Another program director, and this one was building a PA program from scratch.

Susan Salahshor is the program director for the PA program at Ithaca College, which was brand new when we recorded. I always want to know what it looks like from the inside when a program is being designed, because those decisions determine what kind of PA you become.

The part worth your attention is holistic admissions. Ithaca is one of the programs that means it. That doesn't mean grades stop mattering, it means your experience, your background, and who you actually are get weighed alongside the numbers. If you have a stat that worries you, this is the kind of program philosophy you should be looking for.

Susan also talks about mentorship and advocacy, which are two things this profession needs more of.

What we cover:

• What goes into launching a brand new PA program
• How holistic admissions works in practice
• What Ithaca is looking for in applicants
• The program's focus on diversity and inclusion
• Why mentorship matters at every stage of this career
• Susan's advice for applicants who don't fit the standard mold

Resources:

PA Program Map: https://www.thepaplatform.com/pa-platform-map

Free Application Timeline: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-application-timeline

Pre-PA Counseling: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-counseling

Pre-PA Academy: https://prepaclub.thepaplatform.com/landing/academy

Mentioned in this episode:

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You are about to hear from Susan Salishore, the program director at the new PA Program at Ithaca College.

There's so much goodness in today's episode.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club podcast.

If you want to learn how to become a physician assistant, you're in the right place.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry.

Let's get to it.

All right, before we jump into today's episode, I want to remind you guys that as soon as you submit your applications for PA School, it is time to start preparing for the interviews.

We are already seeing schools interviewing, and it is not even June yet.

So that means as soon as you submit, you know, start practicing, start doing some research, and we have some resources to make that easier for you.

So if you Google the PA Platform interview, you'll find so many resources.

There's the PA School Interview Guide, which is available on Amazon [email protected] book, as well as the PA school interview course@prepa courses.com and of course, mock interviews with one of our amazing coaches who, if you need some unbiased feedback, some constructive criticism, and an outside opinion, you definitely want to practice with a coach.

And all of ours are practicing PAs.

Don't forget that you can use the code future PA for a discount on any of those.

And if you have any questions, reach out to me on Instagram.

I'm HEPA Platform and I'll help you out.

So good luck.

Has there ever been an episode that I did not say, I am so excited for this episode episode?

Probably not, but this one is no exception, and I am very honored to introduce our speaker to you.

I'm Savannah, by the way.

Dermatology pa.

I've been a PA now for almost seven years, which is wild, and creator of the PA platform.

I really enjoy getting to connect with faculty and program directors and bring them to you to hear directions directly from the people who are looking at your applications and making the decisions about whether you can become a pa.

So I connected with Susan Salishore.

She is the program director at Ithaca College in New York, and she spoke at our most recent Virtual Pre PA conference.

She's awesome.

She's kind.

I just, you know, would love to be at a program where she is the director.

Let's just say that.

But before we get into our discussion, I want to let you know about a couple of things that are timely if you are listening to this podcast in real time.

If you're listening in the past, you can skip this next little part, but as of right now, IFCA College was approved for accreditation by the arcpa, and then they had to be accredited by the State of New York.

That did not happen before they were able to get set up with CASPA for this cycle.

So if you want to be a PA are interested in a program that is very focused on making sure that their admissions process is holistic and they are getting the people who maybe fall through the cracks have reapplied, and they really need to be PAs.

You still have to meet the minimum requirements, so check those out on the program website.

You're willing to start school in August, and you're willing to move to New York.

You need to apply to Ithaca College, and you need to do it ASAP, because this program is accepting applications until June 7th, and there are still spots available for the class that starts in August.

That is an amazing opportunity that I encourage you to take advantage of and be strategic.

If this is a school that you fit their mission, they fit yours.

What you're looking for, go for it.

Make a move, make a decision, and I'll have my fingers crossed for you.

If you want to apply for upcoming cycles, you can.

Ithaca College will be opening their CASPA cycle on July 1st for the program that would start next August.

These timelines get confusing.

I realize that, but I want you to be aware and let me know what happens.

I would love to hear.

All right, so let's jump into hearing from Susan.

Get your notepads out, get ready to take notes.

And this is a really good one, y'.

All.

If you need more information about the Ithaca College program, make sure you go to their program website.

It's linked in the description, and there's an email to reach out to them as well if you have any questions.

So, I'm Susan Salishore.

I am the founding program director for Ithaca College PA program.

