AAPA

History of the AAPA

The American Association of Physician Assistants (later to become the American Academy of Physician Assistants) was established and incorporated in the state of North Carolina in 1968. The membership consisted of the first students and graduates of the Duke University PA program.

In 1973, 300 members strong, a joint national office headquarters for the AAPA and the Association of Physician Assistant Programs (APAP) now the Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA) was established in Washington, DC. The headquarters moved to Arlington, Virginia in the late 1970's and moved to the current location in Alexandria, Virginia in 1988.

Here are some historical milestones for the AAPA.

MILESTONES IN AAPA HISTORY

1968

• American Association of Physician Assistants (later to become the American Academy of Physician Assistants) is incorporated in North Carolina. William D. Stanhope, PA-C is the first president.
• Vol. 1. No. 1 of Physician Assistant magazine is published. The journal later ceases publication.

• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, van Ameringen Foundation, and Ittleson Foundation provide grants that allow AAPA and APAP to establish a national office in Washington, D.C. Donald W. Fisher, Ph.D., selected as AAPA's first executive vice president. He serves until 1981.
• First Annual PA Conference held at Sheppard AFB, Texas - 235 attendees, 1 exhibit.

• AAPA becomes an official collaborating organization on the Joint Review Committee on Educational Programs for PAs. The JRC reviews physician and surgeon assistant programs and makes accreditation recommendations to the Committee on Allied Health Educations and Accreditation (CAHEA).

• The first Constituent Chapter Officers Workshop is conducted in Washington, D.C.

• The journal Health Practitioner (later renamed Physician Assistant) is published.
• AAPA Education and Research Foundation (ERF) is incorporated to recruit public and private contributions for student financial assistance and to support research on the PA profession. (In 1991, the ERF became the Physician Assistant Foundation.)

• AAPA House of Delegates becomes policy making and legislative body of the Academy. William Hughes is first Speaker of the House.

• The AAPA Political Action Committee (PAC) is established to support candidates for federal office.
• Annual PA Conference in New Orleans surpasses 2000 attendees.

• Donald W. Fisher leaves AAPA. Peter D. Rosenstein is selected AAPA executive vice president to replace him. He serves until 1984.
• AAPA's Annual Academy Awards program (recognizing members, constituent organizations) is established.
• AAPA's Regionalization Plan was adopted - establishing five regions with 11 constituent chapters in each regional as official AAPA regions - Northeast, Southeast, North Central, South Central, and West.

• Annual PA Conference attendance surpasses 2,500 (Washington, D.C).1984
• Judith B. Willis, PA-C, is the first woman elected president of AAPA.
• Peter Rosenstein leaves AAPA. F. Lynn May is selected AAPA executive vice president to replace him. He serves until 1992.
• The AAPA Health Care Industry Advisory Council is established.
• The Annual PA Conference is held in a convention center (Denver) for the first time.

1985

• The AAPA's first Burroughs Wellcome Health Policy Fellowship fellow is named, Marshall Sinback. Program continues until 1994.
• AAPA membership surpasses 10,000. Categories are expanded to include physicians, affiliates, and sustaining members.
• Regional meetings are begun in an effort to gather the suggestions and ideas of grassroots members and to offer leadership training to chapter officers in the regions (Operation Focus).
• AAPA and APAP begin a joint project, PA Job Find, to provide PA graduates with a national job bank service.

• A videotape, A Dynamic Profession: Past, Present, Future, is produced by the AAPA.
• AAPA Corporate Associate Program is established (later transferred to PA Foundation).

• AAPA contracts with C.V. Mosby Company to publish the Academy-owned Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (JAAPA). The new editor (Leslie Kole) is the first PA hired on the AAPA professional staff.
• Project Access, the Minority Affairs Committee activity of outreach to high school and junior college students interested in pursuing a PA career, is established.
• Physician Assistant magazine ceases to be the official journal of the AAPA with the June 1987 issue.

• AAPA's national office building (also housing APAP and PA Foundation) in Alexandria, Virginia, is completed and occupied by 25 staff members.
• Volume 1, Number 1 of JAAPA is published.

