APSPA Annual Business Meeting, San Antonio, May 15th, 2016

Our annual business meeting was attended by nine Physician Assistants- seven PA"s practicing in Plastic and Reconstructive field and two students that very interested to join our field. Our board was represented by Inessa Shlifer-Secretary of APSPA. Inessa presented power point that was prepared by Julia Boucher-our President. The agenda for discussion was approved.

We begun our discussion straight from the start about our website-what works well, what is not Its flaws and what still needs to be worked on and be fixed. We spoke about membership dues expiring and our members not being notified about it. Everyone agreed that we need to make notification  process automated where members get notified that their membership is about to expire and they would be directed to a payment page. We spoke about enrollment process for new members, that it has to be changed where once member signs and pays for it his/her information gets stores in the back of the site and new member profile being created.

We spoke about our website to be more utilized for announcements, such as writing a newsletter on a quarterly bases. Let our members now what meetings we have in a future, so we all can make better planning in our rather busy schedules. We need to write new topics that pertain to PA practices and helpful for our members to stir into a better direction in their practice. There are a lot of PA's that need help with how they can bill third party providers or how to negotiate salary with their employers/surgeons or institutions. Our attendees recommended to write an article on financial implication of PA's on a practice and what is the revenue they generate with service they provide.

Inessa attended HOD meetings on Friday-Monday.It was rather interesting and very productive. All delegates worked diligently and actively participated in a voting process. There are very hot topics with heated discussions, where delegates would go back and fourth with questions, suggestions, comments and etc.It was certainly not boring as one might think. HOD is an important body of AAPA, this is where policies get created, go into writing and get passed into bylaws and regulations. You can find information on all resolutions passed at AAPA website.

Attendees made few suggestion on attendance of conferences, since we all busy with our practices and its not always easy to attend numerous conferences. Between AAPA, ASPS, state and regional society meetings we have to choose which one are we going to attend this or next year. And so the question we pose as a Plastic Surgery PA's is-which one of those conferences is the most productive for our association and us individually. Which one we should choose in order to have a meeting where most of our members can attend our annual business meeting and we can spend time to discuss hot topics. One of our attendees suggested that since it is not practical for most members to be all at the same time in the same location/conference, we probably should think about other ways of communication with each other. One suggestion was perhaps to choose the same chain of restaurants and have via Skype meeting with members, hear each other voices, see their faces and discuss topics that beneficial to us-Plastic Surgery PA's. This is just an idea and I am pretty sure we can think of many others.

It is important for us not just to be a member on a piece of paper/resume, but get involved in association. We have a lot of experienced PA's that can share valuable experience with their fellow students and  newly graduated professionals. We have young PA's that have a lot of knowledge on how to navigate social media and help spread a word about us using digital  media. It is  still surprising to me that newly graduated Plastic Surgeons have no idea that PA's can bring their practice to a new level of expertise surgically and enhance their practice financially. If you ask Plastic Surgeons that have PA's in their practice if they are happy- the answer is yes. Even more so, they can not imagine to work without them. We have to raise awareness among Plastic Surgeons that adding a PA to their office is essential if they want to have a strong, successful and financially sound practice.

This year is New Leadership Elections that will be held in July. The positions for re-election are:

President Elect

Secretary.

We are welcome all who are interested to run for these positions. If you are interested in running please send a platform statement that includes information about yourself and what you could bring to organization with this position. Please, send it to jclaire2@gmail.com. If you are interested in getting involved but would like a less clearly defined roll, please, contact us as we are always looking for volunteers to get involved and help our organization.

We went over our Treasurer report and expenditure for last year. In comparison with the  year before expenses were less for YTD., but the income from membership, job postings, and corporate sponsors was less also. We had 118 members joined our association this past year. Overall we have surplus in our bank account. Budget for the next year projected to stay the same.

Dear members, please, fell free and email us with any questions, suggestions or recommendations you might have. We are all busy either as a student trying to survive hardship of PA Programs or a PA that practicing in this very demanding field. We all joint our association with intend not only to get help, but to help each other and we all encouraging you to be a proactive participant and share your experiences, wisdom and a good word with fellow members.