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ChaptersNATIONAL PA DAY
Thank you to all PAs, students, and educators and our stakeholders who participated in National PA Day. The day was a tremendous success!
Many organizations put a spotlight on their PA teams, featuring them in posts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram etc. Below is a highlight from Twitter, where the hashtag #CanadaNeedsPAs received 1.18 million impressions, more than doubling the impressions from the 2019 campaign.
Alberta
National PA Day was leveraged by The Minister of Health, Tyler Shandro, to announce the regulation of PAs in Alberta. He shared this announcement via video message, which was followed up by a video message from Dr. Scott McLeod , Registrar of CPSA, and Dr. Neil Gibson, of Alberta Health Services. Kirsten Luomala shared video remarks acknowledging the regulation of PAs in Alberta. The video was shared by Minister Shandro’s account on YouTube.
Manitoba
The Minister of Health, Seniors and Active Living, Cameron Friesen shared a message on his Twitter account to highlight the day. Chris Barnes and Cameron Krisko both had radio interviews and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba shared a letter to recognize the day.
Ontario
The Minister of Health, Christine Elliot, shared a video message for all PAs thanking them for their heroic efforts on the frontlines in 2020, while fighting COVID-19.
Nova Scotia
Premier Stephen McNeil shared an official proclamation to formally recognize November 27 as National PA Day in Nova Scotia.
Students
The first year CAPA representatives from U of T, McMaster, and U of M put together a video of first year PA students on why they chose the PA profession. Be sure to check it out!
NATIONAL PA AWARDS
PA Award recipients were also honoured on National PA Day. Their video acceptance speeches can be found on the CAPA website and were also shared on YouTube and Twitter. A special thank you to our official awards sponsor, the Ontario Medical Association and to OMA President Dr. Samantha Hill and Surgeon General Marc Bilodeau for their congratulatory messages that can also be watched on the CAPA website.
NATIONAL PAS IN THE NEWS
The title of the podcast released from Santis Health on December 7th says it all: Episode 11: A Breakthrough Year for Physician Assistants. An effective advocacy tool, CAPA’s very own Executive Director, Patrick Nelson sits down with Alberta Provincial Director, Kirsten Luomala and Ontario Provincial Director Sahand Ensafi to discuss regulation of PAs and the future of the profession in Canada during this informative podcast.
If you see members recognized within your workplace or in your community, let us know so we can spread the good news. And if you see local health care headlines and believe there is an opportunity to highlight PA contributions or follow up with a letter to the editor, we would like to hear from you. Please contact Kristy Corrente.,/p>
NATIONAL ADVOCACY NEWS
Alberta
With regulation announced to come in the spring of 2021, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta has put together a PA Regulation Advisory Committee. Alberta Provincial Director, Kirsten Luomala and a CAPA representative will sit on the committee. A kick-off meeting was held on December 7th to discuss timelines and phases, etc. of putting regulation into place. The committee will reconvene in the New Year.
British Columbia
On October 28th following the BC provincial election, CAPA issued a press release to congratulate the government and call for the introduction of PAs into BC’s Health System. The press release can be found on the CAPA website.
Ontario
PA Funding Model Task Force
In the last few years, the growing number of PAs has exposed many of the challenge’s physicians and PAs face with funding PA work in the province. Specifically, the lack of clarity/limitations around billing for delegated work act as a major barrier to PA practice in the province.
To provide advice on this important issue, the CAPA Board of Directors has appointed a time-limited task force and work with staff to provide recommendations and advocate for improvements in Ontario.
Ontario Physician Assistant Association
The OPAA was established by CAPA to represent hospital-based PAs in Ontario and protect them from being consumed by other hospital unions who don’t understand how PAs work. Following a lengthy delay due to COVID and other priorities, we have made significant progress in our efforts to initiate talks with the OHA. Although it is still early days, we are optimistic that these discussions will further enhance the important role that PAs play in Ontario hospitals.
PA members at each hospital have been asked to select a single point person who can represent PAs working at those hospitals.
Plans for a full membership meeting will also be made for some time in the New Year.
NATIONAL STAFFING UPDATE
Careful stewardship of our revenues and expenses has allowed us to make some strategic operations decisions. In order to better serve your needs and advocate on your behalf – CAPA is growing! Just a little.
As announced at the Annual Members Meeting, we have now moved forward with hiring two Managers of Advocacy and Stakeholder Relations. One will focus on Eastern Canada and the other on Western Canada. We are happy to inform you, that after nine years of service to CAPA, Kristy Corrente has been promoted to Manager, Advocacy and Stakeholder Relations – East Canada. Joining the team is Marina Banister who is located in Edmonton, Alberta, will assume the role of Manager, Advocacy and Stakeholder Relations – West Canada. Alexis Gunawardena who came on board in October to help with the virtual conference has joined us as our Events and Social Media Coordinator. Please join us in congratulating Kristy on her promotion and welcoming Alexis and Marina to the CAPA team!
ACCREDITATION OF PA PROGRAMS
Staff completed the application to become a Program Client with Accreditation Canada/Health Standards Organization. Our HSO contact has advised that the application will be reviewed by the HSO council and was be tabled for an e-vote the week of December 14, 2020. Once CAPA becomes a program client with HSO, Accreditation Canada will communicate with the PA programs to get the process of accrediting the programs underway. All program directors have been provided with this update as well.
CAPA 2020
The virtual conference was a success with 214 attendees. Recorded sessions are available for viewing until June 2021. Individual sessions may be purchased at $35 each or a packaged deal (all sessions and workshops) for $175.
Please don’t forget to complete the session evaluations after viewing. The technical details have been resolved and the evaluations are now available for all sessions.
CAPA 2021
Mark your calendar! CAPA 2021 is being held from November 4th to 7th. With the uncertainty still faced due the pandemic, the location is yet to be determined.
In the meantime, please take a few minutes to complete the Needs Assessment. Your insight on potential education and workshop sessions will help the education program committee build a program that will meet a broad range of educational needs. Results obtained will also be used to deliver online education offerings prior to the conference.
Also, now is the time to start thinking about your abstracts and speaker proposals. Presenting at the annual conference is a great leadership opportunity. As a bonus you can also obtain CPD for preparing and delivering a talk.
CERTIFICATION
2020 PA Certification Exam
Registration for the 2020 PA Cert Exam which will be administered on February 19, 2021 is well underway. Once all of the registrations are completed, candidates will be provided with information on how to proceed with getting registered through the ProctorU platform. The 2020 cert exam will be our first ever exam offered online.
Maintenance of certification
As a reminder, due to COVID the annual minimum requirement has been waived for 2020 and all current profile holders have been provided with an additional year in their cycle. As a reminder, the annual minimum requirement is still required even if you have met the five year requirement of 400 credit hours i.e., if your cycle is 2019 to 2023 (now 2024) and you attain a total of 400 credit hours by the end of 2022, you must still report the minimum requirement of 40 credit hours in year 2023 and 2024.
JOB LISTINGS
Visit members-only Job Listings on the CAPA website for the latest career opportunities.
If you have job ads to share, send them to us at admin@capa-acam.ca. We post job ads for free on the Job Listings page and, for a small fee we email job opportunities to all our members.