Episode 8: Right Place, Right Time with Shannon Anderson, PA-C

What does it take to learn neurology on the job, and how can we make this process smoother? 

A growing number of advanced practice providers (APPs) are joining the neurology workforce, yet few have neurology specific training in their educational programs. Many have to learn neurology on the fly -- on the job. Both MD and APP educators, like Shannon Anderson, MPAS, PA-C, are working to make this process better and smoother. Neurology fellowships, national educational programs, and local mentorship are helping to fill the gap. 

I speak with Shannon to learn about her journey -- how she got involved in neurology education, the joys of teaching students and patients, the growing need for APP neurology educators, and how every career in education depends just a little bit on luck: sometimes one is just in the right place at the right time. 

Shannon Anderson, MPAS, PA-C is an Associate Professor of Neurology at the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) School of Medicine and a physician assistant with a clinical specialty in movement disorders and deep brain stimulation. 

Neuropraxis: The Neurology Educator's Podcast is not recorded as an official podcast of any institution or organization. The views and opinions are those of the individual speakers themselves. Music from Pixabay. Cover art by Carolin Wollny. Editing by Valeria Roldan. New episodes drop first Monday of the month!

Ideas, suggestions, questions? Contact us at neuropraxispodcast@gmail.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to Neuropraxis, a podcast for clinician educators and trainees passionate about neurology education. I'm your host, Gleena Gaeman. I'm a neurologist and medical educator. On the Neuropraxis Podcast, we turn our attention to neurology education. We discuss the latest topics in education literature, meet the innovators shaping the future of neurology education, and hear about the career journeys of other educators in neurology. Whether you're building a career in medical education or looking for inspiration in your teaching, you're part of our community. So let's reflect and grow together as we blend the art and science of neurology education and put theory into praxis.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

All these things that you are assuming as truths that you're learning in the books you have to question. And that's real life.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Today I am joined by Shannon Anderson, MPAS PAC. Shannon is an associate professor of neurology at the Oregon Health Sciences University and an educator physician assistant with a clinical specialty in movement disorders. We have a great conversation. We first talk about the challenges of learning neurology on the job as a fresh APP out of school, the joys of getting involved with education, and the growing need for non-physician neurology educators. And finally, how every career in education has a little bit of luck in it, being in the right place at the right time. She's an associate professor of neurology at the Oregon Health Sciences University, or OHSU School of Medicine, a physician assistant with a clinical specialty in movement disorders, and the Director of Clinical Operations for the Movement Disorder Program there. She is one of my good friends and one of the leaders who's thinking about neurology education for APPs in our country. So I'm super excited to think uh to talk with you today, Shannon, and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited for this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

I'm excited to have you here too. We first met at the national meeting at the AAN, and it's been such a pleasure to be in touch with you since and see kind of your rising star and your influence around over the field.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Yeah, likewise. The AAN has been such a great avenue for my career and has given me such a love for APP education, just education in general for a lot of different learners. It's been such a whirlwind and such a wonderful platform for this. So it's been really fun to meet a lot of different educators and see kind of the different avenues of how people teach and how people learn. It's been great.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Well, that's a perfect foreshadowing of the episode because I do plan to ask you, Shannon, about how you got involved and the types of programming you've been part of and the type of programming you've helped innovate. But before we jump into that, I'd love to start the podcast by just asking those I'm inviting on, what's something new that you learned recently?