I have been a PA for 27 years come June of this year.

And I'm very young, so I'm not an old lady.

I'm mature, though.

I have practice in about 10 specialty, and I always share that with students because they go, wow.

And I go, that's what I fell in love with about the PA program, the ability to move around.

And I have gone from hospital medicine.

Back in the day, when it wasn't called hospital medicine, it was geriatric medicine.

My first job, general surgery, where we had ventilators on the regular floor work.

I've done open bariatric surgery and laparoscopic Invasive surgery.

I've done liver, kidney and pancreas transplant, as well as the medicine of it.

I have been the lead PA at Mayo Clinic in Florida for many years, and through that learned a lot of techniques about leadership and how to develop as a leader, how to develop other leaders.

Mentoring and supporting students is in my genetics.

I. I tell people I love students.

If a student is interested in the health professions.

I have been a past president of the Florida Academy of Physician Assistant and the first black to be in that role.

And so I believe in leadership, advocacy, and not just advocacy for our profession, but advocacy for patients in the community.

Serve.

Officially.

Because when I was in PA school, I would say John's University in Queens, New York.

And there was a Dean Mackey.

I can't remember her first name.

Her name was Dean Mackey.

And Dean Mackey saw something in me and mentored me and, and supported me through my journey.

I always share with students the story of my journey because I think it's helpful for them to understand that I still got into PA school.

I came from a single family.

You know, my mom was a single mom.

We had migrated from Jamaica.

I left Jamaica and came to this country thinking I was, you know, middle class in Jamaica and came here and I was, you know, poor.

My sister and I thought we were poor because we lived in a basement when we first got here.

And our mom worked three jobs, one full time and two others part time.

And so we were like, we want to go back home because we don't want to be in this.

We don't want to be poor.

But my mom was like, no, this is the land of opportunity, and this is what you're going to do.

And I really found out about the physician assistant profession because I went to the health center and they said the doctor couldn't see me.

He was booked, and they were pa. And I noticed she did everything the doctor did.

And I said, so what is this thing?

When she told me that it would allow me to have a family.

That was important to me at the time.

I didn't understand all the dynamics of being a pa. She said she was off on weekends, she didn't do college, didn't do nights, and I was pursuing medical school and I had to do all those things.

And so I said, sign me up for this profession, and pivoted and started looking into the physician assistant programs and then pick St. John's University because they gave me great scholarships.

And so it worked out really well.

And then I went to Daily Seafood for two years as part of my undergrad.

So I'm one of those old PAs in terms of the 3, 2.

And we were bachelor's and certificates, and then I had to go back to my master's.

And.

Have you.

I'm sure you have more than a master.

Like you've done more, too.

Yeah.

So I got my master's when I was in bariatric surgery, Believe it or not, I was in bariatric surgery, and we'd had a case.

It was very interesting.

And we had this case come through, and this woman had latex allergy, didn't share with us.

She had a latex allergy.

So she gets to the hospital and she says, I have a latex allergy.

And the nurse calls me and says, susan, we can't do this.

Did she tell you guys she had a latex allergy?

Nowhere in the charge.

I said, oh.

But she said she just remembered.

So, okay, we're gonna have to cancel the case because in the surgery, we did everything, included the band, we put around the stomach.

Stomach has late, so it's a special order.

And so I end up writing my thesis about latex allergy in the surgical suite.

But my mother and my grandmother always said I was the kid when you.

You know.

My mother said I never cried for toys.

I cried for books.

She'd go in the big store.

I'm always someone who loved to learn and love to read.

So I decided, since I wanted to teach and be a Dean Mackey, I was going to go and get a PhD because people sometimes ask me, why did you get a PhD?

Well, because I thought I was going to teach at St. John's University or somewhere similar, and I need a PhD.

And so that's why I pursued that pathway.

So education was always who I was.

I started teaching at Florida State University.

And then just thought, you know, it's time to move on.

Because as a leader, you should always be thinking and growing.

And I have the one year, the three year, five year plan.

And I was at the three year plan and really didn't see the vision of where I would go in that organization that.

So I started to look for jobs, and I chose Ithaca College because I love the diversity of the senior leadership team, because someone can tell me they're diverse and inclusive, but if you're not reflected in your leadership, you.

You're not really exhibiting it for me.

So fell in love with that team and kind of really the message that they had.

Even though we're at a predominantly white college, I felt there was enough there that I felt they were authentic about the changes they wanted to make.

