Elections - VAPAA Officers & Board Candidates

My fellow PAs, sounds political doesn’t it?

VAPAA Elections are upon us. Now is the time to get off the sidelines and get in the game. The following positions are at their term; President, Vice President and three (3) Directors at Large. Each of these positions is a two (2) year term. Per VAPAA By Laws, potential candidates must be Fellow members in good standing of both AAPA and VAPAA.

I know there is a great deal of talent in our ranks. I encourage all interested parties to run for one of these offices. If you’re ready to get involved please submit a statement of intention specifying the positions your are running for, your qualifications and why you’re running to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it NLT 30 April 2012. Elections will be held in May as per our By Laws .

Best,

Jim Cavanaugh, MPAS, PA-C
President VAPAA
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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As Jim said, it's that time of year again. Time to choose your representatives who will run this organization for the next two years.
The links below will take you to the candidates' statements.

For President - James (Jim) Cavanaugh

VAPAA President 2012-2014 Candidacy Statement – Jim Cavanaugh

Greetings all,

I am running for re-election for VAPAA President and I truly appreciate your vote. I have had to honor and pleasure of serving as VAPAA president for the past nine months. In that time we have renewed our legislative efforts as well as re-established lines of communication with VACO leadership.

Under my leadership VAPAA will continue to fight for PA pay reform to ensure competitive and equal pay practices. This is my highest priority. I will also fight for equality in job/position postings.

I will continue the push for CME reimbursement. It is ridiculous that VA PAs are not reimbursed for CME when we have the same requirements as Physicians.

PAs have the education, experience and talents to transcend clinical duties and there should be a pathway to allow for continued professional growth. I will work with VA leadership to expand the profession outside of the clinical role. There is no reason we can’t see PAs rise to senior leadership positions in the VA.

Membership, membership, membership! I will continue working to get every PA in the VA to become a member of VAPAA. There is great strength in numbers. When I approach VACO, Congress or anyone else I want them to know that VAPAA has the backing of 100% of VA PAs. Even though we are divided geographically we can and must stand united as professionals.

Finally, I will continue open and timely communication with VAPAA members and VA PAs. We are, after all in this together.

Thanks for your vote,

Jim Cavanaugh, MPAS, PA-C

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VAPAA Director-at-large 2012-2014 Candidacy Statements

For Director-at-large - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

My name is Pamela Barter-Chessman and I am a surgical PA in the subspecialty of Urology at the Togus VA Hospital in Maine. I am currently serving as an interim Director at Large since July 2011. It has been my personal goal to be involved with the VAPAA to further advance our profession within the VA. Prior to becoming an interim Director at Large I volunteered to participate with various committees within the VAPAA including Legislative Committee and Long Term Goals committee demonstrating my commitment. These committees are working diligently on the behalf of all VA PA s to solve ongoing issues and discrepancies. I hope to travel to DC in the near future with other members to further our cause. On the local level I am the Chair of the Professional Standards Board for physician assistants at my facility and use my knowledge and training to assist my colleagues. I believe as a unified group we can achieve our goals. I would appreciate your support in remaining as a Director at large.

Thank you.

Pamela

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For Director-at-large - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

I would like to declare for director-at-large position. I have been at the VA 5 years now. I am a retired Army PA. I have been involved with the local and state societies here in Texas for many years. I am a member of AAPA, SAPA, and Gulf Coast PA society. I also teach and occasional class at Baylor College of Medicine and precept students.

Michael Hollopeter PA-C
Orthopedic C&P
Michael DeBakey VAMC
Houston, TX.

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For Director-at-large - Benin Lee

Incumbent

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For Director-at-large - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

My name is Linda Kolmar. I am a 1992 graduate of the Physician Assistant Program of Georgia Health Sciences University (formerly known as Medical College of Georgia) and been employed as a Physician Assistant at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center of Augusta, GA since 1993. Prior to my career change to the Physician Assistant field, I was employed by the VA as a recreation therapist from 1979 until I resigned to start my Physician Assistant studies, so I have over 31 years experience with the Veterans Health Administration. While I am not a veteran myself, I am the proud daughter of a WWII veteran who served in the US Army for 30 years and the proud stepmother of a veteran of 2 tours of Iraq. I have spent my working life serving veterans and being dedicated to providing care for them. As a physician assistant, I have served in the areas of Internal Medicine, Urgent Care, and Primary Care. I am currently involved in our Special Examinations Unit where I perform Compensation & Pension, Agent Orange Registry, Gulf War Registry, and other Environmental Hazard exposure registry examinations. I am a member of both AAPA and VAPAA. I am also a member of the VA Title 38 Disciplinary Appeals Board and have acted in the past as a member of our local Physician Assistant Professional Standards Board. I am also currently a Clinical Instructor in the Physician Assistant Program at Georgia Health Sciences University.

We have a great many challenges facing our profession in VHA. I am particularly concerned about the difficulty VHA has in recruiting new physician assistants to VHA. The salary structure for PAs in the VA, as we all know, is sadly outdated. When I talk to my students about coming to the VA to work with & provide care for veterans, all interest ends at the question "What will the VA pay me?" I want to work with VAPAA to try to end this problem as well as others that our profession is facing in the VA so that we can insure that Physician Assistants continue to play a vital role in providing care for our veterans. I look forward to working with my VA colleagues to help make VHA a better environment for PAs.