SPEAKER_02 3:35

This is such a great question. Because I'm scanning all of the different elements of my life right now. I'm trying to think of something that my kids taught me because I feel like they're constantly telling me things that are new and exciting. Let me think about that and let me come back to you on that.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Yeah, if it comes back, let us know. Well, I know you well, but not everyone knows you well, Sharon. So I was wondering if maybe we could start with you telling us a little bit about the arc of your career thus far. Um, and then we'll kind of come back to some of the milestones. But paint us a general roadmap of, you know, yourself leaving training and how you got to where you are today.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Um, I did my training at OHSU. So I um my physician assistant studies, so it's a master's level program. Um prior to that, I got my bachelor's at Boston College. Um I actually got my um undergrad degree in history. I was a history major. When I entered into college, I didn't know what I wanted to be. And so history sort of spoke to me. It was just a really interesting area to learn, especially in Boston. That's just a great area for history. Sort of flirted with whether or not I wanted to be in healthcare. And so by the time I was a sophomore, took on pre-med as a concentration and kind of got chemistry as a as a minor along the way. Didn't really know what area of medicine I might want to be in, though. So although I was sort of on the pre-med track, you know, and kind of working towards possibly med school, still had a lot of different areas open. Like, did I want to go into development? Did I want to go into like social work? Like, did I want to go into different areas? What was nice though is because I started pre-med a year late, I wasn't able to, you know, sit for the MCAT and apply to med school right out of college. And so what that led to was getting a job right out of college. And so I got a job at a hospital in Boston and worked there for a couple of years, and that really kind of helped me see a lot of different careers in uh the medical profession. I actually ended up applying to both PA programs and nurse practitioner programs at the same time. I would love to tell you that at the time I had a lot of intention on which path. Now, in hindsight, I could give you a good idea of what the difference between the two are and why one might choose to apply. At the time, I did not have intention. Um, and truthfully, I went to PA school because I got into PA school first. And so that was the reason why. Um, insight in hindsight, PA school was the right choice for me. It more closely aligns with kind of how I identify with medicine and my practice philosophy and whatnot. I think nurse practitioner would have been great for me too, but it just all worked out for me that PA was the great path for me. So I went to PA school at OHSU. When I finished, I so throughout PA school, I knew I wanted to be a specialty person. I didn't want to be a primary care person. And when I came out, I did not know neurology. That was not on my radar, it wasn't any of the electives that I did. I applied for a lot of jobs and a lot of different specialties, and neurology was one of them. And again, kind of a fortuitous thing. I took the job because they were the ones that offered it to me, and it was at the Parkinson Center at OHSU, and that is the job that I've stayed at for 15 years now. And so what I liked about it was again, it was specialty, it was um a mixture of procedure and chronic disease management. Uh, the job has changed crazy amounts over the 15 years. I loved that it did because it was at an academic setting, it did have elements of research, elements of teaching. It was affiliated with the PA program. Um, and the group that I was with did have uh a little bit of an idea of what to do with me, but they had a lot of um open opportunities for what I wanted to be, and I could kind of craft that career path. And so that's what I've been able to do over my career.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

It's so wonderful and interesting to hear you tell that story because on the one hand, you're kind of it looks like tongue-in-cheek saying, you know, I took the the went to the school that took me, I took the job that took me. And on the one hand, it seems a little bit of kind of happenstance or chance, and yet when you talk to other colleagues, especially those who are PAs and NPs, this path is so common, right? The path that is was maybe not the path of direct choice, but the path of where you end up and the path of where you stay, depending on having an opportunity to train and to further oneself. And so I actually think your path and your experience probably gives you a lot of insight about the specific needs of individuals. So imagine getting a job that is not necessarily one that you've already trained for, but one where you have to train once you're there. So I'm curious if you could share a little bit about what that was like learning on the job, and for you in your own uh experience, what was helpful, what was challenging in those early years.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

