FACULTY & STAFF OHSU PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT PROGRAM - 2021 Interviews | PA24 Cohort
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OHSU PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT PROGRAM
FACULTY &
STAFF
2021 Interviews | PA24 Cohort
Faculty
Pat Kenney-Moore, EdD, PA-C
Gopal Allada, MD
Lillian Navarro-Reynolds, MS, PA-C
José Guillén, MHS, PA-C
Stacey Merz, MPAS, PA-C
Sarah Drummond, EdD
Brianna Hanson, MS, MPAP, PA-C
Meet the
Claire Hull, MHS, PA-C
Shannon Anderson, MPAS, PA-C
Margot Chase, MPAS, PA-C
team Emily Jacobsen, MPAS, PA-C
Katie Caba, MHS, PA-C
Gina Jones, MS, PA-C
FACULTY & STAFF Ali Olyaei, PharmD
Staff
Dawn McNeill, M.Ed.
Erica Hankins Regalo, MA
Julie Carlson
Bob DeBarge, MFA
Michelle Eigner
Jami Keene
Jill Fitzpatrick
Oregon Health & Science University | PA Program
Pat Kenney-Moore, EdD, PA-C INT ERIM DIV ISION HEAD AND P ROGRAM DIRECT OR Dr. Pat Kenney-Moore joined the OHSU PA Program in April 1995 prior to the matriculation of the inaugural class and was instrumental in the development and implementation of the academic curriculum. She served as the Academic Coordinator until 2018 and continues as the Associate Director of the program. She is responsible for course directing a number of courses and is a frequent lecturer throughout the academic year. She is a graduate of the Primary Care Physician Assistant Program at the University of Southern California (USC). She subsequently completed a Master of Science degree in Postsecondary, Adult and Continuing Education and a Doctor of Education degree in Educational Leadership: Postsecondary Education from Portland State University. Pat’s thirty years of clinical practice has focused on family medicine and general internal medicine, and recently she volunteered at a free clinic with an underserved patient population. At OHSU, Pat was promoted to Professor in the Division of Physician Assistant Education - the first physician assistant at OHSU to achieve that academic distinction. In addition to her work at the program, Pat has been a longtime advocate for service to the PA profession. In addition to leadership positions with the Oregon Society of Physician Assistants (OSPA,) and the Oregon Medical Association (OMA,) Pat currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA.) WHAT I LIKE BEST ABOUT TEACHING Being a guide on their path to their chosen career and hearing from them later about the impact the program had on their professional development. Students have taught me so much and I am honored to be part of their journey. I look forward to meeting each new class! WHAT I LIKE BEST ABOUT WORKING AT OHSU Seeing the incredible growth of the program since its inception in 1995 and seeing all of the success of our graduates who are providing exceptional healthcare around the United States. Time has flown from our first graduating class of 11! I am also thrilled with the growth of the PA profession here at OHSU – when I arrived, there were only a handful of PAs, and now they are integrated throughout the clinical services on campus. SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS TO DO In person music events, plays, festivals – all sadly on hold for now. Each year I eagerly look forward to the Waterfront Blues Fest – several nonstop days of all kinds of blues held on a downtown lawn near the Willamette River. The following weekend is the Oregon Country Fair where I can return to my hippie roots. Love to travel as well – my current favorite destination is New York City. Can’t wait to go back!
Gopal Allada, MD MEDICAL DIRECT OR Dr. Allada was born and raised in Michigan and attended the University of Michigan for his undergraduate and medical school education. From there, he completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1998, he began his pulmonary and critical care fellowship at OHSU. He has since become board certified in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, critical care, and sleep medicine. He currently serves as the general pulmonary clinic director, pulmonary clinic quality improvement director, the OHSU adult cystic fibrosis director and the medical director of the OHSU Physician Assistant school. In addition, he participates in clinical research trials for promising cystic fibrosis therapies. He serves on the national Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) Center committee, the national CFF Education committee and is a board member of the Oregon Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. WHAT I LIKE BEST ABOUT WORKING FOR THE PA PROGRAM The best thing about the PA program are the people (faculty, staff, and students). Everyone is really trying to make the world a better place in a collaborative way! I love finding the key for how a learner learns best and getting them to learn a new thing! WHAT I LIKE TO DO IN PORTLAND Hike! And trail run. Favorite restaurants include Andina, Bolywood Theater, Acadia. WHAT I LOVE TO DO ON A RAINY DAY Watch movies and cook.
