Kim Baril, CCPA
Kim Baril is a Physician Assistant (PA) working in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Kim has been employed for a little over a year at Concordia Hospital. Kim started her PA career in joint replacement surgery and family medicine. Currently 50 percent of her time is dedicated to joint replacement surgery and the other 50 percent is working in family medicine. At Concordia Hospital, she works with a hospitalist who manages the medical issues for the orthopedic surgery patients and physicians in family medicine.
Kim has Bachelor of Arts in Developmental Psychology from the University of Manitoba and a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology from the University of Winnipeg. Upon graduation, she worked as a research coordinator in joint replacement surgery at the Hip & Knee Institute where her interests shifted from biomedical engineering driven research to clinical interests in medical training. She applied to the PA program at the University of Manitoba and graduated in the fall of 2011.
Kim thoroughly enjoys her current role. The patients are either general family medicine inpatients or orthopedic surgery patients. The orthopedic patients mostly require hip and knee replacements, some shoulder replacements or have upper and lower extremity fractures. The patients range from young, healthy, active patients, to elderly patients and those with multiple comorbidities and long rehabilitation requirements.
What Kim likes most about her position is the tremendous amount of variety working between surgery and family medicine. In her practice she sees both young adults and older geriatric patients in this setting. Kim regularly see patients in their late 90′s and even a 100 year olds who are mobile and relatively independent and who require a keen assessment and more gentle touch with medical management. She enjoys meeting people with so much life experience along with all of their family members who are so dedicated to their care. Kim is fortunate in that she has an extremely supportive medical group who are very motivated about the PA profession and active expansion of this role at Concordia Hospital.
In her practice, Kim routinely meets patients and families who have no idea what a PA is, how they are trained, the history of PAs in Canada, or their scope of practice. The feedback is always positive as patients and families are happy to see someone advocating for them and who are available to discuss updates, medical plans and their concerns. Patients have often asked if they are able to follow up with Kim directly once they are in the community but unfortunately this is not currently within her role.
Kim’s desire is to see the PA profession further advance in Manitoba and across Canada. Initially in Manitoba the PA role was intended specifically for hospital and surgical settings. More recently PAs have been incorporated into other areas such as family medicine. This expansion is already a significant progression for the profession. Kim is proud to be a member of the PA community in Manitoba and has great satisfaction in knowing that she is making a difference in improving access to patient care in her community.