I picked Ithaca College as I was interviewing, and I have interviewed at other places that people thought she would go there instead and chose here just because I felt I really wanted to do something different.

It also afforded me to be close to my oldest daughter, who has two kids, and I'm Gigi to them.

So I wanted to be close to my.

My grandkids as well.

So that was always a good thing.

Yeah, my dad's Gigi, chosen by my daughter, so not sure where it came from.

But I love that.

I love that.

And I appreciate you sharing how you found a PA profession, because I was going to ask you about that, too, because being a PA for 27 years, 27 years ago, there weren't that many PAs, and it was definitely.

It's.

We're still.

I feel like a new profession, and it was very new.

So I think that's really cool that you were able to find that and kind of go towards that path.

And then I also really love that as a pa, you've been able to pursue other passions as well, like education and all of these different areas.

I've.

I'm in Durham.

I've only ever done Durham, which I love, but I also love.

My college backup plan was to be a college advisor, and so kind of by mentoring students as well, to do that.

Like, I just love that connection with helping other people achieve their dreams.

And the PA profession, to me, is so small that it's so cool to bring people in as, like, my colleagues, which is so neat.

So I agree.

I agree.

Someone said that today that they felt like the peace PA profession was very, very thoughtful in mentoring others.

Like, it was more intentional, if you will, how we mentor others.

So I thought that was really important that you kind of highlighted the same day I heard it from an applicant.

I think PAs just love their profession.

I think PAs love their jobs and want other people like the one you met.

I mean, she wanted you to know that this is a great thing.

That's our goal.

So I definitely want to hear about Ithaca College and specifically just your.

Your mission, your dream, what you see the PA program looking like with starting a new program.

And I've talked before, and you can go into some details with letting students know how much goes into starting a program, because it is not easy.

It is not a short timeline.

There's a lot involved, and for y' all to get that green light, it takes a lot.

And so what has gone into building this program that students would want to know about?

Dean was asked this question recently by an applicant, and she said, they said, how long did it take you to build this program?

How did this idea come?

And she talked about about five years in the making where they had talked about adding another program because they had physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech language pathology and audiology, exercise science and athletic training, and then health profession and this educational piece that they took to college in our school of Health Science and Health Professions.

And so, excuse me, Health Science and Human Performance.

HSHP is the name of our school.

And she said she chose the PA profession because it was a great addition to this already interdisciplinary model that would now include medical education.

And so they were positioned in the right place to consider this and to do it now.

They then went to the hospital system locally and said, would you support us in this endeavor to make sure there was an alignment there?

Number one, as you know, clinical rotations, raise hospitals and wholeheartedly.

Absolutely.

And part of this is, you know, many people haven't heard of Ithaca, but if I said Cornell University, where it is, they'd say, oh, I know where that is now.

So that's where Ithaca College is.

We're just smaller than Cornell.

And so they really were intentional of making sure that they would have the bandwidth in the hospital system to support us.

And what is interesting is not only did they get the support of the hospitals, they talked to the community partners and they talked to other stakeholders and kind of said, yeah, this is the right fit for our community.

I think that's important because that tells you the area wants the program.

And one of the hospitals reason was they couldn't get providers to come to Ithaca, and so the school would afford them.

Students come in and experience what it is to live in Ithaca and hopefully stay.

And I share that because I think it's important that people understand it's not a place you might initially think about living, working, going to school, but when you come here, you do fall in love college.

So that was five years in.

Her thoughts.

I worked remotely.

Like literally, I flew and picked up my computer, flew back to Florida because I had to close the loop on many things.

And I was still working at Mayo Clinic and really just decided they needed me right away.

They wanted me to start early, but I just couldn't because I had other commitments.

Okay.

And so that was three years after I'd been in Florida State.

And I will tell you, Savannah, that experience, if I didn't have strength, not strong strength, it would have been challenging.

I would say.

There are many discussions about ahrq, pa, what they mean and what they do.

But what I will say is RPA wants to make sure every student that goes through a PE program is fully supported by the institution and by the program and has the necessary resources, and they make you accountable for that process.

And so many programs.

It took us eight months for me to submit the application.

However, many programs higher PA program direct earlier than that.

What was nice about what I walked into is they had a huge advocate in one of the physical therapy professors, and he had created this skeleton model of what a curriculum should look like.

I didn't walk in.

I had to build everything.

He started it and then I kind of wrapped it up.

