President's Column | June 2023

Jul 2, 2023

Dear Colleagues,
 

 If you remember from previous messages, I am passionate about a lot of things, music being one of them. I find music therapeutic and inspirational and can’t envision my life without it. Speaking of which, “It’s Been a Year” by Ashley Cook couldn’t resonate or depict my life the last year any better. It has been a year literally and figuratively.

It’s hard to believe this is my last message as your president. I vividly remember sitting at my MacBook thinking of content for my first message hoping it would not only resonate, but that someone would even take time to read it. I have been told that both happened. Now, bittersweet, I type this last letter to you.
 
What a year. So much growth has taken place organizationally, with hopes that it improves our profession. Some of this growth was intentional and some was born out of adversity. Regardless, the members have been at the heart of every decision and goal of our leaders and staff. You are and will continue to be SDPA’s “WHY”.
 
Our organization saw membership reach a record high of 4,700 this past year. We now account for 75% of all DermPAs™ in the country. We continued our annual SDPA Awards Program and had an astounding 50 nominee applications in only our second year.
 
Legislatively, the organization signed in support of nine important pieces of legislation both nationally and on the state level, all in hopes of positively affecting the patients we serve.
 
In education, our fall meeting in Miami set a record with over 900 attendees. The distance learning committee launched several new eLearning courses and have also provided free webinars.
 
Our flagship journal, JDPA, continues to increase peer reviewers and submissions for publications and has the most in journal history. A monumental achievement has been achieving Indexing on Google Scholar. Now, peer reviewed content published in JDPA since is inaugural issue in Fall 2007 will be searchable with full-text indexing on Google Scholar. The goal continues to achieve other indexing opportunities such as PubMed. Indexing will translate to greater discoverability for JDPA articles and PA authors, showcasing our knowledge, expertise and talent among the medical community.
 
So much growth in such a short period of time, and though my focus has been on the organization the last year, personally I’ve also grown in ways I never expected. I am not the same person I was this time last year and just as an organization can evolve so too can people. My growth and evolution as a leader, PA, colleague, mentor, friend and even mom has been an unexpected blessing that I will forever be grateful to the members, my fellow leaders and staff for. The lessons and skills learned will carry me as I step toward the future.
 
I will finish this amazing journey by saying “thank you” to the members for allowing me the opportunity to live out a dream and lead you, my amazing colleagues, and our organization. The role I have been in the last year has been one of the highlights of my life. Successes, mistakes, adversity, smiles and tears, it has all left a positive footprint on my life. To my fellow board members, committee chairs and staff, thank you for standing beside me on this ride. It wasn’t always a smooth one, but you believed in me and our organization and stayed the path. I could not have made it through the last year without your support and work. In the end, WE did it. Everything that has been accomplished has been through teamwork. My goal was to leave SDPA better than I found it while keeping our WHY at the forefront. I hope I did just that. My wish for the next leadership team is to do the same.
 
It's been a year Indeed. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

 

Yours Truly,
 
Lauren Miller, MPAS, PA-C
President, SDPA Board of Directors