ARMC Emergency Medicine PA’s to compete in national Contest

Arrowhead Regional Medical Center (ARMC) Emergency Medicine Physician Assistant (PA) Fellows from the hospital’s  formal postgraduate training program, will compete in the Society of Emergency Medicine PAs (SEMPA) Quiz Bowl being held at the SEMPA 360 Conference on May 5, in San Antonio, Texas.

Last year at the SEMPA quiz bowl held in Arizona, ARMC was represented by EMPA Fellows Sean Miller and Kerstin Claunch, who competed against other postgraduate trainees from New York Presbyterian/Weill-Cornell Medical Center; Albany Medical Center; Yale New Haven Hospital; Regions Hospital (MN); Staten Island University Hospital; UCSF Fresno; Einstein Medical Center, and the University of Missouri. Not only did the ARMC team win last year’s competition but they were the score leaders in every round. Congrats to them and good luck to this year’s team!

The contest is held to allow EMPA residency/fellowship programs from various institutions to demonstrate their knowledge, teamwork and communication skills. Teams compete by answering rounds of emergency medicine knowledge questions. The team that correctly answers the most questions in the shortest amount of time wins the competition.

Founded in 2009, the EMPA Fellowship at ARMC provides an opportunity for PAs to receive high-level specialty training at one of the busiest trauma, burn and stroke centers in the country.  When it first began, ARMC’s EMPA Fellowship was one of just four EMPA programs in the country, but today there are nearly 40.This growth shows the broad recognition of the value and benefit of formal postgraduate training in Emergency Medicine.

As one of the first and longest continuously running PA postgraduate programs in the country, the EMPA Fellowship at ARMC is seen as a premier training program. SEMPA is the only specialty organization for PAs to have published Standards for PA Postgraduate Training and much of this document is based on the foundational work done in the creation of the EMPA Fellowship at ARMC.

To continue to provide the highest-level training possible and to continue to be a national leader in EMPA Postgraduate Training, the EMPA Fellowship at ARMC has recently partnered with Lynchburg College to provide doctoral level credit for the completion of the existing EMPA Fellowship curriculum.  This will afford the graduates of the EMPA Fellowship a Doctorate of Medical Science in Emergency Medicine.

The PA profession came to life more than 50 years ago, and since has evolved from one meant to support physicians into a critical element of the modern healthcare team. PAs now practice in nearly every medical and surgical specialty and all US States, Territories, and Branches of the Military.