Absolutely. You know, learning on the job is is a really unique way to learn. Um, it is for some people, I think it works really well, and for others, I think it's very frightening. And I think knowing what your strengths are as a learner and knowing what puts you in uncomfy situations, and I think that as a learner, we do need to put ourselves in uncomfy situations and knowing what is uncomfy that is helping us grow as a learner and what is uncomfy that is unsafe as a learner. For me, I learn better on the job. I've just always been like a really kinesthetic learner. I'm not a great um, like I can't just read something and know it, or I can't just hear something once in a lecture and know it. Like when I'm in a lecture, I have to be writing at the same time, or I have to be like using my body and acting and moving. And so for me, it really is the real world stuff that helps me learn and really like solidify that. So for me, on the job, learning was the way to go. I also, for me, again, neurology found me. I didn't find neurology, which I think is a little bit unique in some ways. I'm sure a lot of people have that path too. But I picked the job because it offered me, you know, a position and I needed a salary. I needed to start paying loans back. I didn't have this calling to neurology. And so looking back, I can't see myself in another area of medicine. But as I was learning on the job, it was this thing of, you know, finding, um, you know, learning how to program deep brain stimulators, and then learning, you know, okay, now that I know how to manipulate this device and I'm hearing dysarthria, learning, okay, that's, you know, coding to this certain neurologic physical exam finding and learning how to fine-tune my ear to that. And then learning how to, why am I getting dysarthria? What part of the brain are we going to? And then learning, okay, now I can identify that, you know, that's capsular side effect. How do I find that on imaging? And just building and building and building and doing that in a really thoughtful way with patience was how I learned best and how it coded to me in a really great way, as opposed to just reading about it in a textbook. That doesn't work well for me.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

And it's a myth that it works well for others, probably.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

I think so. I I I think that's why we go into healthcare, is that I hear it time and time again that a lot of us go into healthcare because we don't want to sit at a desk all day, every day, that we want to be active and engaged. It's it's one of the things that we just really want to be integrated into something, you know, that's a dynamic job. And so I think that that is one of the things that brings us to this line of medicine, in addition to sort of all of the other great aspects of healthcare. So I think that that resonates to a lot of our learners out there.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

So 15 years ago, you were probably among some of the early adopters of neurology among PAs, as you said, it found you. But there's been a real big influx of advanced practice providers, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners, among others who are entering neurology practice in these diverse settings. And it's so exciting for our field. I think it's gonna help us bridge this huge gap that we have for on neurology need for our patients. Numbers are staggering. Um, one report that I looked at recently said there was 170% increase in the number of neurology PAs in just the last decade. So I was curious, Shannon, thinking about your experience and thinking about the experiences you've now had onboarding others and teaching PA students, what do you think are some of the specific educational needs within neurology? Are some of them kind of just broadly for any PA joining practice? And which are specific to neurology, do you think?

SPEAKER_02 13:07

It's a great question. I think it is uh a fewfold. I think there are a few specific needs for how we approach neurology, a few specific needs to our physician colleagues, and a few specific needs to our physician assistant or APP colleagues. I have always said since day one, I feel like a primary care provider for my patients who happen to have a neurologic disease. And so I do think just sort of looking at neurology through a little bit of a different lens, less as a specialty, more as a bit of internal medicine. And that's where I think advanced practice providers really thrive, um, demystifying the neurophobia. And so bringing, I think that's why advanced practice providers are starting to gravitate towards neurology. Um, advanced practice providers are gravitating towards specialty more and more, um, whereas previously we were pretty heavily in family medicine and in internal medicine, but neurology specifically. And I think because the neurologic system, the brain just, you know, touches every single other part of the body, that is something that we can bring to our patients. And so really letting our students at, you know, in our nurse practitioner in our PA programs know that this is an extension of internal medicine. And even though it has to do with like, you know, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson's or Huntington's or whatever it is, that we as APPs bring that added value to our patients. That's something that I think can help break down that neurophobia and add value to our patient population. The other thing that I think is helpful is for our physician colleagues really sort of understanding how to integrate our advanced practice providers into that care team and doing it in, and I use that word innovate uh really purposefully because I think it needs to be done in a really innovative and creative way. And when I've seen it successful, it's done in an innovative way. It's not this very traditional medical model. I find that a lot of neurologists tend to just carry a lot of the burden on their own shoulders and want to do everything and have that responsibility of that patient really solely on their own shoulders. And really the care of our neurology patients is our team-based care, and that involves our advanced practice providers, our social workers, or rehab specialists, our nurses, our medical assistants, our LPNs, our everybody. And so when it comes to APPs specifically, how do we kind of break up that evaluation and management of the patient in a thoughtful way? So I was in a meeting recently that was trying to figure out how do we enhance template utilizations for our APPs. And I heard one of our physicians say, Well, why don't we have all of our doctors see all of the new patient evals and have the APPs do all of the returns, which is a fine model. I think that's a great model. The problem is the poor physicians I think would burn out. And they have said that they would burn out because they don't want to do only new patient uh evals. I think they want to manage their own patients of their own and see some returns here and there. And I think the APPs don't want to do only returns. The other thing is that some of the referrals that are coming in can be a little bit of kind of what I would call like a neurology mess where there is just a lot of neurologic issues going on. And I think the APPs can kind of sort through some of that and queue up, right? The neurology referral, there's a little bit of dizziness and a little bit of paresthesia, and maybe some headaches and some things to wade through, and then kind of queue up the referral for the physician, and then we get through MS, and then we're ready for it to see the physician. And so thinking about it from a different perspective, now this complex referral becomes a little bit more focused. And so thinking about it in a little bit of an innovative way and taking advantage of the APP's skill set and integrating it, and then we can teach to that. So instead of teaching, working up a really complex patient, we can teach how to approach customizing that uh new patient evaluation in a little bit of a different way.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

