Nathaniel Alston Student Achievement Scholarship Award

Scholarship Sponsored by Pennsylvania Society of Physician Assistants

The PSPA is pleased to announce the Nathaniel Alston Student Achievement Scholarship Award. This award has been established by the PSPA to recognize students who have demonstrated the highest standards of the PA profession through their experience and knowledge by promoting goodwill, public recognition and professional development of the PA profession. An award of $2000 will be presented to three PA students. These awards will be selected on a competitive basis. Each student applicant will be competing against other student applicants from their respective PA Programs in Pennsylvania. The applicants’ essays will be judged by the members of the PSPA Awards Committee. More than one student from each program may be among the winners. The awards will be presented during the Student Challenge Bowl at the Annual PSPA Fall CME Conference. Selected students are expected to attend the banquet and receive their award in person.

Eligibility Requirements:

• At the time of the application and at the time of the award presentation (during the fall PSPA Conference):
  • The student must be a member of the PSPA.
  • The student must be in good standing at an accredited Pennsylvania PA program.
• A maximum 750-word essay typed and double-spaced in Microsoft Word format.
• For all essays, client/patient encounters should be identified by initials only in an effort to protect patients’ confidentiality. Quotes and excerpts from written documents can be used, but must be credited appropriately.
• The student must be a graduate PA student or in the professional phase of your PA program. The essay submission must reflect an experience during the graduate portion of your education.
• A student may apply a second time (the following year) during the graduate portion of the PA Program as long as above eligibility requirements are in place. The second application essay MUST address a different prompt/topic to be considered.  A student may be a winner ONE time only.

Choose one topic from the three choices below.

1. What role does community service in medicine play in promoting the PA profession? If noting a personal experience, it needs to be during your PA training.
2. Provide an experience during your PA training, perhaps a patient you interacted with, a project you were involved in, or an educational experience and how this will affect how you will practice in the PA profession.
3. Provide a patient encounter that occurred during your PA training which presented a moral/ethical dilemma in medical practice and how you would approach the issue/issues.

Quotes and excerpts from written documents can be used, but must be credited appropriately.