RE: TCI Survey displeasure and call for Jenna Dorn’s dismissal

[jdtpac]

Rev ronin, et al, where is your criticism of the AAPA BOD or the persons PAFT and PA Forum endorsed over the past five years, as it pertains to the TCI Survey? Dismiss the email debacle which in large part can be blamed on WPP/Kanter, Ms. Dorn is probably less responsible for approving the TCI Survey content then the other 13 members of the AAPA BOD, six of which were endorsed by the afore-mentioned two organizations. In short, Ms. Dorn works for the BOD and manages the everyday running of the organization, whereas nothing goes outside of the organization that has anything to do with the professions philosophy, mission and vision without the approval of the BOD. I’m sure you and all the other members on this form who have supported and endorsed the candidacies of those six members understand this premise quite well. I find it hard to believe that the TCI Advisory Council and the AAPA BOD did not have some involvement in either directing or approving WPP/Kanter’s survey questions, yet no one has questioned or brought those two groups to task regarding the content of the survey.

I support title change, I think it’s long overdue, I’ve lobbied for 35 years on the floor of the HOD to address this issue, as well as, many other professional issues that our profession has had to address. I did not like the survey and I left many questions blank because it did not believe they applied or were overreaching for PAs to compare themselves to other providers. I’m trying to give this process the benefit of the doubt, especially because were in the early phases of this process which was supposed to take two years. In the end, if this process that the AAPA BOD was supposed to be following, based on the resolution that was passed in the 2018 HOD is a complete failure, someone’s head will roll. Unfortunately, it will probably be Jenna Dorn and other members of her staff. However, based on what I’ve read so far on this forum (or even the AAPA Huddle), I doubt if you or any other members of PAFT or the PA Forum are ready to hold your select members of the AAPA BOD culpable for failure to achieve the goal that the AAPA HOD set for them. I'm equally surprised by the lack of criticism of the AAPA board members, when for years members of this form criticize the AAPA BOD for dragging their feet and not addressing the title, and I believe, the genesis for the creation of the 2018 title change investigation resolution, in large part, was an attempt to address that criticism. I'm hoping many of the individuals who have been voicing their displeasure here or on the AAPA Huddle, will take a step back and view this process from 10,000 feet, let it progress and give it some more time.

[sas5814]

Rev is a member of PAFT not on the board so please leave PAFT out of this. We have, as an organization, taken no position on this as of now and, other than casual conversations, haven't even discussed it.

That said I too was puzzled at how Jenna Dorn got thrown into this. I'll state it a bit less eloquently than you have... she carries the flag. The board, with guidance from the HOD, determines what that flag is. If she was given clear guidance on implementing this process and failed to follow instructions then there may be a different conversation.

I was puzzled by the survey but have stated several times it is too early to tell if this is a debacle or an early bit of work with more to come and we just don't have the big picture yet. I have advised patience but there is so much anger and frustration right now I'm just letting it burn out. Mostly all I have achieved is getting fussed at myself.

The most damning thing for me at this point is how an organization such as WPP/Kanter could land so many polls in spam. That alone may have weakened to opinion pool to the point the current survey  is valueless.

[rev ronin]

Anyone mind if I merge this thread back into my original one?  Fair criticism is fair criticism, and I wouldn't be doing it to suppress or hide your feedback, but I do think we'd be better off if we kept the discussion in one thread to the greatest extent possible.  Having said that, since I have all the extra buttons to make things disappear or whatnot, I want to make sure that we're ALL clear that my position here--or anywhere--gives me no special rights with respect to criticizing AAPA or its officers.  You can start a poll just like mine on a similar topic, to the best of my knowledge, and have it supported or rejected by your peers and mine, too.

Now, why jump straight to ousting Dorn for the fiasco?  Because, and I use this word advisedly and without malice, she's a parasite.  She's not a PA, as most of the AAPA staff are not, and yet makes a very good income off of our dues.  It's her job, as a chief executive, to make sure colossal screwups like this don't happen. but like most nonprofit executive/employed staff, is only minimally likely to be held accountable for failures that damage the profession.  She has no skin in the game, other than her reputation as a nonprofit executive, which can affect who she might work for next.  If the PA profession goes down in flames, Dorn can go work for the NPs, or the NDs for that matter. We can't.  By the same token, so could thousands of other "executive directors" and other non-profit employed staff.  Have you looked at https://www.aapa.org/about/senior-staff/ ? Let's see, counting her that's 13, with zero PA-C's... carry the zero, and... NONE of the senior staff are PAs, retired PAs, or in any other way tied to the future of the PA profession in any meaningful way.  Go read their bios: insurance; other health-associated nonprofits; various political staff positions, corporate... very little healthcare, not a single one with any graduate level degree in ANY healing profession AT ALL.

Do I expect she'll be fired?  Not by the current board, nor any of the recent past ones.  She should be placed on notice that the membership won't necessarily wait for her annual performance review to make their displeasure known.

We need an AAPA executive staff that is better at executing political change than it is in putting on awesome conferences.  Not that the latter are a bad idea, but the former are essential to the survival and growth of the profession.

I would like to see 50% PA-C representation among the senior staff. Maybe that's too high; even if it is the right number, it will take YEARS to get there.  But I can tell you that a 0% PA-C representation among the employed staff is a dismal recipe for an organization that is the last, best hope to drive change in a profession that is being squeezed by change.