It's really interesting to hear you. You're talking like a real educator, right? Because education starts with the needs assessment. And I love how I sort of asked you about what are the needs of the APPs, and you had me zoom out a little bit further and think, well, the other party here that's something the other stakeholder is the physician who wants to integrate an APP in their practice. Uh, and potentially those on the job need something different than those who are students. As you said, I loved what you said about you know, selling them that this is really an an add-on to the education that they're getting now, and that they can be a better, well-rounded provider if they gain some additional expertise in your and you're speaking to the choir here because that's a general neurologist. I always say I'm a primary care neurologist, uh, who I'd love to make that evaluation and care for patients long term. I'm curious if we can shift a little bit, and I wanted to ask you, Shannon, about how you got more formally engaged in education. You mentioned that you're doing some teaching at OHSU, and certainly you are part um in your clinical director role in thinking about integrating the fellows and and doing that clinical work, and you've we've already foreshadowed, gotten involved at the national level. So tell me a little bit about how you first got engaged in education.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Yeah, it was um the PA program asked me to give the neurology lecture. As you mentioned, there's not a lot of PAs who work in neurology, and I think our program identified, you know, as much as we love to hear our physician colleagues give lectures, it's really great to have a PA speak to the PA students specifically. Um, I myself, when I was in PA school, I remember our very first program was dermatology, and I failed that test, and I remember failing that test. And right after we I failed that test, we actually had a DERM PA come in and she gave us a lecture, and she gave us a lecture on what she does and how she does it. And I remember it clicked for me. And every other lecture prior to that was just like a bunch of lesions, and it was like this one's raised, this one's flat, this, you know, this one's circumcised, this one's not. And it wasn't until she really gave that lecture on, but this is what I do with that, and this is how like why I care about what it looks like and how it looks and whatnot. And I just remember thinking to myself, even as a student, like I wish I would have had that first. Like, I wish I would have had that lecture first because I probably would have paid attention a little bit more to all of these drier lectures that came on, whether they were given by nurse practitioners or physicians or or PAs or whatnot. I just I just wish I would have gotten that day in the life of like, why should I care? What does this look like? Can I put myself in that position? Because as PAs specifically, we don't have to decide what we want to be when we grow up, but as we're going through school and just to be able to do that while we're getting our didactic training, just to start to put yourself in that um was really powerful. And I probably would have studied a little bit harder for that test. So when I was asked to give the kid, will you give the intro neuro lecture? Like I seized that opportunity because whether or not I knew the material and I didn't know the material, I worked not just in movement disorders, which is not general neurology, I at the time was very focused within movement disorders. I was programming deep brain stimulators, I was really adjusting Parkinson's disease. I felt very imposter syndrome about giving an intro to neurology lecture. I still wanted to give a see a PA who's working in neurology, this is what the job could look like, you know, bend to that. And so that was my intro to teaching. That evolved to physical diagnosis lab, being a part of the physical diagnosis lab in the PA program. Um, and that was the full physical diagnosis of the abdominal exam and the cardiac exam and and whatnot. And PAs, we recertified. For all of internal medicine. And so for me, this was great because I could kind of keep up on those skills and whatnot. And then that led to what became my favorite course. So joining the faculty and and and teaching my favorite course, which was our tutorials course, which is a problem-based learning course, which is their sim to this fake family that we had. And this poor family, every time, you know, every Monday afternoon, a poor family member would come in with a problem, and we would have to, as a group, cut, you know, evaluate, you know, the mom would come in and she'd have a cough, and we'd go, okay, what are all the things that cause a cough? And then we'd do the physics, you know, one of the students would practice interviewing the mother, and then we'd practice what physical exam. And, you know, then uh uh the cough turns out it's lung cancer, and we'd practice giving bad news to the mom, you know, the whole STEM situation. But why I loved this course so much was I didn't have to know anything about any of the material. Um myself as the facilitator was very Socratic. I always had to reflect back on the students. They would always want to say, like, what's the answer? You know, we want to get a chest x-ray. Is that right? And say, Well, you tell me. When do we get a chest x-ray? Why do you get a chest x-ray? What are you looking for on the chest x-ray? Why are you seeing a full traits on the chest ray or x-ray? Why does it consolidate in typical versus atypical and and those types of things? And all these things that you are assuming as truth that you're learning in the books, you have to question. And that's uh real life uh medicine, and and really pulling out that, and that is the type of learning that the those teachers when I was in college and school, those were the best, the Socratic type instructors. They were the most frustrating because you're like, just tell me the answer, but they were the best because they really highlighted what you didn't know and where those learning gaps were. And so that was really fun to kind of be on that side of the of the instruction. So that was really a great learning and teaching experience for me.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

