Awards

Jay Thomas, PA-C of the General Surgery Dept., Mason City Clinic has been honored as the Iowa PA Society's 2018 PA of the Year.

Jay has practiced in Mason City for 40 years with the General Surgeons and during that time he has been a valuable asset for their department with daily cases, call, knowledge, training surgical residents from the University of Iowa for some 35 of those years and then also family practice residents, medical students and of course many physician assistant students. He has always welcomed the chance of teaching and letting physician assistant students in on little intricate details or nuances that would help in their future practices.

Congratulations to Jay on an amazing PA career and a giant thank you to the legacy he's left through his student outreach!

Dallas Sanders of Des Moines, IA has been named the 2017 Physician Assistant of the Year by the Iowa Physician Assistant Society (IPAS). Requirements for consideration of this award include promoting the Physician Association, volunteering or mission work and being involved in the community.

Dallas attended the Physician Assistant Program at Touro College, Manhatten Campus and has long been working in Internal Medicine. He shares his knowledge and experience as a PA preceptor for the Des Moines University PA program, taking several PA students throughout the year, and is also an active Diabetes educator. His colleagues see him as a hard-working professional with a, “positive outlook on every patient and scenario,” and his patients, “love him and trust his judgment in every matter.”

IPAS is proud to honor Dallas with the Physicians Assistant of the Year award.

During the past 16 years, PA Luan Montag has served as the only source of medical care in the small North Iowa town of West Bend. In addition to being the sole medical care provider at the West Bend federally certified Rural Health Clinic Luan lives in West Bend, covers their 35 resident nursing home and makes house calls.  Eighteen years ago, after West Bend was having difficulties keeping a medical practitioner in town, Luan enrolled in the Des Moines University PA school. She graduated in 2000 and returned to provide medical care for her home town ever since.  Prior to that she had worked at the West Bend clinic as a medical assistant and practice manager, and served as an EMT-1 for the community.  

West Bend has a population of 785. It is the home of the Grotto of the Redemption.

Her primary supervising physician, Thomas Getta, MD, is a University of Iowa medical school graduate. He is available via telecommunication and visits the clinic 2-3 days per month.  Her closest hospital is Algona 20 miles away.  On her own time she provides medical coverage for local sports teams.

Luan especially enjoys mentoring young people in the health care professions, particularly PA students.  A dedicated teacher she precepts PA students from Des Moines University, University of North Dakota and Rocky Mountain College and will take nurse practitioner students too.

A winner of many awards, Luan was the outstanding graduate in the Medical Assistant program at the Omaha College of Health Careers, on the Dean’s List at Iowa Lakes Community College, earned the highest GPA in nutrition at the DMU PA Program and the Golden Hands award from Mercy Northwest Iowa.

As a community leader, Luan has served as President of the Ambulance Service, President of the Motel Board, member of the school renovation team, President of the West Bend - Mallard Achievement Foundation, President of the West Bend Economic Development, and President of the West Bend Chamber of Commerce. To promote health and well-being in her town Luan initiated a free 5K run-walk for the annual town celebration.  Furthermore, she serves as a church leader, instructor and organist.

In addition Luan publishes a weekly article “Montag on Health” on the hospital website and in the local paper promoting healthy lifestyles and addressing current health topics.  She has been a speaker and educator at multiple school and community functions.  Yet she finds time to be the mother to two sons who live and work in West Bend with their father and a grandmother to 14 grandchildren.

Luan is an exemplary PA who is a treasure to her community and an inspiration to us all. She richly deserves our recognition as Iowa PA of the year.

For the past 15 years plus, Laura has provided effective and quality health care as a PA in the state of Iowa for the adults in emergency medicine and the pediatric and adolescent population in the clinic setting.  She is the only PA in the Bilgi Pediatrics and Adolescence clinic in Ankeny, Iowa.  Since 2009, Laura has been on faculty at Des Moines University, DMU, as a clinical coordinator for the Physician Assistant program.

Promotion of IPAS, Volunteering and Mission Work Outside of DMU, Laura has served on the Iowa Physician Assistant Board of Directors, been an elected President and Past President of IPAS, committee member and chairperson for the Spring IPAS Conference and an advocate for many legislative initiatives for PA scope of practice issues.