Lillian Navarro-Reynolds, MS, PA-C DIRECT OR OF ACADEMIC EDUCAT ION I’m the Director of Academic Education and have been with the OHSU PA program for a little over 5 years. Prior to moving back to Oregon to be closer to family I lived in England and started in PA education with St George’s University of London. I have a post graduate certificate in healthcare and biomedical education and completed the education scholars program at OHSU. I completed my PA training at Northeastern University in Boston, practiced family medicine in Seattle for a bit and then practiced Endocrinology in Hawaii. I currently provide care to seasonal vineyard workers around Oregon as part of a mobile healthcare team. I live just south of Portland with my husband, two kids and two dogs. We enjoy hiking, trips to the coast and camping. When we can’t be outside we love cooking and crafting and since quarantine started working on endless 1000 piece puzzles. I look forward to meeting you! Good luck and I hope you enjoy getting to know each other and the program.
José Guillén, MHS, PA-C CO-DIRECT OR OF CLINICAL EDUCAT ION Jose Panaderia Enrique Danger Guillen Subtle Rodriguez was born in the wilds of a Texas/Mexico bordertown. He was, by all accounts, a strange child, curious by nature and just as eager to dissect a roadkill armadillo as he was to (unwisely, it turns out) explore a fire ant mound. He quickly realized that additional weirdness was to be found beyond the borders of his native home, and moved to Portland to begin his protean career at Reed College. Since then, he has earned degrees in various flavors from PSU and Emory University, with many a road less traveled, in-between. As a testament to his refusal to be limited by a single path (or good sense), he has worked in education, research, public health, and medicine, often practicing these in tandem with his hobbies: international travel, nerding, bicycling and dance. Highlights from his resume include multiple international public health research projects, coordinating and presenting sexual health curriculum at LGTBQIA and Poly/Kink conferences, Adventures in Rural Primary Care, and selling vacuum cleaners door to door. He reads voraciously (usually sci-fi and fantasy), is a sucker for pastries, and his favorite Ninja Turtle is Donatello. Despite being the proud father of a three year old mischief maker, he is still coming to terms with being “adult,” and firmly believes that silliness and responsibility are not mutually exclusive, but instead key elements to a balanced, happy life. He is enthusiastically Out as a queer, polyamorous, nerd, and is supportive of any individual who wishes to live their life in the open. WHAT I LIKE BEST ABOUT TEACHING I very much enjoy exploring, not what a person thinks they know, but why they know it, and how they came to believe it, in the first place. WHAT I LOVE TO DO ON A RAINY DAY Any boardgame that is sufficiently crunchy (complicated) that it takes 2-4 hours to play, and results in me pondering for days afterwards how I could have employed different strategies to win or win more efficiently. Alternately, playing a rousing round of Magic: The Gathering, preferably the Elder Dragon Highlander variant, with 2-4 friends. MY FAVORITE PORTLAND RESTAURANTS Best donuts: The buttermilk glazed at Angel’s Donuts, on NE Alberta Best burrito: The Red Wet Burrito with carne asada at Que Sabroso, on N Williams Best pho: The #9 at Pho Hung, on SE Powell Best ramen: The Spicy Red Miso at Boxer Ramen, on NE Alberta Best BBQ: Get "The Pit Boss" at Podnah's Pit on NE Killingsworth
Stacey Merz, MPAS, PA-C CO-DIRECT OR OF CLINICAL EDUCAT ION Stacey Merz joined the faculty in July 2020, along with Jose Guillen, as the co-director of clinical education. She is a proud 2006 graduate of the OHSU PA program. After graduation she began working, like many a medical nerd before her, in an outpatient internal medicine practice in Newport on the central Oregon Coast. In 2014 she moved to a rural health clinic in Lincoln City, and happily specialized in the grouchiest patients in town. Prior to PA school, she tried her hand at being a master’s level student in cultural anthropology, a storyteller in Ireland, a white water river guide on the Colorado plateau, a physiology teaching assistant, and every medical job she could convince to hire her. She helped deliver babies, took vitals, entered orders in the ED and med/surg floors, bathed patients and worked through their post-stroke physical therapy in their homes, provided first aid in the backcountry, and had surgeons throw dirty instruments (pre-behavioral policies) in her direction. As well as several other medical and non- medical jobs. She loves working with the clinical year team to convince