 

BTW, If I'm ever speaking as a representative of anyone, I'll say so.  I don't believe in nonsense disclaimers, so I don't write them.  If you want to criticize PAFT, feel free to do so on the basis of what their elected officer(s) are saying on Huddle while clearly attaching that affiliation to their name.  I've never been a part of the PAFT leadership team; EMEDPA has.

[jdtpac]

EMEDPA, Paula, Joelseff, UGoLong....I'm surprised by your silence.... I would be very interested in hearing your opinions on the accountability of the AAPA BOD and the TCI Advisory Council regarding the release of these survey questions. I believe you been pretty vocal in supporting several members of the AAPA Board of Directors. Do you believe they should be called to task? That’s all I’m asking. Thanks in advance for your response.

[Hope2PA]

So while AANP has David Herbert, ranked in top 100 most influential people in health care, AAPA has leader(s) who think it would be easier to not have a real title, just say PA because it isn’t “easier” than going through all the trouble to make a chamge(that’s what Dorn said in 2016 or 2017. Yes, there is progress via the title change investigation and OTP, however, I wonder if some of the problems are due to lack of commitment or belief that a change is absolutely necessary. Rather than thinking progressively, efforts appear to have been  begrudgingly proposed after years of the of majority PAs requesting and giving up on AAPA. 

The lack of motivation  to be better prepared for title change survey may not be directly Dorn’s Fault, but as CEO, she is  responsible. 

Anyone who feels Physician assistant or just PA is okay and does not think OTP is important, is out of touch to what  changing in healthcare, m They should not be working for AAPA or have a voice in decisions made for the profession. 

BTW, my name, Hope2PA, was chosen to mean Hope to PA’s for a better future! One without assistant, my vote even without physician, and same practice rights as NP. However PA or Clinical Practioner, Certified Medical Practioner...continue being responsible, require several years of supervision and CEU maintenance for independence /OTP. PAs must make changes to thrive while continuing to be prepIred for quality patient care. That is the part I feel NPs have sacrificed in an effort  to promote themselves.  

[UGoLong]

9 hours ago, jdtpac said:

EMEDPA, Paula, Joelseff, UGoLong....I'm surprised by your silence.... I would be very interested in hearing your opinions on the accountability of the AAPA BOD and the TCI Advisory Council regarding the release of these survey questions. I believe you been pretty vocal in supporting several members of the AAPA Board of Directors. Do you believe they should be called to task? That’s all I’m asking. Thanks in advance for your response.

There are many discussions going on about this, both here and on the AAPA Huddle. I gave my opinion somewhere but, since you asked, I’ll put it here, too. I’ve been a PA for 13 years and a retired project manager so I’ll speak from those perspectives.

I am fully behind addressing the role – and name – of the PA profession. I also see nothing wrong with an “understanding the problem” task as an early step in that project, including an initial survey of the “stakeholders.”

I haven’t seen much information describing what the AAPA and its contractor feels is the breadth of stakeholders involved in our project. I feel that it should include not just us PAs and other healthcare providers, but also the hospital systems that increasingly hire us, insurance companies who pay us, regulators who give us our scope of practice, and especially patients we are there to serve. This probably requires more than one set of questions.

So, while starting with a survey is a good idea, the survey instrument here does not appear to be either well-written nor well-executed. As an experienced PA, I found that it took too long to complete, contained too many questions for which I couldn’t formulate a good answer, and had too few questions that allowed me to state the problem from my perspective. And, of course, having a contractor write a survey that ended up in so many spam folders suggests that they may not have had a lot of experience at this. (And no, the blame for that shouldn't be put at the feet of all of our email providers and their different sets of spam rules. My daily AAPA Huddle never ends up in my spam folder.)

Next, projects have “sponsors”: our sponsor is the AAPA. The sponsor’s job includes making sure all stakeholders are considered and communicated with, as well as keeping the project directed towards the goals established by its governing board. You can’t always depend on a project team to do that; teams can easily get off-course and the sponsor has to keep it focused.  

An example of possibly getting off-course comes from project communications to date. I watched the project manager’s video introduction, which was fine, as far as it went. It did not seem to address head-on what I thought the organization had tasked them with: rebranding/retitling PAs. Instead it implied that the initial survey’s objective is to collect information so that the project team could decide if we even need a change.  That wasn’t the understanding from this old-guy stakeholder.

By the way, stakeholders also can get off-course and, if we are expecting something different from this project than what the HOD approved last year, then the sponsor needs to keep us focused, too. PAs are one set of stakeholders but, as the dues payers, we are the ultimate "customer" for this project. The sponsor (the AAPA, and specifically its project liaison) especially needs to communicate with us much more than they have.

The assumption is that WPP will tell us something in 5 weeks at the conference. Given the unease among their customer base, a lot more communication is needed right now. Fish – and bad project news – has a habit of not keeping well.

[Joelseff]

Just spoke with a PA colleague at lunch and we talked about the survey. She stopped doing it midway because it was too long. She did mention that she is not 100% convinced if a title change is absolutely necessary stating "because the alternatives are just as stupid." I asked her if we should just keep our heads in the sand and not move at all on it and she agreed we should address it. So there are some PAs out there who can see the benefit of a title change but are neither hot nor cold on it. I have a feeling this will get nowhere.

 

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