• The House of Delegates establishes the AAPA's first councils, Professional Practice Council and Government Affairs Council, to provide in-depth studies of important issues.
• The House of Delegates establishes the Surgical Congress and grants it a seat in the House, continuing to recognize specialty organizations by providing them with representation in the House of Delegates.

• Student Academy Challenge Bowl is founded to offer a Jeopardy-style competition to PA students at Annual Conference.
• AAPA Research Division creates a PA database of PA demographics and practice information.
• AAPA Education Council established.

• AAPA assumes administrative responsibility for the Accreditation Review Committee on Education for the Physician Assistant (formerly the Joint Review Committee).

• The House of Delegates establishes and officially recognizes the Medical Congress. (A seat in the House was not created until 1994).
• Lynn May leaves AAPA. Harry Bradley is hired as the executive vice president to replace him. He serves until 1993.

• AAPA is granted observer status in the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association.

• AAPA national office staff is reorganized, creating a senior vice president position and five departments (Member Programs, Information and Research Services, Finance and Administrative Services, Executive, Government and Professional Affairs).
• Number of staff: 49

• New partnership with Medical Economics is established to publish the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants.
• Fast Fax, a 24-hour toll free document retrieval service is established.
• AAPA News is re-designed to incorporate the "PA Career" employment advertising section in every issue. It is published twice a month.
• CME Opportunities Service is established to provide a listing of lecture-learner programs upon request.
• Association Management Organization Services (AMOS) program is established to provide administrative support to constituent chapters and officially recognized specialty organizations and caucuses on a cost neutral basis.

• A new Department of Clinical Affairs and Education is created within the national office organizational structure.
• American Academy of Family Physicians welcomes AAPA's official liaison appointee.
• AAPA's World Wide Web site is established (www.aapa.org).

• AAPA's first official liaison to the American Academy of Pediatrics is appointed.
• Peer-to-Peer Assistance Program (P-PAP) is established to provide on-site strategic planning and leadership development assistance for AAPA recognized constituent organizations.
• The Archives Project is implemented, in cooperation with the National Library of Medicine/Division of History of Medicine, to preserve the Academy's and the PA profession's history.
• AAPA Board of Directors composition changed to 13 members to include House of Delegates officers.

• Bridges program for constituent organization presidents is established.
• Gateways program for student leaders is established.
• CCOW is renamed Capitol Constituent Organization Workshop.
• Construction is completed on AAPA's building expansion in Alexandria, Virginia.
• Oral history project with audio interviews of PA profession founders (Stead, Estes, Stanhope) is begun.
• APAP Degree Task Force (with AAPA representation) is established to address the issue of a standardized degree offered by PA programs upon graduation.

• "PAs for Prevention" is launched with PA Foundation as a national integrated health awareness campaign.
• The Leadership Advisory Commission is established to address leadership development for PAs.
• A new Department of Data Systems and Analysis is established within the AAPA staff structure.

• International Affairs Subcommittee is established by the Board of Directors to coordinate international issues of importance to PAs.
• AAPA's Web site receives 9.4 million hits (a 50% increase over the previous year).
• The House of Delegates amended the AAPA bylaws to grant one delegate seat to each officially recognized specialty PA organization. The one HOD seat granted to the Surgical Congress in 1989 was terminated.
• AAPA's headquarters organization is modified to create a chief operating officer position to direct the internal operations of the AAPA's national office. The title "chief executive officer" is added to the executive vice president title. Cheryl Kasunich is hired as the first COO.
• AAPA obtains clarification from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) that physicians may delegate histories and physicals to PAs.
• The AAPA Public Relations Committee develops a physician education program called "The Phsician-PA Team: The Doctor's Perspective" that uses physicians to help explain the roles and responsibilities of PAs.

• The House of Delegates adopts guidelines for practice for PAs working internationally.
• AAPA's 2001 Market Research Survey results show that 86 percent of PAs would enter the PA profession again.