preceptors that they are going to love taking OHSU PA students, and coaching the students to deal with the challenges of the clinical year. Since onboarding in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic, she has only gone to her actual office on campus a dozen times. Her favorite thing about working in the pandemic is that she can wear her wool slippers all day long. In her free time, Stacey enjoys spending time with her family, coaching soccer, spending time in her garden, whitewater rafting and camping. Seriously, she will nerd out if you want to talk about any of these topics, especially soccer. Go Thorns and USWNT and Liverpool! In addition to the above, Stacey has been accused of having the loudest laugh people have ever heard. Her children use it to locate her in large crowds and her patients found it comforting to know she was somewhere in the clinic, even if on the complete other side. She pretty much laughs most of the time, because life is funny, even when super hard if you look at it the right way. Plus laughing makes you feel good. She also has almost no pictures of herself as an adult because she’s the one always taking the pictures.
Sarah Drummond, EdD P RINCIP AL FACULT Y Sarah Drummond, the Director of Research and Assessment, joined the OHSU faculty in 2015. She teaches the Community Outreach Project, which is the Master’s Capstone for the PA Program and does assessment, accreditation, and educational research. She is interested in how students learn and how educators define and measure learning outcomes. She values evidence-based educational practices and enjoys working with data and creating data visualizations. Prior to working at OHSU, she attended the University of Puget Sound and read English Literature. She studied education at Lewis and Clark College, where she received a Master’s in Teaching in Language Arts, and Portland State University (PSU), where she earned a Master’s in education and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership with an emphasis in Higher Education. At PSU, she worked as a research assistant on a multi-institutional study on undergraduate advising, which she still consults on today. Her dissertation was on factors that facilitate master’s student success, specifically looking at the role of advising. When she is not at work, Sarah can be found reading, visiting bookstores and libraries, drinking tea, hiking, and hanging out with her two teenage daughters, Emiko & Mia, and their various pets.
Brianna Hanson, MS, MPAP, PA-C P RINCIP AL FACULT Y I was born and raised in California but when I married my spouse, who I met in Los Angeles, I also married the PNW. Within the initial five minutes of our first date he told me that he would eventually be moving back home to Oregon. It took four years, a wedding, a PA degree, and a baby but he finally made it back here. That was nine years ago and now we have a house with a garden, another kid, and grandparents who like to babysit so he is feeling pretty confident that we won’t ever be returning to California. He’s not wrong. Grandparents who are close enough to baby sit are worth their weight in gold. When our students from California come here and start lamenting the lack of sunshine I am person they are told to see because I am always the one who understands what that is like and the one who will always share my light box. Portland may not have a lot of sunshine six months out of the year but it has plenty of other things that make up for it. I legitimately believe that it is the most beautiful state in the nation. If you like to spend time outside this is the place for you and I am always happy to recommend day trips and hikes. If you don’t like to spend time outside this is also the place for you (or, it will be, when we are all allowed to be inside together again) because there is always a weird and wonderful corner of the city to explore. I can recommend those places to you as well but they are likely to have a play area for kids and/or be related to a dessert of some kind. I’ve been a PA for ten years (graduated from USC Keck School of Medicine in 2010) and the last four of those have been as faculty here. My favorite part of being a PA has always been the patient education side of the job so it is no surprise that I love my role as a PA educator. There are so many things about this job that I appreciate but if I was had to narrow it down to the two things that mean the most to me they would be that 1) with each cohort of students I get to meet new incredible humans and 2) I love my working with my colleagues. I get to laugh and learn something new every day. I like to think that all of our students are able to say the same thing about the being in the OHSU PA Program.