And so that's where we started.

The application process is intense, and I share with students.

When you think about a PA program getting accredited, and some people say, I don't want to go to another newly accredited program.

I don't know if they're going to stay open.

And what I challenge that student to do is look at every program and see if they've ever been on probation.

No matter how long they've been open, have they lost accreditation in the past?

And so when I interview applicants now, I say to them, when you see this slide that says we're provincially accredited by the rpa, think of it this way.

Has any program within our school accreditation?

That's the flag for you.

Because a provincial program has done all the things to get accredited.

RPA does not play.

And it's.

It's thinking about your health care delivery.

It's the same kind.

You have to have someone who makes you accountable, make you responsible.

So I think RPA sets us up.

That's regardless of where we fall and what we think they should and shouldn't do.

I think they set us up for success, to make sure we're prepared to take our students and that there is institutional support.

It is a lot of work.

You have to get your curriculum approved internally before you even send it to rpa.

Like people don't realize that.

And someone is reading every word you write and Some people think, no, they don't.

They really do.

I had a faculty member, she kept apologizing.

She said, I'm sorry.

I'm telling you all these things.

I was like, no, we want to get it right, and we want to do it right.

Even when we created our diversity statement.

So Ithaca College changed their diversity statements and recommended that all faculty create a diversity statement, either in the program or in their syllabus to reflect who they were and looked at their syllabus.

We created it, we shared it with a couple partners within the school that have that DEI lens, and we got feedback and they changed.

So everything is very intentional, even how we laid out the make sure it's visually appealing, that it checks all the boxes from not only arcpa, but New York State Educational Department.

And then the other layer, are we giving our students everything they need to be successful?

And I can tell you it's really interesting.

Our program operation manager says to me all the time.

She's like, we have made so many changes to these solutions to make sure we're compliant with ARCP in New York State, and then to consider all the changes that are coming up.

With COVID 19, we made changes with the focus on health disparities and racism and social justice.

We need changes.

So we're just constantly looking at how we can do better and be better.

Because it's not about me where I am now.

It's about the future of the profession and making sure everyone is prepared to take care of our patients.

All of our patients.

Wow.

I don't even think I've ever thought about.

I think I focused on the rpa and I did not even consider, like, you have to meet the school's requirements and the state.

And there's so.

It almost sounds like I think you're going to have empathy for the students going through the application process because you're like, listen, I've.

I am doing what you're doing.

Yeah, we talk about that.

We talk about.

I always say, like, we talk about it.

I said, please have grace and mercy, because think about what we went through and how many times I had to revise.

And it's one of the feedbacks I give students, too.

I was like, do not send your personal statement without six people other than your mother, father, and grandma reading it, because they cannot be objective.

They're going to think it's great because they will not spell check it and be like, oh, you wrote a great statement.

And, you know, then you submit it and you don't do well.

So it's the same process.

It's this iterative process that always needs improvement.

And if you think about it, it's how we practice spas.

Right.

Think about dermatology when you started, what you're doing now.

Yes, it's always changing.

We're lifelong learners in medicine.

That's the cool thing about medicine.

And then through the past year, just seeing medicine happening in real time has been wild.

So it's crazy.

How many students will your class have?

It will have 30 students for the first class.

And we're in a unique situation because we did not use caspa.

I had a student who said, I'm waiting for it to open on Casper.

Dr. Salish, like, it's not going to open Casper for this cycle.

So we had.

We used our school admissions portal for the first class because of the tight window with the approval from New York State.

So we are closing our admission cycle for this year.

That is correct.

This year we are closing it June 7th, because we start class August 2nd of this, our first inaugural class.

And this is the class that's going to set the tone for everything else.

And we are so excited about what this class is going to look like.

We had a faculty say today, we're not looking for the best students.

And we all kind of, like, looked back and said, right, we're not looking for the best student.

We're looking for the best clinician.

We're looking for the best advocate.

We're looking for the best.

Yay.

And then she said, and, of course, had leadership.

And I said, of course we'll add leadership to that.

Right.

Because that's part of.

Really, our focus of our program is to develop leaders who advocate for the profession at the state and national level and have difficult conversations about what we need to make our practice better.

I love that.

Yes.

And that's.

There's.

There's so much that goes into it in just.

I get a lot of messages and emails.

You know, these are my stats.

What do you think?

And it's so hard because it's just that you can't.

