JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
84
making admissions decisions. Entrants will be selected on the basis of demonstrated mental ability as well as aptitude, motivation, interest, maturity, and other attributes of a noncognitive nature. Grades will not be the sole criterion in making selections, although they will be an important factor in the selection process, as they serve as one of the indicants of intellectual ability. In all probability, no cutoff on grade average will be established for entering the School, but potential applicants should realize that the level of competition for entrance will be keen, with the preponderance of aspirants probably having a "B" or better average in their college work. It should also be
JANUARY, 1976
understood that there are no mitigating factors, neither singly nor collectively, that will fully compensate for substandard achievement at the undergraduate level. While such things as extra-curricular college activities, employment, graduate achievement, etc., will be taken into consideration in the selection process, none of these factors can substitute entirely for a low academic undergraduate performance. The tentative policy is that all aspirants will be required to take the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). This test is administered twice annually-in May and October-by the American College Testing Program. Aspirants must make their own arrangements for taking the test.
THE PHYSICIAN'S ASSISTANT PROGRAM AT HARLEM HOSPITAL CENTER T.W. FONVILLE, M.D. Project Director
~ ~ ~.
The Physician's Assistant is a new member of the health care delivery team. An increasingly visible and highly qualified individual, the P.A. is employed by health care institutions and private practitioners. P. A. 's are physician extenders. They work as generalists under the supervision of a primary care physician, but are able to carry out many of the more routine procedures thus liberating the physician for complex decisions and tasks.
.;ii .I.i.: .
...
..
.... j; . . . . . . j.c....
A Physician's Assistant at work.
The P. A. is an answer to the increased demands by patients for medical services and the concomitant escalation in waiting time and deterioration of quality of delivery. The role of the P. A. somewhat encompasses that of the nurse and the laboratory technician and goes beyond. The training of a P. A. is similar to that of the medical student. The tasks that a P. A. performs are many: triage, routine history taking, preliminary physical examination, basic laboratory studies (CBC, U. A., bacteriologic smears), venipuncture, I. V.'s, initiation of emergency care, injections, rounds, record keeping, multiple screening procedures etc. The Physician's Assistant Program at Harlem Hospital, begun in 1971 as the only minority P.A. Program in the country, was instituted as a direct response to a felt need. Central Harlem, the community most directly served by Harlem Hospital, is by all available instru-
ments of measurement a medically impoverished area. Overcrowding, poor housing, high unemployment, alcoholism and drug addiction, and high crime, suicide, and disease rates are some of its all too familiar socioeconomic characteristics and are obvious to the most casual inspection. Central Harlem can be accurately described as an area in permanent social crisis. It was felt, therefore, that the introduction of intermediate level health personnel, i.e., Physician's Assistants would be the most feasible and beneficial response to this crisis on the part of the Harlem medical community. The talent pool immediately available for training was Harlem Hospital emergency room nurses' aides of long experience who were currently carrying responsibilities far beyond their job titles, and former Armed Forces medical corpsmen recently returned to the Harlem community from Viet Nam. An intensive 24 month curriculum was developed for 10 selected students, all of whom were high school graduates ranging in age from 22 to 33. The curriculum provided liberal arts as well as clinical training in physical diagnosis, medicine, surgery, psychiatry, pediatrics, Ob/Gyn, emergency care, and applied bio-science, includinganatomy, physiology, laboratory diagnosis, and pharmacology. Arrangements were made with Antioch College, an institution that has pioneered innovations in progressive and community-based education, to provide candidates successfully completing the program with Antioch College credits. Utilizing past work and life experience of each trainee as a means of granting up to two years of retroactive college credits, Antioch considered the students qualified and eligible for the bachelor's degree at the conclusion of only two years in the Harlem Hospital Program. Since its inception in 1971 the concept of the program has broadened. Having been proved highly successful and firmly established, the program is now national in scope and purpose. Students will come for
Briefs
Vol. 68, No. 1
training from black and minority urban and rural communities from all over the country. In sum, a modest investment of financial resources and an ingenious method of student selection has resulted, after three years of the program's existence, in the graduation of 37 Physician's Assistants. These graduate P.A.'s have received a most welcome reception on the part of patients and many health institutions such as hospitals, nursing homes, industrial medicine and neighborhood health clinics, extended care facilities, and prisons. Utilization of P.A.'s by the private practitioner has been disappointing. Ironically, it is a private practice setting which probably offers one of the best contexts
85
for flexible use of the P. A.'s broad talent and training. As the Harlem Hospital Program is the only Federally funded P.A. Program with an emphasis on minority student enrollment, we are particularly anxious that black and minority physicians be aware of this new profession. In the coming years, the use of the Physician's Assistant will become an established feature of the health care system in the United States. Past history in this country has demonstrated that unless blacks and other minorities become an integral part of such efforts, or actually set the pace themselves, they are likely to be excluded. The Physician's Assistant Program at Harlem Hospital Center is a model for this new endeavor.
