Features
Meet some of the people of MEDEX Northwest – students and faculty, founders and visionaries – who have helped to forge the forward path for PAs and affect change in world of progressive and responsible healthcare delivery.
Grace Landel, M.Ed, PA-C: 2019 MEDEX Lifetime Achievement Award
A physician assistant since 1984, Grace Landel was faculty at MEDEX Northwest for 20 years. During that time, she shepherded some 1,300 students through the program. Most notable were her efforts to bring the MEDEX PA program to Sitka, Alaska, a model that was repeated at satellite campuses in Yakima [...]
Passing The Torch– Mother to Daughter, Feldsher to Physician Assistant
When Iryna Kylyukh crossed the stage on the University of Washington campus to receive her Master of Clinical Health Services degree as a PA, she completed a path that started in high school. But a closer look into Iryna’s family history reveals that this really began decades earlier. Her mother, [...]
MEDEX 2018 Graduations: Having A Full Day
Each year MEDEX Northwest graduates around 125 physician assistants who largely stay on to practice in the five-state WWAMI Region of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. These graduations are joyous occasions, the culmination of over two years of intense study on the part of the students.
Don Coerver, PA-C: MEDEX Lifetime Achievement Award 2018
This 9-minute film covers the career of Don Coerver, PA-C, Ph.D., who devoted 20 years of his life to PA education and was central to the development of the MEDEX Eastern Washington Yakima and Spokane sites. Having touched the lives of over 500 PA students during his distinguished career, Don [...]
Honoring PA Achievements
This April 28th, MEDEX Northwest will host our annual Alumni Reception and Awards Ceremony at the SeaTac Doubletree Hotel. This year the theme is “Honoring PA Achievements”, and five of our best and brightest are spotlighted for their accomplishments in various areas. These are truly the role models for the [...]
Tent City 3 at the University of Washington: Learning from Lived Experience
Near the end of 2016, UW President Ana Mari Cauce welcomed the residents of the Tent City 3 encampment to a UW campus site for a 3-month period. One year later, Lois Thetford, PA-C examines our campus community’s collective response to this event, and engagement with our homeless neighbors.
A Reason Not Entirely Recognizable To Myself
During the months between his PA didactic and clinical years, Rich Wehling of MEDEX Anchorage Class 8 scaled Mount Everest to undertake a research study on the effects of caffeine in high altitude environments. Along the way, he found some answers to questions not originally considered.
The Orchestration of Care
Inter-Professional Education or IPE brings students from differing programs together to learn from one another and improve patient outcomes. In the case of the Free Dental Clinic, MEDEX Northwest students and UW Dentistry students work side-by-side to bring a more holistic and team-based approach to the healthcare needs of their [...]
We Learned One Helluva Lot of Medicine
In August of 2017, 113 students graduated from the MEDEX Northwest physician assistant training program at the University of Washington. We celebrate this occasion with a lively 7-minute video of the graduation proceedings plus over 330 photos from across the four MEDEX training sites in Anchorage, Spokane, Seattle and Tacoma.
Kayaking As A Metaphor for Cancer Survival
Jace Meng of MEDEX Northwest Seattle Class 50 finds energy and inspiration from volunteering with young adult cancer survivors through First Descent, an adventure organization that takes participants out on kayaking expeditions. As survivors overcome the limitations and fears of their disease, Jace is learning firsthand about the disease and [...]