Celebrating PA Week.

I love PA Week. There is such a sense of excitement and pride as the profession acknowledges the past, celebrates the present, and looks to our future. My fi rst week in physician assistant (PA) education culminated in a Duke University PA Day celebration. I still remember these festivities 13 years later because it was the fi rst time I really thought about the history of the profession and the dedicated people who created the PA concept. I was standing with the fathers of the PA profession, Drs. Eugene Stead and Harvey Estes, that day and talking to the many PAs who had been the groundbreakers and pioneers of the PA profession. The courage of these leaders resounded in that celebration and continues in all that we do today. As president of the Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA), I often talk about the strategic initiatives of PA education and the need to attract and train more healthcare providers to meet the growing needs of our nation. One key strategy for achieving this goal focuses on the people of the profession, who are undoubtedly our greatest strength. This group includes the pre-PA applicants, PA students, and educators, as well as practicing PAs and patient advocates. From our own ranks will come our future PA leaders. These people will lead our profession as we tackle the many challenges of tomorrow. Clearly, we face a time of action and change and have a responsibility to represent our profession with courage and vision. In his book Leading Change, John Kotter notes that the traditional model of leadership, which suggests that leadership is “a divine gift of birth, a gift granted to a small number of people,” does not take into account “the power and the potential of lifelong learning.”1 My students would say they could probably drastically cut the cost of their PA education if they had a dollar for every time they heard that “PAs are lifelong learners.” That mindset, along with our team-based focus, is part of our Celebrating PA Week