NORMAN E. ROBINSON TESTIMONIAL DINNER Dr. Norman Eugene Robinson (M. D., Howard, '27), of Jamaica, New York, was tendered a retirement party by 200 colleagues of the Carter Community Health Center of Jamaica on November 15, 1975. He is 76. Born in 1899, in Charleston, South Carolina, Dr. Robinson's parents moved to Savannah, Georgia, when he was four years old. He received his early education there, graduating from the East Broad Street Grammar School with second honors in 1912, and from Georgia State Industrial College (now Savannah State College) with first honors in 1916. He received the
Dr. Norman E. Robinson
B.S. from Howard University in 1922, graduating in the top ten of his class. In June 1972 he was awarded a certificate and pin honoring him as a 50 Year Alumnus. Dr. Robinson received the M.D. from Howard University in 1927 and served his internship at Freedmen's Hospital. He was licensed to practice in New York and Connecticut in 1928 and 1929, respectively. He began the practice of general medicine in Waterbury, Connecticut, and was the first Afro-American granted courtesy privileges at Waterbury and St. Mary's Hospitals. In 1941, Dr. Robinson entered the Army as a major. He had assignments at Fort Devens, Massachusetts,
and other posts in the United States. In 1944, he was ordered to Oran, Algiers, North Africa. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, USAR, in 1945, and retired in 1959. After completing a refresher course in internal medicine at New York-Bellevue Medical Center in 1946, he entered general practice in Jamaica, New York. He was appointed assistant visiting clinical physician, Queens General Hospital, Jamaica, in 1947 and was promoted to associate in 1948. In 1963 he retired as associate visiting physician, affiliate. In 1949, Dr. Robinson was appointed occupational health medical officer, supervisory, by the Second United States Army Headquarters Medical Department. During this assignment, he served at Camp Kilmer and Raritan Arsenal, Metuchen, New Jersey, until 1963, when he was transferred to the Brooklyn, New York Army Terminal where he retired in 1968. While at Raritan Arsenal, he received the Outstanding Performance Award in 1957, 1960 and 1961, and the Superior Performance Award in 1957, 1960, 1961 and 1962. He served with the Carter Community Health Center, Jamaica, from 1971 to 1975. During his career, Dr. Robinson completed postgraduate courses in ophthalmology, electrocardiography, pulmonary diseases, diabetes and family physician medical practice. He is a life member of the AMA, the Medical Society of the State of New York and the Medical Society of the County of Queens. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Health, London. Dr. Robinson is a past president of the William Wilson Post No. 135, American Legion, Waterbury, Connecticut. He is a trustee of the Amity Baptist Church, Jamaica and a first aid instructor of this church. His first wife, Mary Ann Hawkins of Fincastle, Virginia, passed away in 1968. He was married in 1971 to the former Miss Josephine Bivins of Jacksonville, Florida.
