FSU College of Medicine 2018 annual report 2019 Annual Report | Page 25

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PA STUDENTS AT HOME IN THE COMMUNITY SETTING
When members of the PA Class of 2019 began their year of
clinical rotations at the medical school’s regional campuses,
were ready to see patients and that this program has done
everything it can to prepare its students.”
it was all new. A model of medical education set up for M.D. When it was over, Burke was thrilled with her experience.
students nearly two decades ago was tweaked to include PA The preceptors who taught PA students in the clinical setting
students. also were happy.
The community-based approach has always meant that
“All of the PA students I’ve taught are really good; they are
ER and the hospital.”
Burke conducts almost the entirety of the hands-on exam,
but the visit is a more expansive look at contributing factors
to Mrs. H’s health.
Mrs. H shows off her original paintings and crochet work.
She opens her refrigerator, providing clues about her diet.
Florida State medical students get extraordinary access to academically very astute, and they know how to do an exam She brings out a picture taken with her late husband, a
patients. It’s unusual, for example, to have medical students thoroughly,” said Physician Assistant Mary Ann Crumlish, World War II veteran, in his Army uniform. It leads to a
working one-on-one with the who is director of Primary Care House Calls, a company conversation that reveals something unexpected: Mrs. H is
senior attending physician in a with 1,200 patients from DeFuniak Springs in the Panhandle eligible for VA benefits, but didn’t know it.
medical setting. to Baldwin County in southeast Alabama.
Would this approach also
work with PA students?
“The stakes were definitely
high, and we were pretty
One recent morning in Cantonment, Florida – just outside
Pensacola – Crumlish arrived with Burke for a geriatrics
visit at the home of a 92-year-old patient. Mrs. H lives alone
and is in generally good health – and spirits.
“You really do learn so much more about a patient when
you’re in their home,” Burke said. “I think there’s a different
level of trust there.
“Seeing her excitement about the paintings she did tells
me she has a good outlet, and we know that just having
nervous going from learning “This gives them a chance to be very involved in the something to look forward to and having a hobby can have a
in lectures and textbooks to patient-care process, and in this setting they really get a big impact on her health overall. That’s something I may not
actually seeing patients,” said chance to get to know the patients,” Crumlish said. have picked up on if she were to come see me in the office.”
Danielle Burke, who spent her
Crumlish said house calls with older patients are more cost-
Crumlish will continue taking FSU PA students on house
clinical year in Pensacola. effective for Medicare and other types of insurance and lead calls. Mrs. H was planning to ask her son for help looking
“You hear so many different to better outcomes. into the VA benefits, which might help her with dentures and
things about how those
“We’re keeping these people out of the hospital,” she
a hearing aid (two things she said she otherwise could not
rotations may go that made it said. “We visit them once a month. They’re housebound, pretty nerve-wracking. Since chronically ill and many of them have trouble taking their we were part of the first PA medicines. It can be very confusing – they might have 15 class, we wanted to make a different medications and they often don’t take it properly. good name for ourselves and They can’t go to the doctor, can’t get transportation or are could do that as my main career because I loved it so much,”
show that the didactic learning just too sick to make it to an appointment. Burke said. “And I can moonlight down the road in pediatric
we did over 15 months in
“We see them and keep them straight about their
Tallahassee prepared us – medications and help them manage their health to keep them
that we did learn a lot and from the kinds of things that would lead them back to the
afford).
Burke, meanwhile, went from a desire to do pediatric
emergency medicine to an interest in surgery.
“When I was doing my surgery rotation I found out I
emergency medicine.”
Less than a month after graduating, Burke accepted a job
as a surgical PA in Syracuse, N.Y.