It's fun to hear you talk about case-based learning. I think a lot of us love case-based learning and that important role of stepping back as a facilitator and letting really students discover the learning for themselves. I mentioned earlier that we met at the conference and we actually met doing a skills-based session where we taught the neuro exam skill skills to our APB colleagues with some direct feedback. And your station was always the most popular, Shannon. You were approached a gate and you did teaching using videos and kind of interactive and essentially case-based. And I was curious if you could share a little bit about what went into your thoughts as you made that kind of pedagogical choice to make this workshop interactive.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Yeah, it was completely a mix of everything that I've said before. The fact that I am that kinesthetic learner, the fact that my most rich learning comes from that Socratic type, you know, what are you seeing? What are you learning? And also a little bit of my own clinic um experience of I watch a patient walk up and down the hallway and I go, oh, I totally know what that is. And then I go to write it down or I go to explain it to my preceptor, and I go, oh my goodness, I have no words to explain what that gate is. Like I know in my head it's abnormal, and I know that it's not quite right, but I can't really say, you know, either what the term is, or I can't even really break it down in terms of, you know, what just happened. I just know what it looks like in my brain. Like I'm playing this videotape in my brain of what's going on. And so that for me was why I picked kind of having the videos and really breaking it down into its components as a way of teaching. And and the other part of it is I think that we are taught as a society to sort of just kind of whitewash away abnormal findings just to kind of not see it. And, you know, I don't want to hear that your speech is a little bit different, or I don't want to see that there's a little asymmetry in your face, or I don't want to see that there's a little bit of a change in the gait. And so I will tell students sometimes that are seeing me. I I worked at an urgent, I moonlighted at an urgent care for a long time, and I would have this woman come in, she had headaches, and she would have a palsy on on the side of her face, and we knew this. She came in, and we, you know, it is just a part of her headache per, you know, presentation. And so I would send the student in and I'd say, she has a change on her cranial nerve exam. I'm not gonna tell you what it is, but it's there. And 10 times out of 10, the students would come back and they're like, I don't, I don't know what it is. And I think it's because we're just trained to not see abnormal findings, and so I really want in this physical physical exam findings station for us to just really zero in and highlight and also have some language for that, you know, just to be really comfortable with that. I have that with my patients of like, you're telling me about your speech. Is that what I'm hearing right now? Or as I see your gate, I'm seeing some shuffling feet, you know, and just to be really comfortable in some of that, because that's how we're gonna get to the bottom of what's going on with them instead of tiptoeing and walking on eggshells with them.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