84
making admissions decisions. Entrants will be selected on the basis of demonstrated mental ability as well as aptitude, motivation, interest, maturity, and other attributes of a noncognitive nature. Grades will not be the sole criterion in making selections, although they will be an important factor in the selection process, as they serve as one of the indicants of intellectual ability. In all probability, no cutoff on grade average will be established for entering the School, but potential applicants should realize that the level of competition for entrance will be keen, with the preponderance of aspirants probably having a "B" or better average in their college work. It should also be
JANUARY, 1976
understood that there are no mitigating factors, neither singly nor collectively, that will fully compensate for substandard achievement at the undergraduate level. While such things as extra-curricular college activities, employment, graduate achievement, etc., will be taken into consideration in the selection process, none of these factors can substitute entirely for a low academic undergraduate performance. The tentative policy is that all aspirants will be required to take the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). This test is administered twice annually-in May and October-by the American College Testing Program. Aspirants must make their own arrangements for taking the test.
THE PHYSICIAN'S ASSISTANT PROGRAM AT HARLEM HOSPITAL CENTER T.W. FONVILLE, M.D. Project Director
~ ~ ~.
The Physician's Assistant is a new member of the health care delivery team. An increasingly visible and highly qualified individual, the P.A. is employed by health care institutions and private practitioners. P. A. 's are physician extenders. They work as generalists under the supervision of a primary care physician, but are able to carry out many of the more routine procedures thus liberating the physician for complex decisions and tasks.
.;ii .I.i.: .
...
..
.... j; . . . . . . j.c....
A Physician's Assistant at work.
The P. A. is an answer to the increased demands by patients for medical services and the concomitant escalation in waiting time and deterioration of quality of delivery. The role of the P. A. somewhat encompasses that of the nurse and the laboratory technician and goes beyond. The training of a P. A. is similar to that of the medical student. The tasks that a P. A. performs are many: triage, routine history taking, preliminary physical examination, basic laboratory studies (CBC, U. A., bacteriologic smears), venipuncture, I. V.'s, initiation of emergency care, injections, rounds, record keeping, multiple screening procedures etc. The Physician's Assistant Program at Harlem Hospital, begun in 1971 as the only minority P.A. Program in the country, was instituted as a direct response to a felt need. Central Harlem, the community most directly served by Harlem Hospital, is by all available instru-
ments of measurement a medically impoverished area. Overcrowding, poor housing, high unemployment, alcoholism and drug addiction, and high crime, suicide, and disease rates are some of its all too familiar socioeconomic characteristics and are obvious to the most casual inspection. Central Harlem can be accurately described as an area in permanent social crisis. It was felt, therefore, that the introduction of intermediate level health personnel, i.e., Physician's Assistants would be the most feasible and beneficial response to this crisis on the part of the Harlem medical community. The talent pool immediately available for training was Harlem Hospital emergency room nurses' aides of long experience who were currently carrying responsibilities far beyond their job titles, and former Armed Forces medical corpsmen recently returned to the Harlem community from Viet Nam. An intensive 24 month curriculum was developed for 10 selected students, all of whom were high school graduates ranging in age from 22 to 33. The curriculum provided liberal arts as well as clinical training in physical diagnosis, medicine, surgery, psychiatry, pediatrics, Ob/Gyn, emergency care, and applied bio-science, includinganatomy, physiology, laboratory diagnosis, and pharmacology. Arrangements were made with Antioch College, an institution that has pioneered innovations in progressive and community-based education, to provide candidates successfully completing the program with Antioch College credits. Utilizing past work and life experience of each trainee as a means of granting up to two years of retroactive college credits, Antioch considered the students qualified and eligible for the bachelor's degree at the conclusion of only two years in the Harlem Hospital Program. Since its inception in 1971 the concept of the program has broadened. Having been proved highly successful and firmly established, the program is now national in scope and purpose. Students will come for
Briefs
Vol. 68, No. 1
training from black and minority urban and rural communities from all over the country. In sum, a modest investment of financial resources and an ingenious method of student selection has resulted, after three years of the program's existence, in the graduation of 37 Physician's Assistants. These graduate P.A.'s have received a most welcome reception on the part of patients and many health institutions such as hospitals, nursing homes, industrial medicine and neighborhood health clinics, extended care facilities, and prisons. Utilization of P.A.'s by the private practitioner has been disappointing. Ironically, it is a private practice setting which probably offers one of the best contexts
85
for flexible use of the P. A.'s broad talent and training. As the Harlem Hospital Program is the only Federally funded P.A. Program with an emphasis on minority student enrollment, we are particularly anxious that black and minority physicians be aware of this new profession. In the coming years, the use of the Physician's Assistant will become an established feature of the health care system in the United States. Past history in this country has demonstrated that unless blacks and other minorities become an integral part of such efforts, or actually set the pace themselves, they are likely to be excluded. The Physician's Assistant Program at Harlem Hospital Center is a model for this new endeavor.
