How to Celebrate PA Week 2018
Every October 6-12 we celebrate National PA Week. National PA week helps bring recognition to the PA profession. Yes, it is a great time for organizations to honor their PAs, but more importantly it’s our opportunity to raise awareness to the profession. Don’t sit back and wait for your organization to do something for you, get in the driver sit and work with the leaders in your practice to help celebrate the PA profession.
Sometimes, leaders might not even know about PA week, so bringing it to their attention can help. Last year before PA week I sent a simple email to the CEO of my group stating that PA week was coming up and it would be a great time to help bring recognition to PAs for our employees, as well as patients.
I have been with the company for three year and PA week was never celebrated. From that email there was a company announcement, individual recognition of each PA within the organization and an update on the company website. The fact that nothing had been done in the past wasn’t because they did not want to recognize PAs, it was that they did not know about PA week.
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There are a lot of ways each PA can help bring recognition to the profession. The easiest way to do this is to share something on social media. Help your friends and family have a better understanding of what PAs do and share a picture or a video.
Traditional media outlets are also a good way to help celebrate PA week. You can write an op-ed and submit to your local newspaper, or contact your local news station. In larger cities this might not work, but for PAs in small cities these are great options.
If you really want to go big, you can help organize an event. Most organizations won’t say no to this, however they might not have the resources to do something. If you’re willing to help organize it, than it gives them less of an excuse to not do anything.
If you’re looking for resources the AAPA website has printable material, such as posters and other ads that you can use.
For PA week 2018 I’ll be doing a series featuring PA’s who have found jobs outside of regular clinic work; some are PA’s who have founded companies and used their knowledge to help others. Having a second source of income can help you pay off student loans, so stay tuned for some ideas that you might want to check out.
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