Annual Conference Activities

Trustee
Suzanne Reich, PA-C, MPAS
Winston-Salem, NC
suzreich@wakehealth.edu

Suzanne “Sue” Reich, PA-C, MPAS, DFAAPA, serves as a trustee of the Physician Assistant Foundation Board of Trustees. A former AAPA vice president and speaker of the House of Delegates (HOD), she has served as a director-at-large on the AAPA Board of Directors, and on various committees and task forces that advise the Academy’s Board. She is currently the parliamentarian of the HOD. She has been an active member of AAPA since 1980.

A national, regional and state PA leader, she has been secretary, president, and an endowment trustee with the North Carolina Academy of Physician Assistants (NCAPA), and she is a charter/founding board member of the Piedmont Association of Physician Assistants. She is currently chair of the NCAPA Scholarship/Endowment Committee. She has served on the board and on multiple committees for the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants. She has served on numerous North Carolina Medical Society and the North Carolina Medical Board committees. She is the recipient of the AAPA HOD’s Outstanding Service Award, NCAPA President’s Recognition Award, AAPA Publications Award and teaching excellence awards from Wake Forest.

Reich has been with the Wake Forest PA Program since 2002. She is currently the associate program director and an associate professor at the program. Prior to that, she has served as the director of clinical education and distance campus coordinator. She serves on several PA program committees. Currently, she is the supervising provider and faculty advisor on the Advisory Board of the Delivering Equal Access to Care Clinic.

In practice since 1981, she has spent most of her career at Wake Forest School of Medicine (WFSM), where she has worked clinically in both the cardiology and family medicine departments for more than 30 years. She has practiced clinically in anesthesia, cardiology, and family medicine. She has served on the WFSM Practice Council and CME Committee.

A member of the editorial board and peer reviewer for the North Carolina Medical Journal (NCMJ), Reich has authored and co-authored articles in the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants. She has lectured at national, regional state conferences.

She received her PA education at Hahnemann (now Drexel) University in Philadelphia and earned a subsequent master’s degree from the University of Nebraska School of Medicine. More recent involvement has included international opportunities for professional networking in Ireland and for medical service in Haiti. Never quite happy sitting still, she also pursues multiple athletic and recreational activities.

Trustee
Roslyn Fleischer Schneider, MD, FACP, FCCP
New York, New York
Roslyn.F.Schneider@pfizer.com

Rosyln Fleischer Schneider, MD, FACP, FCCP, serves as a trustee on the Physician Assistant Foundation Board of Trustees. Roz is the Global Patient Affairs Lead in Pfizer’s Chief Medical Office and her previous Pfizer roles include positions in Medical Affairs and Medicine Development. A graduate from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Roz is an Internist, Pulmonologist, Intensivist, and practiced at Beth Israel Medical Center NY for 20 years.

Roz’s focus was on HIV infection, medical ethics and education, in practice, teaching and administration and was a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Active in several professional organizations, she is Past-Chair of the Clinical Research Network of the American College of Chest Physicians and the Co-Chair of the American College of Physicians Healthcare Roundtable.

Roz enjoys all types of music and dance, lives with her husband of 31 years in New York, and her inspiration is her daughter who is a University sophomore.

Trustee
Janet B. Bray, CAE
Arlington, Virginia
jbray@braystrategies.com

Janet B. Bray, CAE, serves as a trustee on the Physician Assistant Foundation Board of Trustees.  She is the Chief Strategist and founder of Bray Strategies and brings a unique perspective and vision to best practices for connecting education and industry for a relevant, skilled workforce.  For more than eleven years, Janet served as the Executive Director of the Association for Career and Technical Education, a not-for-profit association representing over 30,000 professionals across the United States.  As Executive Director, Janet managed the staff and oversaw the development of program services for the members of the association and the CTE profession.  She provided leadership on a broad spectrum of education and workforce issues and directed the strategic public policy and public awareness efforts of the association.

Janet currently provides her expertise and knowledge with the Industry Workforce Needs Council, the National Restaurant Association Education Foundation, The Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Career Readiness Institute, Pathways to Prosperity project, Global Pathways Institute, Ideagen, Innovate-Educate, the National Association of Workforce Boards, Department of Labor work on career pathways, ed2go/Cengage and The Hope Street Group.

Janet represents the career and technical education and workforce profession on a number of Boards and advisory groups including the Home Builders Institute Board of Trustees, Manufacturing Skills Standards Council, National Coalition of Certification Centers, Physicians Assistants Foundation, HVACR Education Foundation, ANSI Certificate Program Accreditation Committee, Workforce Solutions Group and the Board of the U.S. Partnership for Education for Environmental Sustainability. She recently completed her Board service on the Department of Labor Apprenticeship Advisory Committee, Friends of the National High School Center, Principles for Learning Coalition and America’s Promise Alliance Board of Trustees.  During her 40-year tenure in the association management profession, she has provided leadership to a variety of associations in strategic planning, education program development, outreach to related professions and publics and creation of innovative programs and services.  She was instrumental in the development of a Youth Apprenticeship Program for the graphic arts industry in the State of Wisconsin and initiated the industry’s effort to develop national skill standards.  Janet has authored or co-authored several articles including “Developing Human Capital:  Meeting the Growing Global Need for a Skilled and Educated Workforce,” 2012, McGraw Hill Foundation and the “Trends in National Policy,” chapter in Career Pathways, Education with a Purpose, 2012

Janet has been an active participant in the association community serving on the American Society of Association Executives Education Foundation Board of Directors, Greater Washington Society of Association Executives Board of Directors, and numerous association-related committees and councils. Janet holds a Bachelors Degree in History and Government from the University of Maryland and a Masters Degree in Adult Education from the George Washington University.  Janet earned her Certified Association Executive (CAE) credential in 1991 and is a member of the distinguished ASAE Fellows Group.

