Anonymous comment?

If you have something to say, it's worth standing behind your words. I can't imagine why you'd not want to put your name to your comments. It sure makes it a whole lot easier to respond if I know to whom I am responding.

I have every reason to believe that the comments concerning MLTs being trained up to be PAs, and the minimum requirement for CAPA membership being a BSc have come from a personal acquaintance of mine from Alberta. This person has expressed concern (justifiably) about the fact that the CAPA will be a small club indeed if MLTs are excluded. I agree (and I have expressed this to the executive committee of the CAPA). As I have told this acquaintance, there will be a grand-mother-/father-ing process wherein those who have been practising PAs for years will be creditted with their valuable years of experience. This will reflect the American experience wherein PAs (many of whom, like many of you, are Histotechs trained up to be PAs) are given credit for their many valuable years of experience and may, with a Pathologist's endorsement, be granted membership to the CAPA.

I don't want it to sound like an eletist group. We want to include as many PAs as possible and we look forward to having a coast-to-coast-to-coast association that has as many Canadian PAs as posisible in the group.

CAPA update

To bring readers up to date on developments on the Canadian Association of PAs front, you should know that the organization, truly in its infancy, now has an executive. This was decided upon by those who attended the CAP meeting this year (Newfoundland) and a follow-up meeting at Vancouver Children's Hospital recently (at the time of the AAPA AGM). Lloyd Kennedy (Kingston) and Larry Bluhm (Winnipeg) are co-chairs and Kent Neuert (Vancouver) is the Secretary.

Among abundant amounts of conversation on many topics, the submission of an updated list of key competencies for Canada's PAs will be created (beginning with the CAP's Position Statement); ready for submission to the CAP for ratification by next year's AGM (Toronto). Grandmother-/fathering guidelines is a big topic for discussion. My feeling is that the majority of Canadian PAs are Technologists who (please correct me if you think otherwise) do not hold a baccalaureate and who have been trained on the job. Insofar as the minimum requirement to attain membership will be holding a baccalaureate (plus several years' bench experience), the association is going to be an elite one indeed (or so it would seem to me). There are numerous institutions, especially non-academic centres, at which PAs are involved solely in either surgical, or autopsy, pathology, but not both. The minimum criterion for inclusion will be that the candidate must be able to function in both disciplines. This may further limit the membership.

I understand that just 43 PAs have joined the CAP. These individuals will receive a communique from the CAPA, via the CAP, concerning membership (in the CAPA), and other things -- as soon as possible.

Much progress on the educational front is being made. A number of individuals in Vancouver, Kent among them, are working on the final stages of a curriculum, much of it to be hopefully offered as e-education (aka 'distance ed'). I sincerely hope that they, and anyone else who may hold, or may be working on, a curriculum consult the CMA concerning accreditation of their curriculum.

It is SO very nice to see progress being made. Those who have assisted to date should be given a very big thank-you for their efforts. Thank-you!