Yours truly,

Linda A Kolmar PAC
Special Examination Unit
Ambulatory Care
Charlie Norwood VAMC
Augusta, GA 30904
706-733-0188 ext 3628

Letter from the President

Greetings to all,

Why belong to a constituent organization, which one, who cares? I have been a PA for 16 years and have been an AAPA member the entire time. I was an Air Force PA for 11 years and was a Society of AF PA member the entire time. I was a Texas privately employed PA for one year and was a TAPA member the entire time. I've been a VA PA since 2008 and have been a VAPAA member the entire time. For those doing the math, I took a year off to "find myself", but that's another story;-) I work in ENT so I could be a member of the ENT PA association. I have worked in Family Medicine and Internal Medicine so I could be members of both of those PA organizations. For a time I was a member of the Bexar County PA Association. As you can see this can get very confusing and extremely expensive.

Today I belong to AAPA and VAPAA. The reason for me is simple! , These two organizations can and do have a direct impact on my current professional status. As VA PAs we are governed by Federal Supremacy and state organizations don't impact our practice in the VA. VAPAA is the ONLY professional PA organization that has the sole responsibility to represent VA PA practice interests and to lobby for VA PAs on Capitol hill and with VACO. AAPA drives what happens to the profession at the national level and they also fully support VAPAAs legislative and practice agendas.

Belonging to your state constituent organizations is good if you work outside the VA because they lobby at the state level which impacts you outside the VA.

Declaring your primary constituent organization effects it's representation in the AAPA House of Delegates. Meaning, the more PAs that are VAPAA members and declare VAPAA as their primary constituent organization the more HOD seats VAPAA gets.

As I have said before and still hold to, there is power in numbers. The VA is the single largest employer of PAs! Imagine the impact VAPAA could have if every current and retired VA PA were a member. Our current membership is at about 18.5%. That's up from less than 16% about one year ago. THANK YOU to all our past, present and future members. Membership is very reasonable; 21 cents a day($75 a year), and it's 100% tax deductible. I don't know about you, but I probably drop 21 cents a day between my car seats:-)

Please consider becoming a VAPAA member and please declare VAPAA as your primary constituent organization if you belong to VAPAA and others.

Thank you and best wishes,

Jim Cavanaugh, MPAS, PA-C

President VAPAA

Orlando Conference 2012

Make your plans NOW!

Click Here to go to the Conference Website

The VAPAA 2012 CME Conference is FILLING UP FAST and our agenda will show you that it's going to be GREAT! Use the link to our printable agenda you can take to your Education officer to apply for your time away. There are some changes to our format for this year. There will be a separate day for workshops! So plan to come in a day earlier as these will include PSB training, an addiction workshop, knee injection workshop and an update on the latest changes in the VA for PAs from our Director, Mr Woodmansee. THESE WORKSHOPS ARE ALL AT NO EXTRA COST and give you up to 4 extra CME hours. Please don't miss out on these as they will only be offered on one day and not repeated during the week, and SPACE IS LIMITED.

The focus this year for topics is on the use of medications in each area. Our speakers have been prepped to focus on generics, and will be mainly on those in use in the VA system. We will have a special topic on Honor Flights that you won't want to miss. This is from the person who started this project and has become an integral part of saying thanks to our World War II veterans. This presentation has been previously regarded as a highlight of other conferences.

So don't miss out on a thing. Set your calendar reminders to make arrangements to get to our conference being held 27-31 August 2012 at Shades of Green on Walt Disney World Resort (an MWR resort facility, run by the US Army). You will find the cost saving code for your room on our Conference pages - AND you can stay from 2 days PRIOR (Saturday 25 Aug 2012) through 2 days AFTER (Sunday, 02 Sep 2012) at the SAME LOW CONFERENCE RATE!

At present we have up to 29 hours of CME that we'll be offering including the workshops and general sessions.

Thanks from your conference committee:
Joseph O. Streff, COL, PA-C, Chair Jim Cavanaugh, PA-C Amy Lauer, PA-C
Bob Kunath, PA (retired, Past-president VAPAA) Jessica Forti, PA-C

2012 VAPAA Awards

Announcing the opening of nominations for the

2012 VAPAA Awards for

PA Leadership Award for 2012

Outstanding Clinical PA for 2012

Follow this link for the award nomination form and information sheet.

In case you missed it:

The 2011 VAPAA Awards winners were...

Outstanding PA Leadership: Denni Woodmansee, current
Director of PA Services

Outstanding Clinical PA: Audrey Kost, Souix Falls VAMC

Each winner received a check for $500 and a donation of $500 in their name to a VA charity of their choice as well as a specially designed award for that may be displayed at home.

(Since Mr. Woodmansee is VHA employee, we were not permitted to give him the individual check, but a check will go to the charity of his choosing in his name.)

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 2012 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.

Elections - VAPAA Officers & Board Candidates

Letter from the President

Orlando Conference 2012

2012 VAPAA Awards

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