  As one can see, our profession has STRONG ties to the military and those who have served.

On 6 October 1967 Dr. Eugene Stead graduated the very first class of Physician Assistants, composed of former Navy medical corpsmen, from Duke University.  Coincidently the “Father” of the Physician Assistant profession, Dr. Stead, was also born on 6 October in 1908.  During World War II, Dr. Stead develops a fast track, 3-year curriculum to educate physicians at Emory University for military service.  This experience provided a blue print for the competency- based medical curriculum developed to educate physician’s assistants at Duke University in 1965.  The early days of our profession were hard and gaining acceptance of the concept of a non-physician/non-nurse medical provider was not easy.  This was made even more difficult when in 1966 LOOK magazine publishes an article "More than a nurse, less than a doctor".  As one can imagine, this article alienated many nurses to the concept of PAs.

Thanks to those that paved the way today we can look back and celebrate 45 years of professional growth and acceptance by physicians, nurses and most importantly, the patients we care for!  Our profession continues to grow and continues to provide high quality medical care.  I am humbled and honored to be part of this wonderful profession.

HAPPY PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT WEEK!!

Jim Cavanaugh, MPAS, PA-C
President VAPAA

 Membership Made Easy:
     With a credit card
1. Go to vapaa.org (ok, so you're already here, write the rest of these down then follow them)
2. Click on the Store at the top of the page
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page (cllick on Membership)
4. Select Membership type desired
5. Click check out
6. Fill out information (name, address, etc - put your facility name in area for company)
7. Hit submit!
8. You're a member! Welcome and congratulations!

   With payroll deduction or check
1. Fill out Membership Application
2. Send!

 

The 2012 VAPAA Awards winners were announced by VAPAA
President, Jim Cavanaugh, PA-C


Outstanding Clinical PA: 

Rubina DaSilva, PA-C
Occupational Health Clinic at the
Michael E. DeBakey VAMC
Ms. DaSilva's charity of choice:
Honor Flight

Information about Honor Flight may be found at: http://honorflight.org  



Outstanding PA Leadership:

Michael Kuns, PA-C
Oklahoma City VAMC
Mr. Kuns' charity of choice is:
The Veterans Research and Education Foundation
at the Oklahoma City VAMC  


$500 will be sent to each award recipient's charity of choice in their name and additionally, each recipient will receive a check from VAPAA for $500.


The status of the VAPAA Awards is currently on hold due to the cancellation of the 2013 Conference.  Keep an eye on this site for any further developments.


VAPAA Members

Register for the website
Follow the instructions below and be sure to use your HOME email address.

For our VAPAA members, please click on the "Register" button in the Login section to the right and request your access. In this initial rollout we will have many requests from members for access, so please be patient. Member access requests must be handled manually and must be verified against our membership rolls. Please allow 2-4 business days for membership to be verified and access completed. When registering, please use your home email and not the official VA emails, so we can avoid conflicts of interest in the workplace. Also, we recently became aware of difficulty in registering from VA computers. If you can't seem to register from work, please do so from home instead, as the VA firewalls interfere with the process. And again only use your HOME email in the registration and not the va.gov email address from work.
Thanks for being a member!


 

TIME TO RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP…IF YOU PAY YOUR DUES ON AN ANNUAL BASIS. 

If you pay your dues each year at this time, it is now time to once again submit your 2013 VAPAA dues.  You may do so safely and very securely online.  Simply hover over (or click on) “Membership Information” in the menu bar above; then click on the “Membership Information” tab just below it; in the middle of the page where it takes you, you can then click on the “Join or Renew Now” button.  This takes you to the secure page where you can safely submit your credit card.

 Of course if you’d like to avoid the annual hassle, perhaps it is time to consider a “Lifetime” Membership.  If that appeals to you, the information for this category of membership is found the same page.

 Thank you for your membership and your continued support of YOUR association.


 

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