Claire Hull, MHS, PA-C P RINCIP AL FACULT Y After graduating from the Duke University PA program in 1995 I worked at the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians Community Health Clinic on the coast of Oregon. This was a great place to begin my career as a physician assistant, and I really loved my job. While I was there, the OHSU PA program was established. I became involved in the program right away, volunteering as a clinical preceptor, admissions committee member, and guest lecturer. I have worked full-time in PA education since 2000 and have served in a variety of roles including the Academic Coordinator at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Academic Coordinator/Associate Program Director at Yale University PA programs. I joined the faculty at OHSU in 2006 and was the Clinical Coordinator for the program, (overseeing the clinical phase of the program) until 2018. My role with the OHSU PA program is to support all facets of the program, including the didactic and clinical years and admissions. I am involved in curriculum development and assessments, clinical site development, lectures and small group tutorials, and pretty much wherever I am needed! I love teaching and mentoring students. I have also been very involved in the Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA) and the National Commission for the Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA). Most recently I was selected to be a site visitor for the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant, Inc (ARC-PA). My involvement has provided rich opportunities for professional development and service to the profession. Although I love teaching PA students, I still love seeing patients as well, and I have maintained a clinical practice for the past 26 years. One of things that drew me to the PA profession was the ability to work in different specialties, and I have been fortunate to practice in family medicine, hospital medicine, emergency medicine and urgent care medicine. I am the middle of 7 children – yes, seven! My family is English. I was born on the island of Malta, which was at one time a British colony. It had been a dream of my parents to move to the United States, and we did so when I was 5 years old. I spent most of my early childhood in Iowa and then moved to Colorado for my high school years. I attended Carroll College in Helena where I graduated with a biology degree. It had been a dream of mine to practice medicine ever since I can remember, but it wasn't until I was out of college and working as a clinical research assistant that I discovered the PA profession. I am so glad I did! Instead of going to medical school I decided to become a PA. I have no regrets ~ I have had a wonderful career...so far! I have two grown sons. One is pursuing a career as a clinical psychologist, and the other just started college. I love to travel and have been fortunate to go to some amazing places. My favorite places have been New Zealand and Ireland. I also love Italy, Prague, Victoria BC, Hawaii, Greece...Still on my bucket list are Croatia, Slovenia, and several other places. There are a lot of places I want to visit in the U.S. as well (Grand Canyon, Big Sur). In my free time I enjoy reading (mostly fiction, memoirs and biographies), baking, knitting, paper quilling, playing board games, and going to Portland Blazers and Portland Timbers games
Shannon Anderson, MPAS, PA-C FACULT Y I’m a 2010 graduate of the OHSU PA Program and have worked in the Parkinson Center of Oregon and Movement Disorders Program since graduation. I am the Deep Brain Stimulation program coordinator and run the Newly Diagnosed Workshop for patients with Parkinson’s disease. I work as part-time faculty for the PA program, teaching first year students and as a preceptor for second year students. I grew up in Portland and went to college on the east coast at Boston College. I lived there for a few years before moving back home to Portland. I have a 4 year old daughter Nora and a 6 year old son Evan. WHAT I LIKE BEST ABOUT WORKING AT OHSU The number one answer is the community. I feel completely supported by my coworkers professionally and personally. Everyone on the team is valued, and everyone on the team is approachable. Questions are encouraged and never judged. We also know how to not take ourselves too seriously and have some fun. WHAT I LOVE ABOUT OREGON Too many things to list! There are pockets of “recharge your batteries” for everyone whether that be the mountains, the beach, the forest, a coffee shop, an eclectic bookshop, a delicious meal. There’s an opportunity to de-stress for just about anyone.
Margot Chase, MPAS, PA-C FACULT Y I graduated from OHSU’s PA Program in 2011 and now am a hospitalist PA and Co-Director of APPs at OHSU’s Division of Hospital Medicine, and a part-time faculty member with the PA program. As an academic hospitalist I enjoy providing high-quality and evidence-based patient-centered care to Oregon’s most vulnerable and complex patient populations. As an educator I’m passionate about sharing knowledge & experiences with learners, which includes faculty advising, teaching core internal medicine topics in the didactic year, and precepting second-year students in an elective hospital medicine rotation. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, but fell in love with Portland and moved here in 2005. Prior to becoming a PA I was an editor and worked in educational media and technical writing. WHAT I LIKE BEST ABOUT BEING A PA Changing careers and becoming a PA was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I love working with a group of clinicians and educators who are as passionate and dedicated as I am to making the world a better place. I also have a tendency to fear commitment, so the ability to change clinical focus as a PA is a huge plus for me! WHAT I LIKE BEST ABOUT TEACHING There is something really special about sharing knowledge, and I love working with both learners and patients to help improve understanding and make sense of the systems that affect our health. Students also keep me on my toes with excellent and insightful questions.
