PA Spotlight: Brandon Hughey, PA-S2 is Running for PAFT Student Director at Large
Empowered PAs has always been about promoting the “go-getters”.. those PAs (and PA students) who look to go the extra mile in advocating for the profession, and this PA Student is no exception. Brandon Hughey is a second-year PA student with ambition and drive that is palpable! He’s running for the PAs for Tomorrow (PAFT) Student Director at Large position and is here to tell us all about his platform.
PA Apathy is truly the cancer of our profession, and so I encourage all PAs to read his statement and go out there and vote! He is enthusiastic about becoming a PA, and has invested in his career so early in the game. He has even created a Leadership Guide for PA Students (so he is totally #winning in our book!).
My name is Brandon Hughey. I am a 2nd year PA student at the University of Toledo and I am running for the PAs for Tomorrow (PAFT) Student Director-at-Large (SDAL) position. Voting opens September 29, and I encourage all PAFT PA student members to vote! I am thankful for Empowered PAs for giving me this platform for my candidacy.
Now is a vital time in the PA profession, so it is important that students get involved in PA advocacy, and that includes getting involved in PAFT.
Brandon Hughey, PA-S2
There are many reasons why I would like to run for this position. Firstly, my values are in-line with PAFTs statements on the title change, OTP, and PA practice laws. As the SDAL, I would get the opportunity to work alongside other board members in promoting these values. Next, I have many goals that I would like to accomplish as the SDAL. First and foremost, I would like to increase PAFT student membership and participation. Now is a vital time in the PA profession, so it is important that students get involved in PA advocacy, and that includes getting involved in PAFT. Next, I would like to make it easier for student members to connect with each other. I hope to do this by either creating a PAFT GroupMe chat where PAFT PA students can constantly communicate with each other, or by creating a PAFT Student Facebook page or subgroup. With this, I hope to make it easier for PAFT students to connect at conferences, especially at AAPA 2020. Lastly, I would like to create more ways that PA students can get involved in PAFT. Some ideas that I have for this include starting a student affairs committee, developing PAFT chapters at universities, or hosting regular conference calls specifically for students.
I also wanted to mention my commitment to PAFT. In May, I was the only PA student to attend the PAFT annual membership meeting at AAPA 2019. There, I had the chance to meet other members and the current board members. Since then, I have been in close contact with the board members and am constantly sharing ideas to increase PAFT student membership and involvement. Because of my commitment to PAFT, I have recently been recruited to join the membership and social media committees. In those positions, I hope to increase student membership and involvement in the organization, whether I am chosen as the SDAL or not. I have also written two blog posts that have been featured on PAFT’s website (seen below).
It is so important that PAs and PA Students get involved within the profession on any level… national, state, community, etc. It is especially important to advocate for the profession now since OTP and the title change are hot topics. I believe that both are very important for the advancement of the profession. PAs are highly qualified and highly trained medical professionals and are deserving of a name that accurately represents their role and abilities. It is important that the title of the profession makes it clear to patients and other medical professionals exactly what we do. Also, a strong title will open more doors to political/leadership roles; I feel that being titled assistant makes it difficult for PAs to obtain these positions. In addition to the title change, I believe that PAs are also more than capable of caring for patients without a supervising physician.
Also, I highly recommend that all PAs and PA students become members of their state organization. Within my state, only 25% of PAs are members of the state organization; imagine the advancement of the profession if 75%+ were members! I have written a blog post on how PA students can get involved in their state organizations. I have also written a leadership guide for PA students. The links can be found below.
- How PA Students can get involved in their State Organizations: https://pasfortomorrow.org/how-pa-students-can-get-involved-in-their-state-organizations/
- Leadership Guide for PA Students: https://pasfortomorrow.org/leadership-guide-for-pa-students/
You can reach me on Facebook if you have any questions regarding my candidacy or would like to introduce yourself. Please take a moment to look at the image below to further learn about my candidacy for PAFT’s Student Director-at-Large position. If you know of any other students in PAFT, please encourage them to vote!
Also, please feel free to contact me if you’d like to learn about more ways that you can get involved in the profession. I am more than willing to help you get involved!
Thank you so much for reading, and thanks to Empowered PAs for giving me the opportunity to write an article for the website.
As a second-year PA student, Brandon is already so well versed and recognizes some of the biggest challenges our profession has ever faced. It is truly exciting to see our PA Students get involved in leadership opportunities! The next generation of PAs will need solid leadership, and I’m confident that with as much passion and insight as he has, we will be seeing his name again. If you are a PAFT member, I encourage you to review his stance, then go to those polls and vote! Polls should be open in early October. Good luck to Brandon, I’m proud to support him and I know he’ll help us do great things for our profession!