The list of awards and honors that Laura has been granted is exhaustive to include the 2009 Governor’s Volunteer Award for her continuing service to the State of Iowa for volunteer work with the American Lung Association of Iowa 2009 inductee to the Pi Alpha Honors Society for PA education, 2011 Des Moines University recognition by the faculty for the Service Award.  Each year Laura takes a group of DMU PA and medical students to global health mission trips that include several countries in Africa and St. Lucia.

Laura annually supervises students in community health events that range the lifespan to include school sports physicals at rural communities across Iowa and economically challenged population in Des Moines, events coordinator for the DMU Senior Health Fair each November providing bone density/COPD screening at different health fair events, the Iowa State Fair and Iowa Caregivers’ Conference each August.

Community Involvement

Laura provides the students of DMU an opportunity to attend and practice skills at the annual “flu shot” clinics at Bilgi’s Children’s Clinic.  Being an asthma patient herself, she supports the Iowa Lung Association walk and stair climb by participating in the stair climb and challenges her PA students to join her each year.

In her hometown Iowa communities of Ankeny and Saydel, Laura assists with her church youth group. Those that know Laura, realize her excitement for the PA profession and the provision of quality healthcare both locally and internationally.  Laura is excited and determined as a PA to always make sure everyone is aware of the profession she loves.

Dr. Roberta J. Baldus

Robyn Nebergall of Tipton, IA has been named the 2014 Physician Assistant of the Year by the Iowa Physician Assistant Society (IPAS). Requirements for consideration of this award include promoting the Physician Association, volunteering or mission work and being involved in the community.

Aside from working at a Tipton clinic for the past 20 years as a Physician Assistant, Nebergall is a highly visible and active servant within her community. She has volunteered as both a medical advisor and coach on the sidelines of numerous youth sporting events. She attends and participates in a variety of school events, and, on top of it all, has raised a family in the same community.

Nebergall’s dedication to her work as a PA and her time, effort, value, love and servanthood for her community, all while being a busy mother, represent the spirit of the Physicians Assistant profession and have made her an obvious choice for the 2014 Physician Assistant of the Year award.

This year's PA of the year is Theresa Hegmann and it is a great pleasure to present her with this award. She is a colleague and a mentor. Theresa has been an actively practicing PA for 22 years. Her primary role for 12 years is as a faculty member at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicines, Department of Physician Assistant Studies and Services where she is a professor and Director of the Didactic curriculum. Her accomplishments are many and are diverse. She has devoted her most of her time in clinical practice to rural and underserved areas including a remote clinic in the mountains of California, several different underserved populations in Iowa including one with a predominately Hispanic population. She currently works in an urgent care in the greater Iowa City and Muscatine area. Her Supervising physician is Dr. Harriet Echternacht. It is no small task to balance her duties with her role as a PA educator with her clinic duties. She has a strong dedication to promoting and teaching evidence based medicine, this is evident is her practice as well as the education she provided to students.  She teaches Clinical decision making to up and coming PA to provide a strong background and promote lifelong learning. She has received 6 grants for her scholarly work and has had over 20 publications to date including a review articles, journal articles and posters.

She is active participant in PA association's including being fellow member of the AAPA, member of Physician Assistant Education Association, as well as al long time IPAS fellow member. She has received multiple awards including AAFP Recognition for Teaching in Family Practice Medicine, Teaching Scholar, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and the Rising star award from PAEA. She has served the PA profession by serving on the state PA regulatory board as a member and then as the chair of the board. She has pursued her passion for research and evidence based medicine by serving on the PAEA's Research committee and data research sub-committee. She has been as an editor for JAAPA and the Journal of Physician Assistant Education, and participated in multiple review panels. She has been a strong advocate for PA legislation in the state of Iowa and has written, emailed and spoken to many of her legislators to present the issue Pa's in Iowa face and has been a role model for many Pa students.

In short she has provide leadership and service in every aspect of the PA profession, going above and beyond to promote, provide support and educate PA's, increase access to healthcare,  improve legislation for practicing PA's and is very deserving of this award.

Frankie Winegardner is an outstanding PA who has been a long time pioneer of the profession in many medical settings. Among the many aspects of her life she has served most notably as a PA medical practitioner, educator, leader, writer and effective advocate for patients and PAs. Frankie is a 1978 graduate of the University of Iowa PA program who practices Integrative Medicine at her clinic in Clear Lake, Iowa.