I mean, I tell them, like, there's so much more than just your stats.

I mean, I can tell you you meet requirements on paper, but that doesn't tell me about who you are.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's.

That's really cool.

So what one question I got that I thought was interesting is when y' all were building out your there with faculty and kind of the leadership of the PA program, what were you looking for?

What aspects were you looking for in that regard to really bring people on who are going to support the students like we were talking about.

Yeah.

So I will say I was the second hire for the PA program.

The first hire was our administrative support, who is now our program operation manager.

And she has a master's and came in and said she wanted to be part of building this program.

And she had a business background and had built her own business, and she has two kids that are in high school.

So I thought, you need to hire my support before I get there, because I got to hit the ground running.

She was a first hire, and I was a second hire.

I will tell you, one of the questions the dean asked me when she hired me was, why Ithaca College?

And I will tell you.

She asks every applicant, why did you pick Ithaca College for your program?

And she's looking for a certain answer.

Right.

One would guess.

So I will say something I did and something all applicants should do is go look at the website and see what Ithaca College is about and see what the HSHP school is about, because you will get asked that question.

And she was really intentional about that question because she wants to make sure if you're going to come there, you want to be there.

Right.

We don't want someone to come here and not want to be that.

That, I would say, is why I pick Ithaca College.

As I thought about who would come after me, I would say what was.

And I asked this question of everyone, tell me what student centered means.

Because what I don't want is a PA to come in and said, I'm going to teach these students everything they need, because that's.

We don't need you to teach the student everything they need to do.

They're going to learn their learners, and they're going to have to learn what they need to know to be competent.

Pas.

Right.

So really bring in someone in who is an advocate for the student and how to set them up for success.

And we've chosen to call them learners in our program because we believe students are what you're training them.

They're memorizing.

My daughter's 11.

She's a student.

When she gets to college, I will inform her or her bachelor.

She's a learner.

If you wait for your college professor to teach you what you need to know, you'll be behind the eight ball.

You must learn what you need to know because there's skills involved, there's techniques involved.

So I look for that in the post.

Now, I will tell you, Ithaca College is very.

I've not had this experience at a College where there is quite a bit of questions about diversity, inclusion and equity.

How do you view it?

What do you think of it?

We are one of the top colleges in terms of inclusivity for lgbt, and that's important.

Our provost talks about the goals and a strategic forever plan, Forever plan about who we want to be there.

So if someone says, you know, I'm really tired of hearing about Jedi, justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and probably we're not the place for you, because you're going to hear a lot about it.

We are.

If you're tired of hearing about, you know, we need providers in rural health, then we're probably not the place for you because we want you to go to the rural health and take care of that community.

That's autonomous practice on so many levels.

You know, I fell in love with rural health because of that.

And then the other piece is, we are focused on behavioral and mental health.

So asking people, what do you consider to be some of the challenges in the profession?

We ask this as faculty when they're coming in to make sure they're aligning with us.

And we share this information.

We tell them what we're looking for, what the expectations are, and we have been really lucky.

I cannot, I mean, from my.

From the admin support to our medical director, our faculty, our staff, just really their passion.

Passion for the student.

And it's expected.

It's.

I can't settle for less.

So you have to put the student at the center.

And we have.

We have to do the adjustment.

I have to do the adjustment.

And I don't say that lightly.

I am a leader, and I call.

I go by the servant leadership model.

I serve those who I lead.

In order to serve my students, I must learn what they need, and I have to talk to them to get that.

And I may not get it right the first time, but I keep trying.

So the student is really, really an important part of the changes.

I really like the way you explain that, because just from speaking with students who are either looking for specific things in a program or even students who have students started at a program and it turns out to be different than they expected, it seems like you're tackling a lot of the things that are missing, a lot of the pain points that they're having, where they come to me like, I can do anything about their program, but I do talk to them about, you know, like, you need to talk to these specific people kind of thing with.

With feeling supported, with feeling that the things that they care about are important to the And I think a lot of students, they just come from so many different backgrounds, and that can look different, whether it's being somewhere rural and seeing those needs or being in areas that are not diverse at all and struggling with how do I get exposure to that so that I can treat patients adequately?

And so that's really.

I think what you're saying will hit home with a lot of people who are like, that is what I'm looking for.

How do I make sure my program has that?

So if somebody's looking for a program like that, obviously they need to look at Ithaca College.

But what other.

What I think like that.

Check the program website for sure.