NORMAN E. ROBINSON TESTIMONIAL DINNER Dr. Norman Eugene Robinson (M. D., Howard, '27), of Jamaica, New York, was tendered a retirement party by 200 colleagues of the Carter Community Health Center of Jamaica on November 15, 1975. He is 76. Born in 1899, in Charleston, South Carolina, Dr. Robinson's parents moved to Savannah, Georgia, when he was four years old. He received his early education there, graduating from the East Broad Street Grammar School with second honors in 1912, and from Georgia State Industrial College (now Savannah State College) with first honors in 1916. He received the
Dr. Norman E. Robinson
B.S. from Howard University in 1922, graduating in the top ten of his class. In June 1972 he was awarded a certificate and pin honoring him as a 50 Year Alumnus. Dr. Robinson received the M.D. from Howard University in 1927 and served his internship at Freedmen's Hospital. He was licensed to practice in New York and Connecticut in 1928 and 1929, respectively. He began the practice of general medicine in Waterbury, Connecticut, and was the first Afro-American granted courtesy privileges at Waterbury and St. Mary's Hospitals. In 1941, Dr. Robinson entered the Army as a major. He had assignments at Fort Devens, Massachusetts,
and other posts in the United States. In 1944, he was ordered to Oran, Algiers, North Africa. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, USAR, in 1945, and retired in 1959. After completing a refresher course in internal medicine at New York-Bellevue Medical Center in 1946, he entered general practice in Jamaica, New York. He was appointed assistant visiting clinical physician, Queens General Hospital, Jamaica, in 1947 and was promoted to associate in 1948. In 1963 he retired as associate visiting physician, affiliate. In 1949, Dr. Robinson was appointed occupational health medical officer, supervisory, by the Second United States Army Headquarters Medical Department. During this assignment, he served at Camp Kilmer and Raritan Arsenal, Metuchen, New Jersey, until 1963, when he was transferred to the Brooklyn, New York Army Terminal where he retired in 1968. While at Raritan Arsenal, he received the Outstanding Performance Award in 1957, 1960 and 1961, and the Superior Performance Award in 1957, 1960, 1961 and 1962. He served with the Carter Community Health Center, Jamaica, from 1971 to 1975. During his career, Dr. Robinson completed postgraduate courses in ophthalmology, electrocardiography, pulmonary diseases, diabetes and family physician medical practice. He is a life member of the AMA, the Medical Society of the State of New York and the Medical Society of the County of Queens. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Health, London. Dr. Robinson is a past president of the William Wilson Post No. 135, American Legion, Waterbury, Connecticut. He is a trustee of the Amity Baptist Church, Jamaica and a first aid instructor of this church. His first wife, Mary Ann Hawkins of Fincastle, Virginia, passed away in 1968. He was married in 1971 to the former Miss Josephine Bivins of Jacksonville, Florida.