One thing that we talk a lot on the podcast about is developing ourselves as educators. And while many trainees, at least in the medical field and within neurology residency training, even early neurology faculty have a passion for teaching, few have had formal training in it. And I'm curious uh about your experience. Did you get formal training or did you have opportunities to kind of do an educator development course or get some peer observation and feedback? How does that work for PA educators?

SPEAKER_02 28:13

I have not. I've had no formal training, none. The only thing that I can speak to. So there was a PA director at our PA school who um, so I mentioned earlier that I was moonlighting in an urgent care. One of the roles of that was our Department of Emergency Medicine had developed a pre-COVID of virtual urgent care, which at the time was very innovative. Now it's like, you know, no big deal. So what he asked me to do was to give our PA students virtual lessons in virtual medicine. And what I had done through that was not just let's talk about virtual medicine, but I had developed a way to talk to the PA students on how to do virtual care. And through that, two things happened. One was I was working closely with a PA educator on how to develop a curriculum, and so she really mentored me on you don't just decide to give lectures, like you really do have to think through curriculum and curriculum development and be thoughtful about that, like a research protocol. And so she was a huge mentor in that way, and that was the first time that instead of just giving a lecture, like you know, intro to neurology or um, you know, these other courses that I had been involved with, I was the one coming up with the curriculum. And what do I want to get across to these students in this at the time, again, new and and untapped resource? The other was teaching the students how to do this new thing, how to deliver virtual care in a different way, is kind of like educating, right? You know, so setting up your virtual background or setting up tone or building rapport really helped me kind of as an educator because we don't think about those things. I think we take a lot of that for granted when we're in an exam room. And so as we were, I was going through that process with the students and thinking through this in terms of virtual care, I was getting a ton of feedback from the students on the curriculum, but also on the material. Does this even track it was moving so quickly? And then COVID happened. And so that was a huge learning process. The students were far more sophisticated than I was because by nature of their age and their technical savvy, the fact that all of their learning went online too. And so we were talking about online learning plus online delivery of care. So that was a huge uphill learning curve for me and them all at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Thanks for sharing that story. In other words, like many of us, you learned, you trained in the school of life, right? We one project at a time is how we learn curriculum development.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Absolutely. COVID was that for all of us in like every single way.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Absolutely. I think that was, as you said, uh a right a time ripe for innovation, and some some of it has stuck, which is great. So, one thing that you've also done is getting involved more formally through you mentioned the AN at the start. There's lots of education opportunities, there's some subcommittees, and you actually now serve as chair-elect from 2025 to 2027 of the Consortium of Neurology APPs within the AN. So, can you tell us a little bit about how you got involved there and what advice you have for others who might want to get involved?