Emily Jacobsen, MPAS, PA-C FACULT Y I’m originally from Santa Cruz, California. No I don’t surf but I do love the ocean, and the redwoods. I went to undergraduate at The Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington. Evergreen has no grades and also allows you to create your own classes called “individual contracts”. If you create a class and get a professor to agree to proctor it then you can do it. The most unusual college quarter I had was one where I did an individual contract to study medical Spanish which I did while rafting down the grand canyon for 35 days in the Winter. At Evergreen I met a PA for the first time and began considering that as a career path. After graduating from Evergreen I spent time working in as many medical positions as possible to try and figure out what I wanted to do for graduate school. I worked as a medical assistant, EMT and scrub tech. Ultimately I decided on training to become a PA and graduated from the OHSU PA program in 2004. Since graduating I have worked in family medicine at the OHSU Richmond Clinic. Richmond is an FQHC (Federally Qualified Health Center) serving the urban underserved in SE Portland. I have very much enjoyed caring for patients of all ages and also over their changing lives. Since I have been in practice for 15 years now I have seen children grow into adults and have their own children and have the privilege to care for the next generation. I have also helped patients through many life changes be they joyous of difficult. In the last 5 years I expanded my skill set to include care of gender diverse populations and have found this to be a very fun, interesting and rewarding addition to my practice. In addition to my clinical work I have been a part time faculty member with the PA program since 2006. I enjoy teaching both in the classroom and in clinic very much and find it to be as challenging as it is rewarding. I most enjoy teaching modalities that involve active learning on the part of the student and facilitate development of clinical reasoning. In my spare time I am kept busy enjoying the joys and challenges of everyday life with my husband Jason, my daughter Lyla (11) and son Connor (14). When I find a moment to myself I am often found running, going for walk or on my bike. I bike commute whenever I can including through the winter which is wet but otherwise mild. I also enjoy throwing pottery (mugs are my favorite) and knitting (hats are my specialty). I am vegetarian and try to eat relatively healthy. I enjoy cooking and trying new recipes and flavors. WHAT I LOVE ABOUT PORTLAND My favorite time in Oregon is late summer and early fall. I love these times for the fairly consistent sunshine and the abundant harvest of delicious foods coming from gardens and farmers markets. My favorite restaurants in Portland are Por Que No (Mexican) and Bollywood Theatre (Indian) both are very casual atmospheres with order at the counter service.
Katie Caba, MHS, PA-C REGIONAL COORDINAT OR My name is Katie Caba. I graduated from the Duke University Physician Assistant Program with my husband in 2001. We returned to our home in Bend, Oregon, where I worked in primary care medicine and later in orthopedic surgery. I have served on the OHSU clinical team for 15 years as a regional coordinator in Central Oregon. One of my primary roles is to establish fantastic clinical experiences in my region. [And yes, I certainly have recruited my husband and his urgent care team]. I also have the privilege of serving as the AHEC Scholars liaison. Jeff and I have four active boys---ages 18, 16, 14 and 8. We love to ski, hike, run, climb and bike the Cascade Mountain tails in our backyard. My family is also passionate about our partnerships/friendships in East Africa. We have taken multiple medical teams to Uganda over the years and look forward to getting back there soon. You have chosen a wonderful profession. Best of luck in the journey!
