Featured PA Blog: EmpoweredPAs
My name is Courtney Titus, and I’m the owner of EmpoweredPAs.com, which is a website and PA community supporting, and advocating for the PA profession. I started the website, initially, with the intent of simply sharing the interactions I had with PAs in various levels of leadership, but it’s turned into a passion of mine, really, a grassroots effort to advocate for PAs across the world.
My background is mostly in emergency medicine. I was an EMT when I went to paramedic school, and worked as a paramedic in a trauma center while finishing up my undergraduate degree. I graduated from the University of Florida in 2011 and began working as a PA in a busy emergency department. The learning curve was steep, but it was an amazing experience and I gained the skills to be an effective autonomous provider. After my husband and I started a family, we decided it was time to make a change and so I started working in a pediatric emergency department. I love caring for children, and found the role to be rewarding and challenging, but quickly realized I wanted to be more involved. I started working on small projects, like creating a provider orientation packet, and eventually got involved in a much larger project where I was functioning as a project manager. I basically was organizing multidisciplinary teams of physicians, PAs, nurse practitioners, nurses and others to work on our clinical pathways, while I also helped organize and update them.
I enjoyed this nonclinical work, but found myself somewhat lost in the hospital meetings I was involved in. I realized there was a skill to managing and running a business meeting, working with teams, staying organized, and assuring project completion. There was an entirely new language I had to learn, one where quality metrics, data, and dashboards rein king. This language included acronyms and buzzwords I’d only heard in our ER division meetings, but never really understood. I struggled to figure out how to be a leader in one arena, while remaining a steadfast clinician in another.
I began to reach out on social media and found that other PAs were also doing nonclinical administrative type work, and so I started EmpoweredPAs.com, initially, as a place for these interviews to live. I was so fortunate to connect with so many amazing PAs, many with their own side hustles, many in formal administrative or executive roles, and some in more informal roles. As I collected these interviews, I posted them on EmpoweredPAs.com. I started a “Leadership Series” to highlight those PAs who had taken a role away from the bedside, either as entrepreneurs, directors, those who were active in AAPA or state PA associations, or those who just had shear drive and leadership qualities. I also created a “Day in the Life of a PA” series for PAs looking to switch specialties or for Pre-PAs or PA students wondering what life is like in certain specialties.
More recently, some of those amazing PAs have helped contribute to a “PA Specialties” section which is a resource for PAs wanting to know what the best tools would be if they were looking into switching specialties. It’s still in the beginning phases, but should continue to grow. I even started a small podcast, but had to stop for a bit due to time constraints. I also put together a small digital shop, as a place for PAs to download some of the smaller PDFs I’ve used and made like shadowing logs and CME Expense trackers, with hopes to make life just a little easier for PAs. For PAs who don’t have time or remember to check a website, there’s also a monthly newsletter to keep them up to date.
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As I learned more about what these PAs were doing, and continued my own administrative work, it became clear to me that PAs were underrepresented in our workplaces. I started asking questions and realized that although physicians and nurses were well represented in administration, PAs were not. I noticed that many of the interviewed PAs had to pave their own ways, because no such path existed.
My goal with Empowered PAs is to help PAs take that first step into leadership, by realizing that others before them have done the same, providing tools for PAs to become successful, and a community that supports them. The more PAs we have at the table, the better it is for our entire profession. I also believe that the conversation starts with Pre-PA and PA students. They are a passionate, excited group of professionals, and the sooner they get involved in advocating for their future profession, the stronger we become.
Getting down to the nitty gritty of running the website, I never really considered it a “side gig”, mostly because it has been more of a hobby, and I’ve been more focused on spreading the message about PA Empowerment than collecting a paycheck. With that said, the expense and labor of running a website is not insignificant, nor for the faint of heart!
Running a website has its own costs, mostly for domain and hosting. I was fortunate to have some amazing friends in the Petta Marketing group help with website development, which was its own hurdle. The website also was hacked only a few months into its development, so more rigid security systems had to be implemented. Once the branding, and site build was complete, then there’s the issue of trying to get attention in a sea of paid advertisements. Competing with facebook and google ads means the only way our articles are shared is by word of mouth or by people sharing links. Social media algorithms complicate things also, as the only things with more “likes” get shown to those who subscribe to our Facebook page. As the site grows other staff will need to be hired to keep things running smoothly. We do use some Amazon affiliate links, which help support the site.
From a time standpoint, I try to batch my time, about once a week, to keeping tabs on analytics, getting a post out once a month, and making sure other posts are ready to go. I also try to stay active on social media, so I am aware of what the most current issues are for PAs in all phases of their career. I host, or am involved in several facebook groups for PAs, Pre-PAs, and PA students. I just recently created a brand new Empowered PAs Facebook Community where PAs can ask questions, and get involved with other PAs who have done similar type of work. It’s literally just launched, but it’s a place for PAs to go as a start.
Combine all of that with student loans, being a full time employee, wife and parent of two young kiddos, and it’s clear why posts are only monthly. I actually was hired to work half time on the clinical pathways and so I live half in the ER and half in an administrative role now. I had hoped to get a regular podcast up and running, as well as a youtube channel, but time hasn’t allowed that unfortunately. I am very fortunate to have a few patreons who help fund the website costs, and I’m very thankful for their generosity, as every little bit helps. Overall, I’m so thankful to have made the amazing PA connections I have because of the community of EmpoweredPAs.com. It’s been an incredible journey, and I know the site will continue to grow.