 Always willing to help she is an exceptional leader who was instrumental in virtually all of the Iowa PA Society legislative successes in Iowa. These advancements include increasing the number of PAs a physician may supervise at one time from 2 to 5, clarifying PA authority to order and perform respiratory therapy, allowing PAs to form and join professional corporations and prescribing schedule II stimulants (Ritalin, amphetamines). Frankie persuaded her state representative and neighboring state senator, key legislators, to guide these bills through the legislature. Additionally, Frankie was a leader in the successful IPAS efforts to pass third party reimbursement, prescribing and the PA regulatory board.

Frankie has been singularly effective in educating legislators about PAs, and physicians about PA training and skills. Each time of the many times Frankie was asked she successfully organized Mason City area PAs to work on legislative issues. Frankie has served the PA profession in many capacities including IPAS president, chair of the Iowa PA regulatory board, AAPA House of Delegates representative for Iowa, IPAS newsletter editor and columnist for 7 years, preceptor for PA student and PA presenter on a variety of medical topics. Frankie has worked as a PA in many different settings from surgery to remote sites, to radiation oncology, to setting up her own clinic to care for patients with challenging medical problems. And she publishes her own quarterly wellness medical newsletter.

Among many her many educational projects Frankie has served as a teacher of ACLS, smoking cessation and Complementary and Alternative Medicine varying from healing touch to hypnosis. These skills are especially helpful for her difficult to manage patients. To develop these abilities she completed the University of Arizona fellowship in Integrative Medicine. Frankie is also a published author and serves as a volunteer at the Mason City free clinic.

For her crucial role in the education of legislators alone Frankie richly deserves recognition as Iowa's PA of the year. Throughout her career she has demonstrated very well the variety and flexibility a PA can offer a practice.  And she has done it all extremely well reflecting most favorably on our PA profession. Most importantly, she has helped innumerable patients have a better life.

The 2011 Iowa PA of the Year award was announced at the IPAS Fall CME in Coralville. The recipient of this award, Barbara Krugler, was unable to attend the meeting but was applauded by her fellow PAs for her achievements.

Barb graduated with a BS from Iowa State and an MBA from Drake prior to attending DMU where she graduated with a BS in PA studies in 2001 and UNMC accomplishing a MPAS in 2011. She joined the National Guard in June of 2008. She is currently employed at the VA Central Iowa in the pain clinic with Dr. Fred Bahls as her supervising physician. She was previously employed by the Audubon Family Practice and DMOS, Health Emergency ER and at Broadlawns in the walk-in clinic and Internal Medicine clinics.

Barb believes in service and in giving back to her community and her country. She stated she had always wanted to serve in the military and decided that she would begin her service even though she was older than most who begin military careers. She hopes to serve until the military age restrictions prohibit continued service. Working with “some of the best young medics and treating some of the best America has in the way of soldiers” has been a driving force in her PA/Military service. She has had the opportunity to treat local Afghan children, soldiers and police while deployed. She noted they have many of the same illnesses that we do, but a weak medical system from which to receive care. She enjoys working with the young soldiers as they “keep her young”.

Barb joined IPAS after graduating from DMACC. She believes that PAs should belong to our local PA society to support our local and state wide concerns. She served on the IPAS board for one term.

Barb has been married to her husband, Larry, for 22 years and has two children: Lizzy age 19 who attends ISA , and Ryan, 16 a Junior at ADM high school. Her family has been supportive of her PA and Reserve duties.

IPAS salutes Barb for her dedication to her work as a PA and service to our country. She exemplifies the role that our PA founders envisioned over 40 years ago. Thank you, Barb, for your caring and compassionate service.

Nancy Morris is a PA who has worked in Cedar Rapids for more than 25 years, and who has been a key player in achieving major PA legislative accomplishments as well as being an outstanding clinical PA. She pioneered PA practice in Cedar Rapids, one of the most challenging places in Iowa to become accepted as a PAs. Nancy is an outstanding PA clinician who did such a good job that she is well respected by the Cedar Rapids medical community and PAs are now accepted in that town.

