What's New In Surgical Critical Care

Saint Francis Physician Assistant Receives Award

The graduating class of Quinnipiac University, Hamden Connecticut, has a certificate ceremony that is held each August. Each year, the class has certain awards that they give- one for excellence in didactic instruction and the other for excellence in clinical instruction.

On August 10th, 2003, the Quinnipiac University Physician Assistant Certificate Ceremony was held. The class of 54 was awarded their certificates. Approximately 500 friends, family and relatives of the graduates attended.

Yvette Cruz, PA grad and treasurer of the class of 2003 presented the Excellence in Didactic Instruction Award. This award is presented to the instructor who demonstrates dedication to students, teaching and to the PA profession and serves as a role model for all PA’s. The recipient was Lisa M. Barratt, PA-C. She is one of the assistant professors in the PA program and a PA in surgical critical care at Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford ,CT.

Physician Assistants present their abstracts at the SCCM in Orlando, Florida

Two of the Surgical Critical Care Physician Assistants at Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center, James Lunn Jr. and Peter Sandor, have been selected to present their abstracts at the 33rd Critical Care Congress of the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) in Orlando, Florida from February 21-25, 2004. This meeting is the premier event of the year for critical care professions from around the world. The abstracts, “Percutaneous Tracheostomy As Performed by Physician Assistants” and “Routine Chest Radiograph After Percutaneous Tracheostomy,” examine several aspects of the Percutaneous Tracheostomy procedure. This procedure has been performed in the Medical-Surgical Intensive Care Unit (MSICU) for a number of years. The abstracts attest to the outstanding results of the procedure as performed in MSICU.