But sometimes, like, the mission statements and things, you know, they can start to run together, or it's like, do they really mean this questions can someone ask or look at to really feel like a school is a good fit for them?

So I would say it's a couple of things, right?

When I was at Mayo Clinic, we gave these behavioral questions, and we all used to be like, why are these behavioral questions?

I just want to know, are they going to work nights and weekends?

Do they understand they have to cover all the shifts?

But one of the questions they would ask is, what do you have at your at nighttime?

What would I find on your nightstand that you'd be reading?

A view of people.

Ask people those questions, those questions that you get to know who they are.

Because I think that's the only way you can differentiate people from their mission, vision, and their values.

The other way you could tell, especially if it's an established program, if they say their mission is to be diverse and you're a person of color, you see no one in the picture that they have on their website.

They're probably not diverse.

Now, you may ask the question, I notice in your diverse values, you say diversity.

Can you tell me what that looks like to you?

And have them explain.

I notice in your mission, like in our mission, we say educate, empower, and engage physician assistants.

What does that mean to you, Dr. Stallisure, asking those questions?

Because then you'll know if they even know their own mission statement, by the way.

And then ask them, how have they seen the vision in their students?

Or look on their website?

Because if they have a website and you say, the vision is this, and you're 10 years in, and I don't see anything that matches this vision, right.

You can get that information.

So you have to be intentional but respectful about the question.

I have some PA colleagues that talk about the safe place versus the brave place.

I am a little nervous for students when they're thinking about going into program.

If they ask a question that dependent on the person is offended, they've just lost their opportunity.

You have to do a lot of this work in the background.

I would say look at the websites where students talk about programs and be intentional about that because if they got a bad grade, they're going to say something negative.

You know, if faculty said something wrong, they're going to be negative.

And people are very unforgiving.

And what I will say is I'm a very forgiving person because I believe that as a leader, I fail forward.

I'm going to make mistakes.

I know that.

So I just have to say I'm going to make the mistake and be sorry when I make those mistakes and correction.

So really looking at the website, looking at the graduates, talking to the students, if a program does not allow you to talk to their students, that's a flag, right?

Like, we don't have any students.

There's no one for you to talk to.

So you really have to go on social media and see who is Dr. Savage.

You go on social media and see who is Melody Kovitz, who's the director of Didactic.

You look at Ithaca College and what they're doing.

You look at our senior leadership team to see what's happening in our area.

But I tell students I'm willing to answer.

I don't know about everybody else, but I'm willing to answer any question you're willing to ask.

And one of the things I challenge students because they'll say, but I don't think that I gave you that feedback and nothing was changed.

Some of the things we can't change because it's related to accreditation, it's related to, we have to check that box to make sure our program Learning Outcomes covers all of these topics.

But some of the things we can change.

If the student said, you know, that class was a three hour class and then we had Friday off, could we have done something with the hours?

That's something we'll look at because we want you to practice.

We want you to take time away from education and focus.

I don't know.

I think it's how you present yourself.

One of the things I've had where students told said I'm unapproachable and then I've had where students go, she's my mom.

Like, I feel like my mom is at school.

So clearly that tells you there is this dynamics, right?

You know the story of there's Savannah's view and Susan's view and then the third person's view because of.

That's really what happens, because we see things through our own lens.

I am one of those people that I am fair, but I expect you to be respectful.

I expect you to be authentic.

And if you're going to complain about something, that the next question I have is, how are you?

Because one of the things I did when I was at the Florida Academy of PAs is I developed a leadership academy.

And at the end of the leadership academy, we would have our students do a presentation.

And we did that on purpose because they would always have ideas better.

We'd say, pick the topic you'd like to make better and tell us how you recommend get better.

And in the presentation, they would make a recommendation.

And so then we'd start asking questions.

How much time will that take?

What will be the cost associated?

If we added that to the curriculum, is it going to increase your tuition?

If we added that technology, is it going to increase your.

Will that be a problem for you?

Tuition and fees are so high.

So it's this holistic consideration of all the pieces that are going to.

But I challenge the students to use the technologies and the social media just to help them to make that decision.

But I think a fair question is, I see your mission says, can you show me how that's demonstrated in the curriculum or the activities you do?

And I think that will make you decide, because you'll read the body language and go, oh, my gosh, they know it.

Or they'll go, oh, really?

Who do they think they are?

And that's the school you don't.

That is great advice.

Yeah.

