NLM, in Partnership with the Physician Assistant History Society, launches “Physician Assistants: Collaboration and Care”
Traveling Banner Exhibition and Online Exhibition Open October 6, 2016
The National Library of Medicine, in partnership with the Physician Assistant History Society, launches Physician Assistants: Collaboration and Care, a traveling banner exhibition with an online adaptation. This exhibition was curated by Loren Miller, PhD, an independent historian and curator.
Collaboration has been the foundation of the Physician Assistant (PA) profession since the first three PAs graduated from Duke University’s training program in 1967. PAs practice medicine as a dynamic part of a team, alongside doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals; and work within diverse communities to treat patients and improve lives by addressing health care shortages. Originally focused on general practice, today’s PAs serve in a variety of medical specialties and settings. The field continues to widen, as PAs aid populations all over the world in times of need and training programs proliferate globally.
Physician Assistants: Collaboration and Care describes how the profession developed as a solution to meet the social and health care needs of the mid-20th century and continues to evolve today. The exhibition features stories of PAs in communities all over the world and on the front lines of health crises, like the recent Ebola epidemic. It also features PAs from the highest echelons of government, including Congresswoman Karen Bass from California and George McCullough, the first White House PA.
The online exhibition offers resources for educators and students, including lesson plans for middle school and high school classrooms, a higher education module, and a robust selection of related links and suggested readings.
Physician Assistants: Collaboration and Care will travel to 50 sites across the country over the next four years. Please visit the Traveling Exhibition Services Web site to see the tour itinerary and find this exhibition near you.
Images from Physician Assistants: Collaboration and Care
Dr. Amos Johnson (left) personally trained Buddy Treadwell (right) to conduct initial patient examinations and other tasks, such as identifying carotid arteries, Garland, NC, 1967
Courtesy National Library of Medicine
U.S. Army Capt Victor Tucker, PA-C (left) cares for a patient, Kapisa, Afghanistan, 2008
Courtesy Physician Assistant History Society
In 1998, PA-C Winne Barron opened the Makindu Children's Program to provide children orphaned by AIDS with medical care, food, education, and support, Makindu, Kenya, 2009
Courtesy Makindu Children's Program/Cathy DeLong
Mentor J. Curtis Vaughn, PA-C teaches YMCA campers how to use a reflex hammer at a Project Access event, Atlanta, GA, 2010
Courtesy American Academy of Physician Assistants
Congresswoman Karen Bass, PA accepts a “Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health” grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a Community Coalition health project, Los Angeles, 2014
Courtesy Taylor Haney and USC/Annenberg Intersections South LA
In the Oval Office, the White House physician, Adm William Matthew Lukash (right), swears in George McCullough (center) as the first PA-C commissioned into the U.S. Air Force, while the Air Force surgeon general, Gen George Shaffer (left), watches, Washington, DC, 1978
Courtesy Physician Assistant History Society
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