The PA Class of 2019 Receives Their Short White Coats

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On June 30, family and friends gathered in Betts Theater in the Marvin Center to celebrate the arrival of a new class of physician assistant (PA) students to the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS). Karen Wright, PhD, PA-C, assistant dean for student life and academic support of health sciences, PA program director, and interim chair of the Department of Physician Assistant Studies at SMHS, was the first to welcome the crowd gathered to the Class of 2019 Convocation and White Coat Ceremony.Keynote speaker, Aaron Henry, PA-C ’10, who currently serves as the medical director assistant for operations at Patient First and as an adjunct instructor in the PA program at SMHS, spoke to the new class about what it takes to be above average in the PA profession — passion, confidence, and humility.
Passion drives one’s ability to push through obstacles to achieve their goals, Henry said. He recalled the very first PAs, Navy corpsmen in the Vietnam War, as examples of courage. “During battle, the corpsmen were not only responsible for treating the injured, but also had to transport those men back to safety,” Henry explained. “Fear is a big motivator; they could have easily run away from the fight. But passion made them look death in the face in order to save the lives of others.”
Confidence, he continued, will come as students develop an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, as well as take advantage of the opportunity to learn from one another.
Finally, when it comes to humility, PAs must “never forget that being a PA means being a servant,” Henry said. He made his point with an example: When he was starting out as a PA, he had a patient who preferred to see an MD, rather than what he referred to as a “fake doctor.” After Henry informed the patient that ...

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