Secretary
Stephanie L. McGilvray, PA-C
Pelham, Alabama
stephaniemcgilvray@yahoo.com

Stephanie McGilvray, MMSc, PA-C, serves as secretary on the Physician Assistant Foundation Board of Trustees. Her previous service to the AAPA includes serving as a member of the Academy’s Reimbursement Work Group and the State Advocates for Reimbursement (STAR) group. She has also served on the Board of the Alabama Society of Physician Assistants since 2012. This year she became the only PA named to the Alabama Health Care Improvement Task Force, created by Gov. Robert to recommend ways to provide Alabamians “more accessible and more affordable health care.”

Since 2012, McGilvray has been an assistant professor and clinical coordinator on the faculty of the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) PA program. Her clinical experience prior to entering academia includes working in the UAB Trauma and Burn Intensive Care Unit and working in orthopedics for Alabama Sports Medicine. She continues to work part time in emergency medicine.

Prior to becoming a PA, McGilvray worked as an athletic trainer for HealthSouth, developing their outreach program in the Auburn area and coordinating sports medicine care and rehabilitation for athletes at 12 local high schools.

She holds a master of medical science in PA studies from Emory University, a Master of Education in exercise technology from the University of South Alabama, and Bachelor of Science in athletic training from Troy University.

Treasurer
Deborah A. Gerbert, MS, PA-C
Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida
dgerbert@nova.edu

Deborah Gerbert, MS, PA-C, serves as the treasurer on the Physician Assistant Foundation Board of Trustees. She has a long history of service to the Academy and to the PA profession, including serving as AAPA president in 1994-1995 and as Speaker of the House from 1991-1993. She has chaired or served on many AAPA committees and councils and was the Academy’s representative to the American Medical Association from 1996-2004. She believes she caught the bug to get involved in PA organizations while a PA student at the University of Oklahoma in the late 1970s, when four former AAPA presidents were on the faculty.

Other areas of service for Gerbert include a two-year term on the Finance Committee of the Physician Assistant Education Association, three years of service on the PA Foundation Board of Trustees, and, beginning in 2015, and a position on the PA History Society’s Board of Trustees. She was the 1998 recipient of the AAPA House of Delegates Outstanding Service Award, the 2002 recipient of the Florida Academy of PAs Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2013 recipient of the Faculty of the Year Award at Nova SE University Jacksonville PA program.

After graduating from the Oklahoma PA program, Gerbert moved to Florida, where she immediately got involved with the state PA academy. She was elected secretary of the Florida Academy of PAs in 1982 and president in 1984. She has represented Florida in the AAPA House of Delegates since 1980 and has served on numerous committees, her favorite being the Legislative and Governmental Affairs Committee. She was appointed to the PA Council of the Board of Medicine in 2003 and chaired the council from 2006 to 2010.

Gerbert has spent her entire clinical career in pediatrics, in Jacksonville, Florida. She has worked in an outpatient clinic in the University of Florida teaching hospital and in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in Wolfson Children’s Hospital, where she is currently a hospitalist PA for the general pediatric service. In all of these settings she has enjoyed working with PA students and pediatric residents. More recently, Gerbert took a five-year hiatus from clinical practice to become the founding program director at Nova Southeastern University’s PA Program in Jacksonville.

Gerbert completed her undergraduate degree in biology at Emory University in Atlanta in 1976 and graduated from the University of Oklahoma PA program in 1980. She has been married to her husband, Jeff for 24 years and they have a teenage daughter, Kim.

Vice President
James F. Cawley, MPH, PA-C
Washington, DC
purljfc@aol.com

James F. Cawley, PA-C, MPH, DHL (Hon.), DFAAPA, serves as vice president of the Physician Assistant Foundation Board of Trustees. Prior to serving as vice president, he served as a Foundation trustee. He is a past president of the Foundation as well as the Physician Assistant Education Association. In 2013, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

He was a primary care health policy fellow in the Health Resources and Services Administration and a fellow at the Robert Graham Center. He has served as the chair of the U.S. Bureau of Health Professions’ Advisory Group on Physician Assistants and the Work Force, and was principal author of its seminal report to the Council on Graduate Medical Education. He also served as a member of the U.S. Public Health Service National Coordinating Committee on Clinical Prevention Service, and did a stint with the storied Epidemic Intelligence Service of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he was a fellow of the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine. Recently, he was named a senior research fellow at the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA).

A renowned healthcare workforce researcher, Cawley’s groundbreaking research on PAs has advanced the profession and helped increase access to primary care through the use of PAs. His research interests focus on the PA profession, primary care and health workforce policy. The studies and books he co-authored two decades ago continue to be the baseline measurement for the profession’s impact on healthcare. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles published in such journals as Journal of Health Services and Research Policy, Health Affairs, Annals of Internal Medicine, the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants, Academic Medicine, British Medical Journal as well as the Loyola University Chicago’s Annals of Health Law. As an editor and columnist, he has authored more than 250 columns over the past 25 years and his commentaries have been timely, informative and challenging.

Currently a professor at The George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences and GW’s Milken Institute School of Public Health, Cawley has been at the forefront of educating future PAs, having established a unique joint PA and Master of Public Health program at GW, which was the first of its kind at the time. He serves as director of the joint program.

A 1974 graduate of the Touro College PA program, he practiced as a PA in primary care at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, earned his MPH in infectious disease epidemiology from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and has held faculty appointments in the PA programs at Johns Hopkins, SUNY@ Stony Brook, and Yale University School of Medicine.

In 2011, he was the first PA recipient of AAPA’s Eugene A. Stead Jr. Award of Achievement.