About OSPA

Hello to all new and returning OSPA members. I am Kathryn “Kate” Grace. I am your OSPA president. I’ll tell you my background and then we’ll go into what having OSPA as YOUR professional society can do for you.My history in the medical community goes back to becoming a Certified Nursing Assistant in 1979. From there I got my LPN in1982 and worked as a Licensed Practical Nurse while obtaining my RN degree. I received my Registered Nurse license in 1984. I worked Med-Surg, house float, house supervisor, Step-down Cardiac-Telemetry in both Oregon and Idaho and 8 years in L & D and NICU in Bend, OR. I became an Assistant Unit Manager of the New Family Birthing Center at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend in the early nineties. Life changes occurred and I became the Manager of the L & D at St. Elizabeth’s Providence in Yakima, WA. More life changes and I went to Floor Manager of a Nursing Home with a 14 bed Alzheimer’s Unit in Custer, SD in 1993. From there I become Director of Nurses at Custer Community Hospital. During that time I also became an EMT-B with ACLS and worked for 3 years in SD as ACLS support for their volunteer ambulance service. I found myself spending more time in board meetings and office work than I liked. I missed patient care and knew something had to change. I wanted to be with patients again. I had been cared for by Physician Assistants in the past and been impressed with their caring and compassion. I applied and was accepted into the Physician Assistant Program through the University of North Dakota, School of Medicine, graduating in January, 1997. Emphasis of this program was and is providing medical care to rural communities.I worked briefly in Bend and LaPine, OR for a family practice and covered the college-based clinic as well in Bend. This, while busy, was not what I had been trained to do. Bend no longer qualifies as the sleepy little town of 5,000 my grandparents had moved to. Nor was it the growing small town of 16,000 my son was born in, in 1978. Bend had become a city. By chance, I saw an ad in the Bend Bulletin wanting a PA in Boardman. When I called Dr. Robert Boss, that position was filled, but did I know that Halfway was looking for a PA? I called the Pine Eagle board with some trepidation, as NE Oregon to me was the Burns/Juntura area. High desert, flat, sagebrush…. A board member at Pine Eagle Clinic told me they lived in the mountains, in an Alpine Valley in “God’s Country.” Hmmm….. I was skeptical. I have now found most of Central and Western Oregon have NO idea what there really is in North East Oregon! I fell in love with the Panhandle and its people and the rest was history! I have been privileged to deliver cradle to grave care in Halfway for a decade and a half, including ACLS support to the Halfway-Oxbow Ambulance service.During that time I was nominated and received the Rural PA of the year for 2003 from the American Academy of Physician Assistants. For the past eight years, I have been a clinical rotation professor for Pacific University. In 2004, I was honored to be asked to deliver the commencement speech to Pacific’s graduating class of PAs. In 2005, Pine Eagle Clinic received the Oregon Rural Clinic of the Year award. Life is about change and never stays the same. In September of 2007, I made the hard decision to leave the Pine Eagle Clinic. I am currently working at the Internal Medicine Office of Dr. Charles Hofmann in Baker City, OR. In addition, I cover the ER at Walter Knox Memorial in Idaho part of every weekend. I still provide ACLS support to the Halfway-Oxbow Ambulance Service. I love being a PA and how the partnerships with my physicians deliver quality care to people in rural Oregon and Idaho. I believe I am in a good position to work for you regarding PAs in Oregon. I have been on lobbying trips both to Salem and Washington, DC to promote our profession. I am willing to assist in your endeavors and to listen to what you think OSPA can do for you.Now, let’s talk about what you can do for the Oregon Society of Physician Assistants. OSPA has had a couple of rough years recently. Membership has declined but appears to be stabilizing. We need to GROW!! A professional society is only as good as its working members. I have been a member of OSPA since 1997. During that time, the core, working group seems to remain essentially the same. A small group of 6-12 individuals that flex and change very little appear to be doing most of the work to keep the infrastructure of OSPA together. While a solid foundation is good and needed, OSPA needs YOU to bring new ideas; your ideas, your time and your professional knowledge to YOUR professional society. In the last legislative year alone, FIVE bills were passed that were conceived by OPSA that impacted and eased how you care for your patients here in Oregon.

Message from OSPA’s President