Catalog

This course is intended for PAs in primary care who want to learn more about selected common genetic disorders. Marfan syndrome, neurofibromatosis type I, Klinefelter syndrome, Turner syndrome, and familial hypercholesterolemia will be discussed in detail. Inheritance pattern, genetic etiology, frequency, genetic testing, common findings, appropriate referrals, and management will be reviewed for each disorder. Guidelines for each disorder will be provided. Resources will also be provided including how to locate a genetics professional and appropriate genetics websites to utilize.

Direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC GT) is a convenient and increasingly popular method to help people obtain genetic information. Primary care and specialty healthcare professionals encounter patients with questions regarding DTC GT results, but may be reluctant to tackle genomic medicine in their clinical practice and are seeking opportunities to enhance their genomic knowledge. This course will help PAs apply knowledge of DTC GT results and develop the skills to manage patient cases that include carrier testing, low, moderate and high-risk health and disease risks, and pharmacogenomic results. This course will be run by genetics professionals who are members of the Inter-Society Coordinating Committee for Practitioner Education in Genomics (ISCC-PEG)/NIH, which aims to improve genomic literacy of healthcare professionals and enhance the effective practice of clinical genomic medicine. This group has designed this course as part of the DTC GT project.

As strides in genetics move at breakneck speed, it's easy for busy PAs to miss genetic disorders that may present in a primary care setting, including in an ER or clinic. This course integrates the basics of genetics/genomics, while dealing with complex medical, legal, ethical, and social considerations of caring for patients with genetic disorders that may be first evaluated during a primary care visit.

Prescribing based on a patient’s pharmacogenetic profile offers the opportunity to decrease the risk of adverse effects and drug interactions before the patient ever takes the medication. Learners will review basic concepts in pharmacogenetics, discuss how pharmacogenetic variants impact opioids, and review patient cases.

This activity allows for necessary conversation with a specific focus on Black women PAs and patients. Black women experience increased health disparities (e.g., infant mortality/morbidity, cardiovascular disease, neoplasm, psychological complications) secondary to elevated levels of discrimination stemming from gendered racism; the simultaneous intersection of racism and sexism. This activity introduces Sojourner syndrome and the “weathering” process described as the multilayered intersectional effects of race, gender, age, caste, stress, and social inequities on the lived experience of Black women and subsequent adverse health outcomes. Drawing on both seminal and recent research, the faculty offers conceptual frameworks and suggestions.

This activity explores how language barriers lead to healthcare disparities and covers the issues that result in poor communication with patients. PAs must provide sufficient interpreter services based on federal and state laws. The faculty discusses options for interpreter services and offers options to those who do not have funding for in-house interpretation services. After discussing the importance of the use of interpreter services, the faculty reviews how to effectively work with interpreters giving quick tips that PAs may put into use immediately.

We are at a pivotal moment in the fight for health equity. Social determinants of health are the non-medical factors that greatly influence health outcomes. They are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces shaping the conditions of daily life. What if there are factors that impact those forces? The faculty explains that political determinants of health are those factors. As healthcare providers, our attention has been focused on addressing health inequities downstream at the individual level (clinical encounter), midstream at the community level (social determinants), but less upstream addressing the structures, systems, and policies (political determinants) that result in health inequities. This activity introduces the three major aspects of the political determinants – voting, government, and policy – to provide PAs with a more impactful lens through which to address health inequities.

This four-part educational podcast series, aims to equip PAs with the knowledge and strategies to address the needs of patients with obesity and other metabolic disorders and ensure they get proper COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment. The content will focus

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This interactive activity will introduce Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR) and Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) and describe tailored strategies for incorporating research findings into clinical decision-making. Examples of relevant Patie