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Yeah, absolutely. So, my involvement with the AAN, um, so it started out um I was invited to give a lecture at the annual meeting. Um, and from that on movement disorders, from that, got uh invited to uh be a part of the education committee. Again, like my whole journey is just kind of a lot of right place, right time. Um, the person who had asked me to uh give that lecture, she was rotating off of education and we needed uh an APP member. And long story short, I was able to kind of slide into that role. Um, so got involved with the education committee. That experience was one of the most rewarding experiences that that I can speak to. I will say when she rotated off and I rotated on, she and I had a conversation early on, and she did say to me that one of my roles on the education committee as an advanced practice provider would be to speak on behalf of advanced practice providers for the academy. And I freaked out. I thought there is no way I can have that responsibility. First of all, I'm a PA, not a nurse practitioner. I can't carry the burden of all APPs. Second of all, you know, there are just this is too much. I cannot tell you how warm and welcoming that committee was. And although I very much did, you know, raise my hand and speak up and say, you know, you know, what about APPs? Or had you have you all thought about APPs in in this educational initiative here or there? There were times when I didn't raise my hand and the other physicians around the table did instead. And it was just such a collaborative, great environment to be in. And it has really fueled um the AN has been for me my solution to burnout in my own practice. And so it's just a group of people who are so uh committed to education, advocacy, neurology, you know, whatever it is, it's just a really motivated, wonderful group of people. But from that, I um so the consortium of neurology advanced practice providers that you mentioned, all APPs are automatically a member. So this is just the group. Consortium is just a fancy word for group of APPs. So it's just this group of APPs um around the academy. Once you're a member, you're part of this group, and we just make sure that we um advocate and provide policies, programming, mentoring opportunities, um, educational opportunities, hear the voices of APPs, kind of everything, all APP around the academy. Um there's three of us who are the chair elect, the chair, and the outgoing chair, and we're looking to grow it and um see what we can do kind of moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Yeah, it's really exciting to see the work that your committee is doing. And I know, as you said, you you talk for a big team, but you've really done a lot of advocacy, you've done education of other APPs and others about APPs and the importance of the role of the APP in clinical care and education, and yourself have been quite involved with scholarship as well and leadership, and that can be a role that hopefully others can see for them through your role modeling.

SPEAKER_02 35:40

You know, it's one of my big soapboxes is the scholarship part of it and the kind of the promotion part of it. Um, I'm blessed to work for an institution that um and a department within my institution. I won't speak for my entire institution, but my department within my institution really advocates for the promotion, promotion tenure for APPs. I'm associate professor, um, but I just really feel passionately that we can, whether it's clinical education, educator or um research or whatever, that um that APPs are doing a lot of really cool, great stuff at our academic institutions. And even within private practices, uh APPs are doing a lot of really cool, great stuff that should be promoted or get raises or whatever it is. And one of the things that folks in healthcare in general, but APPs most specifically, we're not totally sure how to highlight that or how to advocate for that or how to represent that really well for ourselves. And so it's one of the things that I do feel pretty passionately about, whether it's you know, the conventional CV or other ways. And so one of the things that CNAP has done that I'm very excited about, Joan Miravite was able to get this forward was some awards for APPs at the AAN. So that's really exciting. There's also some leadership opportunities, but I think um APPs should be recognized for some of the work that they're doing because there's a lot of great APP educators out there. There's a lot of great APPs doing some pretty awesome research, starting service lines, some cool stuff out in neurology right now.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

And you guys also started the APP conference at the ANFAL conference.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

Yes, absolutely. The APP conference is such a fun conference. I love that conference. Um, I love it for a lot of reasons. Um, the APP conference itself has just really great programming to it. Um the APPs who speak, the physicians who speak are so I learned something. You asked me what I learned every, you know, earlier. I learned something at the APP conference every single year, whether it is a new talk or a talk I've heard before. I learned something at the APP conference every single year. But it's also what I love about it is it's paired with the fall conference, which is something that I think just doesn't get enough press. The hidden gem. Like I love the annual meeting too. The annual meeting is great, but the fall conference is wonderful, and I think the fall conference is so great for AVPs. It's just so got those two tracks in terms of the clinical track and also the practice management track. I learned so much from in terms of you know, just bread and butter practice stuff, leadership things, managing, coding, billing, which is boring but so helpful. It sounds boring, but it I get so many gems that I bring back to my practice every single year. Leadership things, burnout, um, all the practice management, it's because it's a three-day course, it's just very rich. And just very practically many APPs in terms of our CME money is less than many physicians. The time we can take off is, you know, not as you know, robust. And so to be able to go to the fall conference, you know, the APP conference for one day, and then the fall conference is usually three days, it's this great nugget of four days of programming that is so, I mean, it's so rich that I love it. I never skip it. It's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