Despite her busy clinical practice, teaching students, and raising a family, Nancy never failed to enthusiastically answer a succession of calls for help with PA legislation. By always responding with a can do attitude and asking what she could do to help, she provided timely and essential motivation to the rest of us to continue our efforts despite the seemingly impossible odds against our chances of success. Most importantly, she was especially adept at quickly understanding an issue and explaining it clearly to legislators. She hosted meetings at her home in Cedar Rapids with key legislators at critical times. These leaders included Speaker of the House, Ron Corbett, and Senate Majority Leader, Wally Horn, both of Cedar Rapids. By skillfully explaining the PA concept and the proposed legislative changes, she persuaded these legislative leaders to support crucial PA legislation. Because of this Iowa has one of the best PA laws in the nation. In Iowa PAs and supervising physicians regulate PAs, including PA supervision. PAs are now at the table when medical legislation is considered. Among many legislative accomplishments,

Nancy was instrumental in achieving the following legislative successes, even though each was mistakenly opposed by organized medicine in Iowa.

• PA separate regulatory board - 1988 PA prescribing - 1991
• PA third party reimbursement - 1996 PA licensing reform - 2003
• PA rules reform - 2007
• PA corporation membership - 2010

In addition to all her work on behalf of sensible legislation for PAs and our physicians, Nancy has been a life long member of the Iowa PA society - helping to provide the financial support essential to meeting our unique challenges in Iowa. Though her consistent efforts to achieve sensible PA regulation, Nancy has helped all of us do a better job of taking care of our patients. All of us owe her a tremendous debt of gratitude for her unfailing efforts to ensure Iowa PA laws allow the physician / PA team to use their skills for the benefit of our patients. The Iowa PA Society is proud to name Nancy Morris, 2010 PA of the Year!

Tony Brenneman awarded Margaret Pardini with Ben Pardini’s PA of the Year Award.

“It is with both a sense of great pride and great sadness that I am able to present this year’s Physician Assistant Award. Benet Pardini, or as most of us knew him, Ben, was a wonderful human being as well as a great PA. His life was full and overflowing with family, teaching, and dedication to his patients and his life ended too soon on October 6, 2008, just a few days after this conference was held last year.

Ben grew up in the Chicagoland area where he attended Loyola University as a doctoral candidate. In 1983, he came to the University of Iowa as a Postdoctoral fellow studying Neural Control of Circulation and Central Autonomic Regulation of the Cardiovascular System. Ben was an outstanding researcher, winning research awards from the National Institute of Health, Loyola University, University of Iowa and the Shock Society. He could have spent an extremely productive career working with colleagues in the cardiovascular research center, but he grew increasingly interested in providing care to children with heart problems. So, 15 years after receiving his doctorate in physiology, he entered training as a PA and completed the Masters of Physician Assistant Studies at the University of Iowa PA Program in 1998.

As a clinician, Ben quickly gained a stellar reputation for his competence and his bedside manner. He linked his research experience with his clinical skills through his participation in Clinical Trials from 1999-present. He was often found checking on his patients over the weekends, holidays, and nights when he wasn’t scheduled to cover those units. His office reflected those connections with drawings from his small patients on the walls or tucked on his desk. Always present in his office were pictures of his daughters, Emma and Ruth and his wife Margaret, for which he had great pride and love. He was always ready with a story of what was happening in their lives and he reveled in each of their accomplishments.

All of these accomplishments would be enough for many people, but for Ben, “enough” was only the beginning. Early on, he discovered the joys of teaching and committed himself fully to working with students across the college. His teaching assignments ranged from basic science classes to clinical teaching, and he taught many health science students in other colleges. He was consistently nominated for Teacher of the Year award within the Carver College of Medicine and in 2006 he was named faculty director of the Rubin Flocks LearningCommunity in the College. He also held joint faculty appointments as a clinical associate professor of Pediatrics and in Physiology and Biophysics.

Outside of the University, he served as a member of the Solon Community School Board, and demonstrated a passion and desire for education at every age and level. He was elected to the Iowa Physician Assistant Board of Directors in 2007 and was serving as Immediate Past President at the time of his passing. He was instrumental in moving IPAS forward in building our relationship with the Iowa Medical Society and for spearheading the new website. He was excited and determined as a PA and always made sure everyone was aware of his profession.

Ben had a gregarious, outgoing, and infectious personality. You always wanted to be the best that you could be when you were around him. He loved the outdoors and was always planning the next trip that Margaret, Emma and Ruth would be taking with him. He was interested in photography, sailing, beekeeping and many other activities, but his first priority was always to the women in his life and to his patients. I personally miss him very much and valued our discussions on an always widening number of topics. He was truly an inspiring person which one never forgets, even after a very brief meeting.

I am very proud to award Ben Pardini the Physician Assistant of the Year.”