• They are licensed to practice medicine with physician supervision in physicians’ offices, hospitals and other health care settings.
• They are formally trained to examine patients, diagnose injuries and illnesses, provide treatment and prescribe medications.
• According to the U.S. Department of Labor, job opportunities for physician assistants (PAs) are growing at a rate of 30 percent – “much faster” than the average among various professions.

PAs, in my opinion, are also some of the hardest-working and highest-serving people in health care and in our communities. They’re great people to be around, too. Sure, I’m biased (I could say the same thing about students in all DMU programs – yes, I’m that biased). The photos in this post, however, shared by student Katrina Enderle, vice president of our PA Class of 2013, show PA students in action as friends and volunteers.

Wow, do they volunteer: Over the past academic year, class members contributed more than 1,416 volunteer hours, an average of 27.8 hours of community service per student. That number beat students in Iowa’s other PA program, at the University of Iowa, who had 20.34 volunteer hours per student. As a reward, our PA students will receive $1,000 from the Iowa Physician Assistant Society to defray travel costs to the American Academy of Physician Assistants’ IMPACT 2012 conference this May in Toronto. Kudos to the class!

DMU’s PA program curriculum can be intense; students spend a lot of time together. That’s why members of each class, like the Class of 2013 above, become close friends pretty quickly.

Our PA students volunteer at DMU’s annual Senior Health Fair, a popular event held every fall where senior citizens can get free health screenings, medication reviews, balance/gait analysis and general health information. At the most recent fair, 18 PA students ran 150 dexa scans to test bone density of attendees.

DMU PA students, front row, Tara Garber, Molly Cotroneo and Ashley Buse; back row, Larissa Hoover, Starlette Dossou, Katrina Enderle, Josh Hohertz and Maggie May

More DMU Senior Health Fair volunteers: PA students Brett Dille, Kate Fuller and Casey Howe

DMU’s PA students are active community volunteers. They participate in teams that raise funds for worthy causes and provide support at numerous local events.

On March 4, this DMU PA team participated in the American Lung Association's Fight for Air Climb, raising funds and ascending 66 floors in a downtown Des Moines office building (from left): Katrina Enderle; Kari McClintick; Assistant Professor Laura Delaney, PA-C, M.P.A.S.; Ashley Buse and Drew McNeely

PA students also participated in the American Lung Association's Fight for Air Walk last fall.

As they do annually to honor Pam Harrison Chambers, PA-C, M.P.H., associate professor in the PA program and a leukemia survivor, DMU’s PA students below participated last fall in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night Walk and also raised $900 for the cause.

PA students Madison Rengstorf, Kari McClintick and Tara Garber

Also "lighting the night" were PA students Katrina Enderle, Brett Dille, Josh Hohertz and Chris Romanowicz.

For as altruistic as they are, DMU’s PA students are also competitive – physically and mentally. Last November, these tough PA students competed in the biggest cross country race in North America, a seven-mile trek up and down hills, through muddy streams and across the terrain of Living History Farms. PA students also volunteered at the race’s first aid tent.

Liz Jaqua, Kari McClintick, Maggie May, Kristin Chung and Brooke Stewart

This PA team below will compete in the 2012 National Medical Challenge Bowl on May 27 during the American Academy of Physician Assistants IMPACT Conference in Toronto. They’ll tackle questions in a variety of subjects including physical diagnosis, microbiology, anatomy, OB/GYN, pulmonary, cardiology, primary care, emergency medicine, and surgery. Good luck to the team!

Megan Rose, Amanda Olinger, Molly Cotroneo, Katrina Enderle and Katie Tacke

In addition to being caring, highly competent and competitive, DMU’s PA students are very collegial. Almost every week, you’ll find them enjoying group activities and outings around Des Moines. Below, the PA Class of 2013 relaxes at a picnic near the city’s lovely Gray’s Lake before heading off to an Iowa Cubs baseball game, an event sponsored by the PA Club.

Hard-working, compassionate, companionable and just plain fun: DMU’s physician assistant students are a super group! Learn more about them and the PA program here.

• Kyle Duncan, CPMS Class of 2014, was elected president-elect of the American Podiatric Medical Students Association at its House of Delegates meeting in February.

• Jeff Weber, CPMS Class of 2013, received the Robert Barnes Memorial Scholarship from the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine (AAPSM). This $1,000 scholarship, which was presented to Jeff on campus by AAPSM vice president and CPMS graduate Paul Langer, D.P.M.’99, is awarded to a pediatric medical student who has demonstrated a commitment to advancing pediatric sports medicine and who is active in an AAPSM student chapter.

• Lisa Grant, CPMS Class of 2014, will receive a DMU research grant for $9,620 for her submitted proposal, “Dissimilarity in Charcot Ankles versus Charcot Midfoot.” Lisa is working on this research project with Simon Geletta, Ph.D., associate professor of public health; Katie Besselman, CPMS Class of 2015; and CPMS Dean R. Tim Yoho, D.P.M., FACFAS.

