The International Academy of Physician Associate Educators (IAPAE) held their 12th IAPAE annual conference in Winterthur, Switzerland on October 16-19. There were 14 countries represented from around the world.  The conference had over 60 attendees and was joined by the Switzerland PA Symposium on Friday afternoon bringing the afternoon event to more than 200.

The UK College of Health Sciences Department of Physician Assistant Studies had several PA faculty honored. David Fahringer, MSPH, PA-C, one of the founding trustees and past President of IAPAE was honored with the the “Honorary Life Membership Awarded for outstanding Contribution to IAPAE.” He is one of two awardees to date to receive this honor. Fahringer was presented with a silver platter, a photo book of the past 12 years with his many different roles in IAPAE, and a certificate.  

Additionally, a first place poster award was given to Leslie Woltenberg, PhD, MSEd; Somu Chatterjee, MD, MPH; David Fahringer, MSPH, PA-C Emeritus, for their research on international PA/ analog program data that had been collected from 19 countries and 51 programs.  The title of the poster is “Global Perspectives on Health Professions Training: A Two-Year International Study of Physician Assistant Education Programs.”  

Somu Chatterjee was newly appointed for a two year chair of the IAPAE Think Tank Committee that was developed and chaired by Fahringer for the last two years. This committee is in charge of creating new products for IAPAE and its members. New products include the Annual Program Survey and the IAPAE Academic Fellowship—a 12 month training for a new PA/ analog faculty alongside of seasoned faculty at one of the three Universities: University of Kentucky, University of Bingham in Great Britain, or University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

The first IAPAE Academic Fellow will start in Lexington in May 2020 from India.  The third product created by this committee is tool boxes for educators in the membership section on the website. These tool boxes are resources for educators around the world to have information at their fingertips.  The fourth product that was developed under Fahringer's leadership was a readiness exam— an assessment from a PA studen'ts first day, throughout their training and then right before their final examination. The readiness exam is stil in the development stages.

Help us congratulate these PA faculty for their outstanding international work!