Duke Physician Assistant Program News

Shelby Neil, Stead Society president for the Class of 2021, is from Denver, Colo., and hopes to work in pediatric hospital medicine after graduation in August. She fell in love with inpatient pediatric medicine after her rotation in pediatric bone marrow transplant.

As a pre-PA student, you often hear about how rigorous PA school is. Many describe the experience as feeling as though you’re “trying to drink from a firehose.” We were prepared to spend long hours in class, long hours studying and long hours in clinic. But nothing could have ever prepared us for the experience of being a PA student in the midst of a global pandemic, a racial justice movement, and an extremely volatile political climate.

 The Duke Physician Assistant Program selected 10 students to receive the Physician Assistant Leaders in Underserved Communities (PA-LUC) scholarship for the 2020-21 academic year. The scholarship is funded by a $2 million, five-year grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). 

Five students from each class were selected for their strong interest in practicing primary care in medically underserved communities. Six of the 10 PA-LUC Scholars are underrepresented minorities in medicine. 

Alex Steele, MHS, PA-C (’02), never imagined he’d work on the front lines of a global pandemic. He specializes in orthopedic surgery, but as a member of the Air Force Reserves, was mobilized to New York City in April 2020 to assist overwhelmed hospital staff caring for COVID-19 patients.

First-year Duke PA student Emily Campbell was recently selected as a recipient for the 2021 Bass Connections Student Research Award. 

I am sitting here on my 31st birthday, as a first-year student in my second semester at the Duke University Physician Assistant Program, thinking about all the advice I have received over the years. One of the best pieces of advice was during my second tour of duty to Afghanistan when Dr. Shepherd asked me, “Are PA schools or medical schools going anywhere?” I was slightly confused by the question, but then he said, “If there is any job you want to do before you start PA school, you need to do that first.” That statement stayed with me when my enlistment ended in December of 2014.

I was scribing in a Radiation Oncology clinic in December 2019 when a notification appeared: “Offer of Admission, Duke Physician Assistant Program.” Forgoing all decorum, I let out a loud shriek and informed the physician that I had been accepted.

Volunteerism sits at the heart of the Duke Physician Assistant Program.

Since I was a little kid, I have wanted to live in a big city. Growing up in a small town and going to college at a rural state institution left me wanting to be somewhere urban and bustling. I wanted to meet people from all over. So you could say that I was not particularly excited about completing the Duke Physician Assistant Program’s required two rural clinical rotations. When I got my clinical year schedule, I was honestly a little disheartened to see that my first and third rotations were going to be “away rotations.”

After a few weeks of trying to make PA school rigor feel normal, it happened; we received emails, social media posts, and flyers sharing all the optional opportunities available to us. It felt crazy to imagine adding optional things onto a seemingly impossible DPAP schedule. However, when I look back on my time in PA school thus far, I realize all the wonderful things that came from opting in on the optional.