• Emily Quinn, CPMS Class of 2012, received the Michael L. Stone D.P.M. Outstanding Professional Conduct Award sponsored by the American Board of Podiatric Surgery at the board’s annual meeting held recently in conjunction with the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons annual scientific conference. The award includes a $2,000 honorarium.

Congratulations and kudos to these students for reflecting so well on their college and DMU!

Last week’s meal had an Asian theme, serving up spring rolls with peanut dipping sauce, miso soup, Oriental steamed green beans, vegetable stir fry and steamed fish. The tastes and smells were heavenly. While everything was delicious, I found one of the desserts served to be most creative. Who knew tofu could create such yummy cookies?

Tofu sesame almond cookies

Transform tofu into this tasty treat.

• 3/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
• 3/4 cup unbleached white flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted
• 3/4 cup roasted almonds, coarsely chopped
• 4 ounces silken tofu
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 tablespoon almond extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, stir together the flours, baking powder and salt. Mix in the sesame seeds and chopped almonds.

In another bowl, mash the tofu and combine with the canola oil, sugar and almond extract. Mix well.

Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture. Roll the mixture into one-inch balls, flatten between your palms and place them on ungreased baking sheets. Bake the cookies about 10 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Remove from the baking sheet to cool on a rack. Makes four dozen.

Nutritional info per cookie: calories, 86.1; protein, 1.1 g; fat, 6.4 g; carbohydrates, 6.7 g; fiber, 0.6 g; cholesterol, 0 mg.

Alisdair “Rod” Philp, Ph.D., a DMU assistant professor of biochemistry and nutrition, was inspired to help students create the group because of student anxiety over genetics questions on medical licensing examinations. He is an elected affiliated scientist of the ACMG, which enabled the student interest group’s affiliation. Philp says the rapid advancement in genetic knowledge and research, along with DMU students’ interest in both, affirmed the idea for such an organization.

“The human genome project took years, around 20 world-class institutions and 2.7 billion dollars,” he says about the effort, completed in 2003, to identify all the thousands of genes in human DNA. “It revolutionized my job. Nowadays, you can sequence the coding part of the genome with one machine and one person in an off-the-shelf test for around $4,500 in 90 days.

“We are on the cusp of a paradigm shift in how genetics impacts clinicians, from family practice to the specialist surgeon,” he adds. “That’s why we need to cater for students who are interested in this area. We have the opportunity to give our students, from any of our programs, a strong advantage in a competitive field.”

As genetics knowledge expands, health care providers will be expected to translate it to their patients.

The parents of a child who’s losing his eyesight due to a genetic disorder, for example, may be better prepared with accurate prognosis for him as well as the risk for any future children based on correlations of genotypes and phenotypes. Members of a family plagued by diseases such as diabetes may be able to have better crafted medications as scientists discover the subtle genetic changes that influence individual patients’ responses to drugs.

In addition, diseases that were always considered too complicated for genetic analysis, such as coronary artery disease, are rapidly being deciphered. Recent advances in the U.S. and Europe have seen successful gene replacement therapies, based on the accurate identification of the causative gene. And as more companies bypass the physician and diagnosis – “an alarming prospect,” Philp says – with services that genotype individuals’ DNA, health care providers will be asked to analyze and translate their patients’ results.

“Medical genetics is a rapidly expanding field and will likely be integrated into nearly every branch of medicine pursued by DMU students,” says DMU osteopathic medical student Arman Cicic, president of the genetics student interest group (SIG). “By providing comprehensive and up-to-date genetics education, the SIG hopes to keep our students at the forefront of contemporary medicine and maintain DMU’s mission to produce highly competent health professionals.”

The mission of DMU’s SIG, says vice president and student Scott Miller, is to “provide students and staff, along with local physicians and residents, with comprehensive medical genetics education to better serve and advocate for the health of our community.” In addition to providing a forum for students to research topics in medical genetics and present their findings, the group will seek to foster networking among health care providers and researchers at other universities, hospitals and more.

The group also plans to survey DMU alumni in family practice and who are physician assistants in central Iowa to learn the most common genetic diseases they encounter in their practices, what they wished they had learned in genetics and what DMU should teach students about genetics today. That information may lead to enriched curriculum and will allow the SIG to design additional courses and continuing education for those practicing in the field.

“This is a student-driven effort to demystify genetics for students, physicians, residents and others,” Philp says. “The field changes so quickly that many practicing physicians can get left behind by uninformative technical terms. Often it appears that the new advances are very complicated, but the beauty of genetics is that it’s like Legos. It fits together one way; you just need to have someone show you the how the trick works.”

The group is also in the process of arranging a genetics grand rounds that draws together oncologists, pediatricians, surgeons, family practice physicians, genetic counselors, nurses and other interested professionals from local health care institutions, a win-win for those participants as well as DMU students and faculty.

“For a basic scientist, I believe it is essential for us to maintain close contact with the health care professional,” Philp says. “If we do not, we run the risk that what we teach students will be out-of-date and irrelevant. Furthermore, these rounds, I hope, will present the opportunity for practitioners in Des Moines to take a seat at a truly interprofessional forum.”