Everyone needs to listen to that again and then move forward.

That would be my advice.

So.

No, that is awesome.

And I appreciate that.

Y' all take a holistic view at the applicants, which sometimes I think applicants misunderstand as not having as many requirements.

But that's not necessarily the case because a lot of that is due to accreditation.

And you can't change necessarily.

And you can't look at 10,000 applications adequately either.

So you can't.

And I will tell you, we are even.

We are even looking at it now.

And that's an example where I tell you we're flexible and we're keeping an open mind.

Is we were very intentional in our application.

A lot of schools said they're doing holistic admission.

Holistic admission.

You really have to ask them, what does that mean?

We're, in fact, inviting Veronica Coleman from UT Southwestern to come and talk to us about their holistic admissions because she's done a lot of work in this area and I don't think we have it the right way yet.

Right.

Because this is our first year.

We're developing it.

But what we found as we're going through it, it's like this applicant has applied 2, 3 times.

How did they not get in?

Yeah, like they meet a qualification.

It's not like, you know, we have a GPA overall GPA of 3.0, a science GPA of 3.2.

We are calculating it this term because we have to.

But we want to make sure they're admission fit.

We look at other criteria.

Well, believe it or not, our admissions coordinator was going through it and she said to us, I just think our, you know, how we look at the applicant is not as holistic as it could be.

Here's what I'm finding and she talked to us about that.

Our medical director went in because she's the co chair of our admissions committee, looked at what we created and basically said I think we need to look at that.

Today we had a conversation where we said we're really concerned that we're losing that applicant that is diverse in terms of age, lived experience, experience skills and ability.

Because we're so focused on this GPA to meet the initial requirement.

Right.

Every school has this.

Are we looking at the wrong data set?

Should we be looking at the lived experience and saying if the student worked full time and went to school, what would their GPA be and how do we look at GPA differently?

So Melody Cohen went to one of my faculty and said we're going to turn this admissions thing up so down and look at it differently because we're, we're using team based learning.

So we're instituted on the front end.

We're not requiring it this year, but we're going to require the PA CAT and Casper.

From the critical thinking piece to Casper and then from understanding what teams to put our students in.

We will not look at it to enter.

It's not part of our requirement to come into our program is to put you in groups, but we're utilizing components of it now to put them in their team based learning groups.

And we're hoping that's going to give us some data that we can look at and say look at these grades and look at what the students accomplished because of their lived experience.

But really thinking about this holistic piece is not just the grade but the other piece is what have you done in terms of leadership?

You don't have to lead a PA Club to be at the top.

You could lead the social piece of PA Club right now.

Social media is huge.

Technology is huge.

If you plan events, this planning is a lot of work.

Like, people do not realize how much work goes into, you know, how much work goes into.

That's a lot of work.

That's value added.

If you did volunteer work and didn't get paid for direct patient care, I mean, I'm looking for someone now to do some volunteer work at one of the facilities that I have a family member in Florida because they need help.

And I was like, maybe if some pre students will be willing to come and volunteer to get direct patients.

They're just really looking at your whole packet and being intentional and getting authentic about who you are.

If you struggle speaking, and I know people think the opposite, but you have to tell me for me, I want to know why you didn't do well.

Now, that being said, we are not going back and looking at your grade.

I do not know the GPA of any student that we accepted.

Wow, let me repeat that.

I do not know the GPA of any students.

What I know is they meet our minimum requirements.

I interview the students and I don't do a lot of interviews right now.

I do my presentation and welcome interview process.

We meet, we talk about they get a score in and then we talk about it.

We talk about how did the interview go.

There's a faculty member for the PA program, either a staff or another faculty member or a PA advisory board member.

They have a rubric for the interview.

They grade the student.

They talk about the student after the interview and then they advocate for the student.

We don't go back and look at the grade because we've accepted them.

Because we all know no matter what we said, we will become biased if we know the in the classroom in some other way.

So.

And that is part of that holistic process.

So Melody Kowitz said to me, susan, should we really redefine this?

What we're saying is we're being.

We're blinding ourselves.

So we're removing as much bias in our process of deciding as possible.

And that is true.

We're removing the bias.

As a pa, I'm expecting a certain GPA because if you have this gpa, you're going to pass the pants.

Because we want to set our learners up for success.

So we have success tools.

We are using osmosis and the didactic ear, questions and answers and it has animation.

We're using Rasch Review in the clinical Year questions.

