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PA GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT

With the support of Augsburg University’s Equity and Inclusion Initiatives, Augsburg PA program is proud to announce our 3 PA Graduate Fellows for 2021-2022! 

Miranda La Croix, Augsburg PA Student, Augsburg PA Fellow
Miranda LaCroix, Class of 2021

They are Miranda LaCroix, Merari Morales Rosales, and Brandon Young, Class of 2021. 

Merari Morales Rosales, Augsburg PA Student, Augsburg PA Fellow
Merari Morales Rosales, Class of 2021

The fellowship is an opportunity for recently graduated, diversity-minded PAs to grow their leadership and teaching skills in a hands-on classroom setting during the time between graduation and clinical practice.  The Graduate Fellow will be supported financially to work with the PA program to become mentors and role models to current PA students and PA faculty, reaffirming and growing our culture of equity, inclusion and diversity. 

We are very excited to have Miranda, Merari, and Brandon as our Augsburg PA graduate fellows for 2021-2022! We look forward to supporting their fellowship endeavors.

Brandon Young, Augsburg PA Student, Augsburg PA Fellow
Brandon Young, Class of 2021

SCHOLARSHIP SPOTLIGHT: THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE CORPS SCHOLARSHIP

Mayan Aideed, Augsburg PA Program Student
Maryan Aideed, Class of 2023

Congratulations to Maryan Aideed, Class of 2023, for having been awarded the National Health Service Corps Scholarship. The NHSC builds healthy communities by supporting qualified health care providers dedicated to working in areas of the United States with limited access to care. The NHSC scholarship is a highly competitive award that pays for all PA school tuition, provides monthly living expenses while in school, and other costs like books, fees and medical equipment and in return, scholars work for two years in a medically underserved area in primary care. Awardees demonstrate their commitment to primary care and in serving communities that need medical providers most.

Maryan says about the scholarship; “I am so honored and grateful to be the recipient of the National Health Service Corps Scholarship. It is truly rewarding to be immersed in my passion and get an award for serving underserved and underrepresented communities in primary and preventative health care. This is in perfect alignment with my own mission and values, so I couldn’t be more grateful. Thank you to all who have helped with this achievement, including the remarkable faculty, and mentors here at Augsburg University and in the PA program.”

We are proud to have Maryan in our 2023 cohort, and we thank the National Health Service Corps for offering this scholarship to generously support Maryan in her PA studies at Augsburg University.

Alumni Anniversary Series: Leading by Example

Meredith Wold headshotMeredith Wold is a 2007 graduate of the Augsburg PA Program. Since graduating, she has worked with the HealthPartners Hospital Medicine team at Regions Hospital.  While at Regions, Meredith co-founded the HealthPartners Hospital Medicine APC Fellowship program, co-chairs the Regions APC Committee, and serves on the Regions Medical Executive Committee. Additionally, she maintains an adjunct faculty role at Augsburg and is a past president of the Minnesota Academy of Physician Assistants. Last fall, Meredith was promoted to Central Director of APC Fellowships across the HealthPartners system. Shortly after this announcement, we met with Meredith to dive deeper into her experience as a PA.

She was drawn to hospital medicine due to a combination of experiences while on her clinical rotations as well as her desire to have a career that reflected the breadth of what she had learned in PA school. Meredith remembers a specific preceptor at Fairview University Hospital, Dr. Rod McFadden, who was “a wonderful, wonderful hospitalist.” She recalls that Dr. McFadden “not only showed me the fun that came with the diverse clinical conditions in hospitalized patients,” but also demonstrated the curiosity and commitment that is integral to life-long learning. Meredith recalls, “He would sit down with me every day and deliver bite-sized lectures over lunch. He said it kept him learning, too.” After 3 years of PA school and this intriguing inpatient internal medicine rotation, Meredith knew hospital medicine would be a good match for her. Continue reading “Alumni Anniversary Series: Leading by Example”

Augsburg Physician Assistant Studies 23rd Commencement

The twenty-third cohort of the Physician Assistant Studies program graduated at the end of August. These students have successfully made it through 27 months of didactic and clinical training. The ceremony took place at Hoversten Chapel on Friday, August 23rd and was an excellent commemoration of the students’ path leading them to this point. Graduates were addressed by several individuals including Commencement Speaker Vinh Dang, PA-C and Student Representative Nathan Kleppe.

