2007 Scholarship Winners!
The Alaska Academy of Physician Assistants would like to congratulate the two recipiants of this year's scholoarship award. The two scholarship recipients are LeeAnn Wetzel and Sarah Bigelow.

Scholarship Information
At the 2007 Annual Meeting it was annouced that the scholarship would be renamed to the Jessica Stevens Scholarship Fund. Jessica Stevens, PA-C, died in anautomobile accident near Talkeetna on June 20, 2007. For those of you who may not have known her, Jessica was instumental in establishing a viable and accessable health care system in Talkeetna. She was also active in the academy and served on the BOD.

Two scholarships are awarded each year to a PA student for the amount of $500 each. Deadline for the application is September 25, 2007. The recipients of the 2007 award will be announced at the Academy's Fall CME Conference.

Starting in 2008 the American Academy of Physician Assistants will be assisting the AKAPA disseminate information about the scholarship and collecting applications. More information will be provided soon!

MEDEX NORTHWEST PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT PROGRAM

ALERT!
The Medex Northwest PA program is undergoing a major change. The UW Medex will be converting to a Masters level program starting with the entering class of 2009. The entering class of 2009 will be applying in fall of 2008. Applicants that year will need to have completed a Bachelors Degree prior to admission.
The MEDEX program, through its admissions office, is committed to working with potential candidates who have not attained a bachelor's degree.  Medex will continue to be available to offer career counseling and academic advice on issues of academic preparation, such as appropriate prerequisites and degree pathways. The University of Alaska Anchorage is in the planning stages of a pre-professional Bachelor of Sciences in Health Sciences Degree. This degree will be designed to provide a good foundation of knowledge for students applying to Masters level PA programs.
Recruiting rural and Alaska Native students, especially Community Health Aids, remains a top priority for Medex. Any potential applicants planning to apply to Medex without first earning a bachelor's degree will need to be able to complete all the Medex prerequisites in the next 12 months and apply to Medex by Oct 15 of 2007 for the 2008 entering class.

Up to six students from Alaska may be admitted to the University of Washington MEDEX program annually, in accordance with the joint selection process established in the collaborative agreement between UAA and UW. Applicants are evaluated on their previous clinical experience and their commitment to practice in Alaska, particularly in under-served areas, in addition to their overall academic performance in the pre-physician assistant curriculum.
Students admitted into the MEDEX program spend their junior year of the PA program at one of the UW training sites (Seattle, Spokane, or Yakima), where they receive intense clinical and didactic instruction. The senior year is spent in Alaska, consisting of practicum (Clerkship) placement. The practicum year corresponds to UW's year of field placement and supervision, beginning in September and ending in early September the following year. The clinical placements call for 35-40 hours a week in supervised clinical training, and 10-20 hours a week in self-study. Students are placed in Alaska training sites currently utilized by the MEDEX program.
At the completion of the PA program, students are eligible to sit for the National Certifying Examination for Physician Assistants. The University of Washington School of Medicine grants a Physician Assistant Certificate upon successful completion of the PA program.
For more information, visit the MEDEX Northwest Physician Assistant Program web site

You must also complete the CASPA application before being admitted to MEDEX.