Gina Jones, MS, PA-C REGIONAL COORDINAT OR Greetings! I was born in Austin, Minnesota (Go Vikings and Twins!) and cannot remember a time in my life when I wanted to do anything other than practice medicine. After high school, I attended Creighton University, where I majored in Exercise Science. I decided to stay in Omaha to attend the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) for PA school. I married my high school sweetheart in 2004 and we moved to southern Oregon two days later. Neither of us had jobs and I'd never been to Oregon-we just knew we wanted to live there! I graduated from UNMC that December and took a job at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). I transitioned to an outpatient endocrinology practice from 2008-2013 (while still working at La Clinica a couple of days a month). In 2014, I transitioned to an inpatient GI position, where I still practice part-time. Lateral mobility and the ability to practice part time...I love being a PA! I joined the OHSU PA Program as their Southern Oregon Regional Coordinator in 2012. In that role, I advise students, assess students during OSCEs, assist with the admissions process, and establish and maintain rotation sites in southern Oregon. I absolutely LOVE working with this fantastic faculty and staff, and feel fortunate to be able to work with OHSU while still practice clinically. As much as I enjoy working with students during their time at OHSU, one of my favorite parts of working at OHSU is hearing from students AFTER graduation-I love when they tell me where they are working, ask for advice, or share pictures of their adventures as a PA! My husband (he was a teacher and went back to school to be a pharmacist) and I have two children, Carwyn (born 2012) and Graham (born 2014). In my spare time, I love running, playing violin at church, reading, listening to podcasts, hiking, camping, and teaching fitness classes at one of our local gyms.
Ali Olyaei, PharmD FACULT Y Dr. Ali Olyaei is Professor of Pharmacy at Oregon State University (OSU) College of Pharmacy and Professor of Medicine and Surgery at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) School of Medicine in Portland, Oregon. He received his PharmD degree from the University of Kansas. Dr. Olyaei practices in the area of Nephrology and Transplant Medicine. His research interests include the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamic of immunosuppressants. He is involved in both externally and internally funded original research as both a primary and collaborative investigator. He is well known nationally and internationally for his works on drug dosing in acute and chronic kidney disease. Last year, he received Annual Student Volunteer Recognition and Awards Ceremony, in addition to School of Medicine Alumni Scientific Meeting, Distinguished Faculty lectures and Professor of year for college of pharmacy. He has been also honored by Division of Urology for Meritorious Service; School of Medicine, Medical Chief Resident Teaching Award, Oregon Society of Professional Pharmacists as the Pharmacist of the Year; Oregon Society of Hospital Pharmacists as Practitioner of the Year; and OHSU Pharmacy Residents Preceptor of the Year Award. He has authored more than 270 research articles, book chapter, review papers and poster abstracts.
Dawn McNeill, M.Ed. DIV ISION ADMINIST RAT OR I was born and raised in the Boston, MA area and moved to Portland, Oregon in 2010 to escape the brutal New England winters. I have a Master’s in Education, Higher Education Administration specialization from Northeastern University and nearly 30 years of experience in non-profit and higher education administration. My past employers include Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Project Adventure, Inc. and Tufts University, School of Medicine. WHAT I LIKE BEST ABOUT WORKING AT OHSU My favorite thing about working at OHSU and the PA Program is contributing to the education of our future healthcare workforce, plus the people I work with are amazing! WHAT I LOVE ABOUT OREGON I love Oregon’s seasons…we get a true spring (unlike New England’s notorious “mud season”), lingering and beautiful summers and lovely crisp fall weather that usually stretches into November and December (I do miss NH/VT foliage though).
Erica Hankins-Regalo, MA DIRECT OR OF ADMISSIONS & RECRUIT MENT I’m relatively new to the PA Program, joining at the beginning of 2021. Prior to my current position, I collaborated with leadership on academic program related issues such as student affairs, academic progress and milestones, course planning, policy change and implementation as well as recruitment and admissions as the graduate program coordinator for the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program. Before OHSU, I lived in Stuttgart, Germany and served as the director of studies for a language and communication organization. In this role, I focused on program and curriculum development, professional development for teaching staff, quality management, process optimization and database management. I’m a native Oregonian and returned to Portland with my family in 2018. My husband and my two boys are the stars in my sky and we love to be outdoors, exploring nature or at home building Legos and finding ways to be creative. We are a multicultural family and speak 3 languages at home. We love to experience culture in every form and look forward to travelling in safer times. I feel very fortunate to be part of the OHSU community. As a member of this community, I experience great compassion, a spirit of collaboration and an unwaning commitment to improving health outcomes; this shows up in everything we do. I have found a wonderful home in the PA Program and have great admiration towards the faculty and staff for their dedication to our students and the PA Profession.