Class of 2019 group photo

Continue reading “Augsburg Physician Assistant Studies 23rd Commencement”

Alumni Anniversary Series: 22 Years in Practice

Peter Lindbloom, PA-CAs part of our alumni anniversary series, we go all the way back to the first graduating cohort. The inaugural cohort graduated in 1997, which means our featured alumni, Peter Lindbloom, PA-C, will have been practicing for 22 years. Over the course of his PA career, Peter has worked in various practice areas and settings. Peter has been at North Memorial for the past 5 years in Trauma, Emergency General Surgery, and Surgical Critical Care. In his free time, Peter keeps active with his growing family. He has 4 children and 5 grandchildren. Peter precepts Augsburg PA students during their general surgery rotations. The Minnesota Academy of Physician Assistants recognized Peter in 2008 as their PA of the Year.


As a freshman at the University of Minnesota in Morris, Peter attended a Sports Medicine Club meeting that had invited a PA guest speaker. Until that point, he was unfamiliar with the PA profession. Peter was an EMT with an ambulance service during his undergraduate years and obtained his paramedic license following his undergraduate studies. His decision to apply to PA school was driven by a desire to have a bigger scope of practice, more stable hours, better compensation and more responsibility in patient care.

Peter worked in family medicine for five years and had a full scope practice, excluding obstetrics. It was a good chance to practice the full breadth of medicine from infants all the way to geriatrics. The practice ran the whole gamut from dermatology to orthopedics. When he first started, it was at the time of health maintenance organizations (HMO) so the practice had a set number of insures. As time went on, there came to be increasingly more time commitments but fewer hours in the clinical workday to complete those tasks. He began a per diem position in a level II trauma emergency department. He subsequently left family medicine to practice emergency medicine full time with Mille Lacs Health System. They had just started staffing the night shift with PAs so that physicians would have the opportunity to sleep and then attend to patients the next day. Peter remembers receiving one of the best compliments while at Mille Lacs. The Chief of Staff at the time noted that since implementing E.D. staffing with full-time PAs, the amount of complaints decreased while the overall quality of patient care increased. Mille Lacs decided to permanently staff its emergency department 24/7 with PAs.

In the years since Peter graduated, there is significantly more access to information. He says that many students are not aware of how quickly, almost immediately, information can be available. Students should proactively be reading and staying up to date on the latest in technology and medicine.

Peter advises soon to be graduates to not sell yourself short! The nature of your clinical education is to give you a well-rounded experience. These rotations are an opportunity for both yourself and the health system to “kick the tires” and see if this might be a good fit. Often connections made during a rotation, or a preceptorship, can lead to a job, even if it is years down the road. For example, a mentor had called Peter to start up an emergency general surgery service at North Memorial 17 years after he had completed an elective rotation at North Memorial in Trauma and Surgical Critical Care.

The nature of healthcare is quickly changing. In the coming years, health systems will be grappling with the aging baby boomer population as well as a physician shortage, among other healthcare factors. Due to these pressing issues, the PA role may further evolve and develop. Peter notes that it is still up to PAs to recognize and understand their limitations while employers demand more autonomy of PAs. The practicing PA needs to be confident yet humble enough to ask for help when necessary. He would encourage PAs to develop expertise in a specific area and be the “go-to person” in their practice for questions in that area. This is value added to the health care team and benefits the patient. Pete says “we can’t lose focus of patient care. While patient satisfaction is the buzzword, we need to be evidence-based and measure outcomes all the while providing quality, cost-effective care.”

Healthcare is a team-based profession and there are various avenues to realize a career in this field. It is detrimental to the team to speak ill of another profession. When we recognize the value and merit of each health profession, the team succeeds and so does the overall care of the patient.

EdTalk – How PAs Think: A Glimpse into PA Education

As part of Augsburg’s EdTalk series through the Center for Teaching and Learning, Professor Jenny Kluznik spoke on how students are trained within PA education to step into the role of health provider, advocate, and leader. Jenny Kluznik is an Assistant Professor and the Academic Coordinator for the PA Program and joined the faculty in 2014. She serves as the course director for the Clinical Medicine course series in the didactic phase of the program. In addition, she is a graduate of the Augsburg PA Program and excited to be back teaching. Below you can watch the full EdTalk!