• First cross-organizational meeting of national PA groups (AAPA, APAP, ARC-PA, and NCCPA) held.
• First PA doctoral program established at Nova Southeastern University in Florida.
• AAPA returns to NCCPA as a participating organization.
• The last CCOW is held. The Grassroots Congressional Visits program begins in 2003.

• General election for AAPA board members uses electronic balloting for first time.
• Grassroots Congressional Visit program begins.
• AAPA and APAP embark on research grant partnership to fund independent research on the PA profession.
• AAPA Board of Directors approves first Annual PA Conference to be held outside of the United States. The meeting will be held in Toronto in 2012.

• The AAPA launches new Legislative Action Center allowing PAs and PA students opportunity to quickly contact their elected officials at the federal and state level about issues important to PAs.
• New partnership with Haymarket Media is established to publish the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants.
• The largest attendance to date at an Annual PA Conference, occurs during the 33rd Annual PA Conference in Las Vegas, NV with a total attendance of more than 10,500.

• Eugene A. Stead, MD, a founder of the PA profession, dies at age 96 at his home in North Carolina.

• The first Adventures in Lobbying Program is held.
• The Eugene A. Stead Award of Achievement is established as the most prestigious award offered by the AAPA.

• The first Constituent Organization Resource Exchange Program (CORE) is held in February.
• The Society for the Preservation of Physician Assistant History, Inc. becomes a supporting organization of the AAPA. It was originally established as the PA History Office in Durham, North Carolina.
• Steve Crane, Executive Vice President/CEO, leaves AAPA August 31, 2007. William F. Leinweber, is hired as the executive vice president and chief executive officer to replace him.
• AAPA establishes the Distinguished Fellow Program to recognize members who have distinguished themselves among their colleagues, as well as in their communities, by their service to the PA profession, their commitment to advancing health care for all people, and their exemplary personal and professional development.
• AAPA establishes a new medical liaison relationship with the American Geriatrics Society and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
  AAPA appoints representatives to the National Medical Association, the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, and the AMA Committee to End Health Care Disparities.

2008

• Karen Bass, PA-C, elected to the office of speaker of the California State Assembly, becoming the first physician assistant to hold that political position.
• New Executive Vice President/Chief Executive Officer, Bill Leinweber, joins AAPA staff February 25, 2008.
• AAPA and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health create a partnership to decrease racial and ethnic health disparities through an early childhood health literacy program - March 17, 2008.
• ARC-PA awards initial accreditation to its first two postgraduate PA programs - the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center PA Postgraduate Program in Oncology (Houston), and the Johns Hopkins Hospital Postgraduate Surgical Residency for PAs (Baltimore)
• AAPA, PAEA, NCCPA, ARC-PA agree to conduct a visioning project for the PA profession.
• Money magazine, U.S. News and World Report, and Kiplinger's rank the PA as one of the best careers to have in a recession.
• The Bureau of Labor Statistics identifies the PA profession as one of 30 occupations expected to grow fastest over the next decade.
• AAPA established PAs for a Healthy America: Vote 2008 to represent the importance of the advocacy of health care issues by PAs during the 2008 presidential election.
• The AAPA begins working with Congress to establish a Director of PA Services within the office of the Under Secretary of Veteran Affairs for Health at the Veterans Health Administration.
• AAPA holds a strategic planning summit with over 100 delegates representing all stakeholder groups of the physician assistant profession. The goal of the summit is to develop strategic objectives and a new strategic plan for the AAPA.

2009

• AAPA Board of Directors approves new Strategic Plan for the AAPA.
• AAPA News first published in 1980, ceases publication with the April 30, 2009 issue.
• The premiere issue of PA Professional , a monthly publication and an official publication of the AAPA, is released June 2009.
• AAPA's new branding initiative is released with new logo and new tag line "Connecting PAs, Transform Care"
• AAPA's new Web site is launched May 8, part of the new branding initiative.
• E. Harvey Estes, MD, is awarded the first Eugene A. Stead, Jr. Award of Achievement by AAPA.