It's a great endorsement for the A and fall conference. Uh, neither of us, you know, are directly, it's not directly paid advertising, but I agree with you. It's a wonderful opportunity for that interprofessional learning, as you said, with professional educators and and uh attendees as well. And uh, as you said, like a right, a great highlight to bring the neurology community together. I found a little article uh that was a posted about you online, and I thought I'd close by just sharing uh something you said a few years back, which I thought was so lovely. And um, so I'll quote you here. You said, My absolute favorite part of this job is working with the patients, and the other remarkable aspect is programming deep brain stimulators. I get a front row seat to what is often a fairly remarkable transformation following programming and feel honored to be able to share this moment with patients and their families. So yeah, I think that that just captures so much of both the miracle of neurology, but also your um, you know, your captivation, Shannon, with the work that you can do and the ways that you can serve patients and be part of their journey. Uh so thanks for that. And I I thought as we close, I'd just ask you what's next for you? What's what's next down the line for Shannon Anderson?

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Oh, that's a great question. You know, I think truthfully, 2026, our hospital is expanding um and we're growing. And what I'm very excited about is that um ABPs are a huge part of that hospital expansion, and I am very excited that there is um leadership that is embracing that. And so I'm really excited to see how we can integrate that in innovative ways. This second part of I kind of think of this like part of my career, the first half of my career was a lot of like, how do I integrate healthcare practice like in the clinic room? Like, how do I meet my patient where they're at? Like you said, that quote, like, you know, program their deep brain stimulator, figure out what's going on with them and meet them in that way. This um next part of my clinical career is more on a macro, almost like a public health way. How do I integrate APPs or maximize access to patient care on a bigger scale? And so, whether that be creating service lines for our movement disorder practice, for my own practice, for neurology practice, help ease the stress and strain of onboarding for practices, it is a difficult healthcare landscape. And so it's kind of fun to figure out what that puzzle is and and how do we figure out easing that burden for practices. And so that's kind of what we're looking at to do right now. So that's the that's the challenge we're tackling moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

It looks like the same pattern is back. In this case, practice management and administration has found you. And uh you're up, you're up, you're once again up for the job.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

Exactly. No, I I like it. It's it's it's been a fun challenge to to take on and have a lot of great support. And um yeah, and and honestly, it's the patients that move it forward. So it's been yeah, we'll see how it goes. Last question, Shannon. Why do you teach? Oh, because the students, oh, that's easy because they're when you see that light bulb go off, that is that's the dopamine. Love it. Only only a movement, only a movement of PA can say that.

unknown 43:21

I know.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

Well, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been such a pleasure to chat with you. Is there anything else you want to say? Any final words?

SPEAKER_02 43:31

No, I am thank you for doing this, and thanks for highlighting educators and education, and we're so grateful to have you and to have this platform, and this is so exciting. This was such a fun conversation.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Oh man, it was it was my pleasure. It's so great to see you. And I, you know, last saw you at the fall conference and can't wait to see you at the spring conference.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Exactly. We'll be there. I'll see you in Chicago.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

Yeah. Bye. Take care. Thanks so much. NeuroPraxis, the Neurology Educators podcast, was created and produced by Galena Gayman. It is not recorded as an official podcast of any institution or organization. The views and opinions are those of the individual speakers themselves. Music from Pixabay. Editing by Valeria Rowlden. Want more content like this? Be sure to subscribe to the Neuropraxis Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Have questions, comments, or suggestions for other podcast episodes? Contact us at neuropraxispodcast at gmail.com. Tell your friends and spread the word. Thanks for joining us.