DMU has the perfect way for pre-med students to get a head start…

The DMU Health Professions Advanced Summer Scholars Program (Health P.A.S.S.) gives them a taste of what it’s like to be a student in osteopathic medicine, podiatric medicine, physician assistant or physical therapy.

The FREE three-week program takes place at the end of July and is open to college sophomores and juniors who want to get a taste of what med school will be like and pad their resumes with a little hands-on experience. Enrollment is limited to 10 students and applicants must have a minimum cumulative college grade point average of 3.0.

APPLY NOW!

Please don't eat me every day of the week.

Committee member and second-year osteopathic medical student Andrew Kamps offers this recipe that is healthy, inexpensive and easy to throw together – the perfect combination for busy medical students.

Cauliflower and chickpea curry

• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• ½ teaspoon curry powder
• ½ cup chopped cauliflower
• 1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 2 tablespoons raisins

Saute curry powder and onion in olive oil for 3 minutes. Add cauliflower and cook until tender.  Add chickpeas and raisins and cook an additional 3-4 minutes or until warm. Serve with brown rice.

Now an official campus organization, the Conservation and Sustainability Committee succeeded in getting the University to install several water coolers that allow people to refill their bottles. In conjunction with Food Day 2011, in October the committee brought to campus the movie “Food Inc.,” a disturbing documentary about corporate food production in the United States. The group is also encouraging the campus community to observe Meatless Monday, a national movement to get people to eat meatless at least one day a week.

“My view is that if we get the planet’s population of seven billion people to make some positive change in their lives, doing what they can, that will make a difference,” says second-year osteopathic student Jessica Nokovic, committee leader this year.

In support of the group’s goals and in celebration of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday (and since I deprived you of a recipe on Friday), below I offer two seasonal selections from the Meatless Monday website.

Pick parsnips over the greasy bag.

Smoked Paprika Parsnip Chips

• 3 large parsnips
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sherry vinegar
• 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
• Salt

Preheat oven to 325. Scrub parsnips clean and trim both ends. Thinly slice into rounds. Toss with olive oil, vinegar and paprika. Spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet and bake for 25 minutes. They will crisp up more after being out of the oven for a few minutes.

Cranberry Avocado Guacamole

• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 minced jalapeno
• 1/4 cup red onion, chopped
• 2 ripe avocados, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
• 3/4 cup halved cranberries, drained well on paper towels
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
• Coarse salt and ground pepper

In a large bowl, whisk together the lime juice, honey, jalapeno and onion. Add avocados, cranberries and cilantro. Season with salt and pepper; toss gently to combine.

Students have a ton of fun with the event. DMU students started designing Malpractice Bowl t-shirts some years ago, with snarky taglines like “Des Moines University – helping OTHERS since 1898….Drake Law – helping THEMSELVES since 1881.” One year’s shirt depicted a bulldog, Drake’s mascot, chasing an ambulance.

DMU organizers and coaches for this year's Malpractice Bowl include students David Cain, Raquel Sugino, Jeff Stein, Jeff Olson and Jeff Ebel.

“The game is a way to get back at the lawyers,” jokes Jeff Olson, a DMU podiatric medical student who’s coaching this year’s men’s team. “If we can beat them now, it feels good.”

While the games can get intense – after all, medical and law students, by nature, are competitive – organizers say it’s all in good fun.

“Sports in general brings out a sense of camaraderie outside of the classroom,” says Raquel Sugino, a DMU podiatric medical student and Student Senate member who worked on the Bowl this year.

Join the fun and camaraderie by cheering on the DMU women’s and men’s teams at this year’s Malpractice Bowl. The games are played on Drake’s intramural fields at 28th Street and College Avenue, just north of its main campus. Get your game face on and GO DMU!

Why you should make friends in grad school:

10. School is now your life. You go to class. You study. You sleep (some) and repeat. Every once in a while when you get a five-day break between tests, it’s nice to have someone to complain to about school or make a “no talking about school” rule and attempt to follow the rule for five minutes when out to dinner.

9. You don’t know what to talk about to your friends and family back home because of number 10.

8. It is nice to have someone wish you “happy birthday” other than those Facebook people from high school you haven’t seen in years.

7. If you want to drink adult beverages, doing it alone can be a sign of alcoholism.

6. It is more comfortable getting up close and personal during Physical Diagnosis class. Well, no, actually it’s still awkward.

5. You learn more about Iowa sports. Since I am not an Iowa native, I thought I would impress one of my classmates with my knowledge of their sports teams. She said she graduated from Iowa State. “Ah ha,” I said to myself. I know their team name. “Go Hawkeyes!” Well, my friends let me know my mistake before I got beat up.

4. It’s nice to have someone who will share their locker for your backpack during test days when you can’t remember your combo or your lock is like mine and only works when you don’t actually need in your locker.

3. You might not be athletic enough for one-person volleyball.

2. If you are laughing in public with a group, people think you are having a good time. If you are laughing in public by yourself, people think you are schizophrenic.

And the number 1 reason is…

1. It’s better to cry on a friend’s shoulder after a bad test than on a stranger’s.