Julie Carlson ASSIST ANT DIRECT OR OF ADMISSIONS & RECRUIT MENT I am a born and raised Oregonian. I attended Oregon State University where I received my bachelor’s degree in exercise science. I have worked at OHSU since 2011 in a few different roles before finding my home with the PA program in 2015. My role with the program is to work with prospective applicants/students up until their matriculation into the program. I am actively involved in recruitment, application reviews, interviews, and onboarding. I live in the suburbs with my husband, kids, and cats. I am a Harry Potter enthusiast and lifelong Backstreet Boys fangirl. WHAT I LIKE BEST ABOUT WORKING AT OHSU My favorite thing about working in the PA program is being part of helping our prospective students achieve their goals. I enjoy the relationships that I build with our students from the beginning of their educational journey through their graduation from PA school.
Bob DeBarge, MFA EDUCAT ION AND T ECHNOLOGY COORDINAT OR Bob is the program's Education and Technology Coordinator. He has been with the program since 2004 and has over 20 years of academic experience, having worked at several institutions across the country. He works in conjunction with the Director of Academic Education to schedule lectures in the academic year, handles department IT, and deals with a myriad of course coordination issues.
Michelle Eigner CLINICAL EDUCAT ION COORDINAT OR I am from California originally but moved to Oregon when I was elementary age. After high school my family moved back to California but I stayed for college. I am a huge Oregon Ducks fan. I have twin girls and a wonderful husband. We enjoy outdoor sports such as mountain biking, skiing, and climbing. I have worked at OHSU since 2001 as an Epic Analyst, Residency Coordinator and beginning in 2008, a Clinical Education Coordinator for the PA program. I work with the second year students in their clinical phase. WHAT I LOVE ABOUT OREGON My favorite thing about Oregon is the beach and the mountains are close. There is always something to do outdoors.
Jami Keene SP ECIAL P ROJ ECT S COORDINAT OR Hi, welcome to OHSU and Portland. I’m a native Oregonian, born and raised in SW Portland. I attended University of Oregon in Eugene – Go Ducks! I am married (my husband went to Oregon State, but I love him anyway) and have 2 daughters who are in 5th and 9th grades. We added a puppy to the family last summer, a husky named Cobalt, who is lucky to be so cute because he can be very naughty. Despite the fact that Portland has been my home most of my life, I love to travel. Some of my favorite trips have been to Zihuatanejo, Mexico, Lake Como in Italy, Hong Kong, and Washington DC. In Oregon, I love the north coast and the Columbia Gorge. While I love and appreciate all the outdoor beauty and recreation that is available here in the NW, I’m not a camper or outdoorswoman. I think the image of Oregon is one of rugged living, but there are many of us who like nice hotels, good restaurants, and opportunities to get fancy – but probably not too fancy, because it is Portland after all! I started working at the PA program in 2002. It is a great program lead by smart, creative, hard- working, and generous faculty and staff. I am impressed by the accomplished, compassionate, and diverse people who are drawn to our program and the PA profession. My experience has primarily been in the clinical year, so I get to see the positive impact our students have on outside providers and practices during rotations. I take pride in contributing to our students’ education because I think PAs are integral to the future of medicine. I’ve worked here so long that my family members have been taken care of by “my” graduates. And they are fabulous!
Jill Fitzpatrick ADMINIST RAT IV E COORDINAT OR Jill joined the program in 2014. She came to the program after many years of experience working with students in the OHSU Registrar's Office. She works in all aspects of the program from admissions to the academic year, as well as the clinical phase. WHAT I LOVE ABOUT WORKING AT OHSU My favorite thing about working for the PA program is the people I get to work with. WHAT I LOVE ABOUT OREGON I love the fresh air and clean water. MY FAVORITE PORTLAND RESTAURANTS I like finding vegan friendly places to eat such as Aviv, Luc Lac and Sizzle Pie (and Sauce in Ashland). MY FAVORITE OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES I’ve taken up running and am quite slow!
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