New President’s First Message to Association

President
Inessa Shlifer, PA-C

On my first day as a President of APSPA I would like to thank everyone who participated in this year elections, took their time and voted for candidates.It is my honor  and privilege to serve our Association and I would put my time and effort to make it worthwhile for our members.

I would like to welcome a new member to our board of directors, Gabrielle Troisi. She was very enthusiastic to put her candidacy forward and will be serving as a Secretary of our APSPA. It is exciting to have her joining us and I am sure she will be an asset to our Association.

I would like to thank Valerie DeGregorio for putting out her candidacy to serve as a Secretary. At this time Gabrielle got more votes and our board of directors suggested to assign a different role to Valerie- membership care. This will give her a good amount of responsibilities to follow up on existing members and to welcome new ones to our Association.

I would like to thank our outgoing President, Julia Boucher for her great work. As everyone knows she served two terms as a Secretary and one term as a President of APSPA. She still will be an active board member and help me to transition into this position.

While serving as a Secretary of APSPA I received a good understanding of how our Association works and what we need to do to make it worthwhile for our members to stay in and for new PA's to join us.

Our last AAPA Conference in San Antonio gave me a good insight into leadership. I made all necessary preparations and held our APSPA annual business meeting. Together with our fellow PA members we discussed topics that important to all of us. It was very instructional for me to participate in HOD-(House of Delegates) meetings. I spoke with PA's from different states, practicing different fields of medicine and I was proud to see, that our profession evolved in a way that PA's being recognized nationally as a fastest growing profession in medicine. And that was done with an effort of every single PA in medicine.

At the Exhibit Hall I organized APSPA booth and we had a lot of PA's and Students that expressed their interest in our field. Every year I see more and more PA Students attending AAPA conferences where they look into different fields of medicine, talking to experienced PA's trying to sort out the fields and how they can apply themselves in a future. A lot of PA Students stopped at our booth, asked questions about our field and expressed genuine interest in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. I believe that those of us that have been working in plastic surgery for a long time, can share their knowledge and wisdom to help the young generation of PA's to join in with appropriate knowledge and confidence.

As a President I would like to serve our members at the professional and personal level. I practice Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery for over 20 years. During this time I enquired a lot of experience and would love to share my knowledge with everyone, who has interest in expanding their experience and knowledge in this field. Also I would like to encourage every member to become proactive. I am sure we have members that can write interesting articles for our website. I would like to start putting out newsletters every two months and would ask anyone with writing skills forward their articles or simply ideas. Our website has been redesigned, it looks good and more functional. However, it needs more life to it and I am asking if anyone has experience to bring us to Facebook and Twitter level. It would be great to expand our presence beyond our own private practices and share with others.

As a President, I would like to help our younger colleagues, PA Students in their quest in this professional world. As never before, they need guidance and help navigating this expanding market, get necessary knowledge and become more competitive with other PA's.

Our board members are very knowledgable PA's with great experience in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. But what I value more is that they very passionate  about our Association, always ready to help and that makes me feel very comfortable to be a President of APSPA and to serve our members at my best abilities.