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This week, all of our members — individual colleagues, institutions not yet accredited, and fully accredited programs — will receive in the mail a small square booklet. This is our Annual Report, an overview of the major ���㽶��Ƶ events and activities in calendar year 2014. And it is the first of its kind in ���㽶��Ƶ’s history.

The obvious question is: “Why are we publishing it now, what makes this year different from other years?” 

The simple answer is: Because there’s so much more happening with ���㽶��Ƶ now than ever before.

With 190 accredited member programs and more to come, several major faculty development events throughout the year (including the Pando™ workshops and the Education Forum), multiple grant programs, stepped up government advocacy efforts, enhanced exam products, streamlined application services, and much more, it’s hard for our members to keep track of it all. It’s not uncommon for some people to know one area of our work without being aware of the other work we do.

On top of it all, this month we’re moving our offices to the AAMC headquarters building in downtown Washington, D.C. This move will significantly raise our profile with government, education, and medical leaders.

The time was right to collect and summarize our progress in a single publication, so that we can better tell the story of how ���㽶��Ƶ represents and promotes PA education at a national level. The same annual report you receive will be what we put in the hands of members of Congress, foundations, partner organizations, potential ���㽶��Ƶ members, and others. As 2014 President Karen Hills said in her Education Forum speech, “Our role in health care is too valuable to be kept a secret.” The annual report is one way we can broadcast our role to the world.

We don’t see this as a single, one-off publication. It’s the capstone on an entire year’s worth of updates from President Karen Hills, and represents the amazing breadth and depth of work that ���㽶��Ƶ’s Board of Directors, councils, committees, and staff did for our members in 2014. This is just the first in a series of annual reports that we plan to publish each year.

, send it to colleagues — both PAs and other health care professionals — and get involved in helping ���㽶��Ƶ do even more to advance our important work in 2015.

NB: If you’re wondering about the name, we’ve chosen “Annual Report,” since that is the standard and expected term in the association world for this sort of summary of activities. The annual program survey, which formerly bore the title “Annual Report,” has been redesigned by Chief Research and Policy Officer Tony Miller’s team. That publication has become a series of related reports focusing on specific topics, and will be renamed something more appropriate in the coming months. More on that to come.