Graduate Students Attend American Academy of Physician Associates Conference

Westfield State University was represented by 10 students at this year’s National American Academy of Physician Associates (AAPA) conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

Andrew Allard, Nicole Clemente, Joelle Encarnacion, Melinda Hurteau, Giselle Lemus Tejada, Kadeja Miller, Jennifer Petrucci, Taylor Saimeri, Mark Sigwart, and Hailey Whipple all attended the conference along with Dr. Susan McDiarmid, Assistant Program Director and Director of Clinical Education at Westfield State.

With 7,500 attendees, this year’s conference was the largest in AAPA history. The four-day conference took place in May and the physician assistant majors, all graduate students, engaged in various workshops, conversations, presentations, and networking opportunities.

“The PA students were extremely engaged in all aspects of the conference – sessions on a variety of medical topics, networking opportunities with certified PAs and other students, specialized workshops on suturing and orthopedic injections,” McDiarmid said.

Additional opportunities included the National Medical Challenge Bowl, a Jeopardy-style medical competition between other PA Programs throughout the country. At the AAPA conference, three of the students, Andrew Allard, Taylor Saimeri, and Jennifer Petrucci, participated in the competition, earning 10th place out of 89 teams.

“[Our] students represented Westfield State University extremely well, especially in the National Medical Challenge Bowl,” McDiarmid said. “They were the only PA Program in Massachusetts to make it past the first round and up on to the podium stage in front of about 1,000 audience members. Our WSU Challenge Bowl Team lost in a one question tiebreaker to the ultimate champion for this year.”

She also referenced student accomplishment in winning second place at the Massachusetts Association of Physician Assistants state-wide competition in October 2022.