We have ultrasounds that they're going to get personal ultrasounds that they'll begin to practice ultrasound technique when they're in the detection lab.

We have team based learning.

We're recording all the lectures.

We won't record the team based activity because we want to use the material again.

But we are being very intentional about those pieces.

We're teaching them how to be leaders, we're teaching them the skills to be advocates.

And then we're making sure they understand how to address health disparity, how to have those difficult conversations with patients around, transgender, around.

I'm a black woman and I do this and you want to tell me how I should eat and what I'm going to eat.

And I'm telling you I'm not going to eat it because I'm from Jamaica.

This is a traditional.

How do you have those nutrition conversations?

How do you talk about prevention and physical activity over exercise?

Considering where the person lives and they can't go outside, what else can they do?

They can't afford to go to a gym.

So we're being very intentional about everything we do.

A student asked me today about my remediation process.

Now, I don't know, Savannah, if you and Brian are recommending they ask that question, probably not a question they should ask.

Because if you're asking about remediation, you kind of send in a message you think you're going to fail a test.

I'm just saying that's just me.

That's just Dr. Salisher.

This is not a reflection of EPIC acknowledge.

I'm just being real.

What you may want to ask is what tools do you have to support the learner in whatever.

Right?

Because I think you have to be careful.

Again, we all have biases.

That's why they're called unconscious and conscious biases, because we have those unconscious biases.

Now, I could authentically see the student was asking a question that someone had probably told him to ask.

But I thought to myself, probably not a good question to ask.

That would be one of those that you don't ask.

The other one, I'd say they should ask that.

And I say, please don't.

Yes.

Better.

Now I just, Yeah, I try to coach on don't ask anything that's on the front page of the website and don't ask anything that makes you.

Makes it seem like you question, question the program.

Not.

And like you said, like, I like the way you phrased it.

Like you can, you know, ask them in smart ways.

You can, you know, use your Discretion.

Feel it out a little bit.

I mean, like, use some common sense.

But yeah, I helped with interviews at my program, and I remember there was somebody and he kept.

Kept asking all day, is the library open 24 hours a day?

Is there tutoring services available?

Are your faculty available at all hours to answer questions?

What is the remediation like?

I mean, he just kept on and.

I mean, even I was a PhD at the time.

I'm like, this is a grad school level program.

Like, come on.

Like, we gotta figure some of this out.

You bring up a good point, though.

I had one time where a student said, oh, I've been up this many hours.

And we all were like, this is not good.

Red flag.

Yeah, this is a red flag.

We want you to sleep.

We do want you to breathe and reset and take some time away.

You're not impressing us by telling us how many hours you've been up without any sleep at all.

I'm about to put you out and say, you need to go get some sleep, because this is not.

This is not how you come to an interview.

So I'd say that's one.

Don't talk negative about another program or a hospital.

That's two.

Or a profession.

Or a profession.

That's a great one.

Yes.

Make sure your interactions with everyone you encounter.

One of the questions before we make a decision is we ask the admissions question coordinator.

Do you have any concern.

That is a hard stop.

You disrespected our admissions coordinator.

Think they are not important.

Our teams all have skills and strengths.

None of us is better than.

My operations manager has some talents that I do not have.

I leverage that.

My faculty have talents.

We leverage our talents.

We took friend finders to make by the strengths we had to support our students and the program.

I love that.

Yeah, I did that in college.

Very good.

Yeah.

So no, I. Yeah.

Red flags and mistakes all day, but no, this.

I so appreciate you sharing all of this.

And I think I will definitely link to the Ithaca College website if they have questions about the program.

Who's the best person to reach out to?

Is there.

Yeah.

So there's a general email.

It's PA admissionsithaca.edu.

And Jessica Lamour is manning that email.

So paadmissionsitheca.edu.

And it's on our page as well.

And Jessica is the one answering all the questions, all the information, and really an advocate for the students.

It's been amazing to see how she's learned about the students.

She's.

I love them all.

I don't think I can say no to anybody.

And we were like, yeah, we know.

It's really hard.

It's hard.

Yeah.

No, that is awesome.

Okay, well, I'm excited to share about your program, and I am sure you'll get tons of questions.

And I'm excited to see your first class.

Yes, we will be putting pictures out, so our first class apply now.

But of course, if you're thinking about next year, wait till we open our applications cycle.

And we will be using Casper next year.

We're just not using it this year.

Nice.

All right.