Having attended and spoken at my first ASME conference, I feel there is certainly an opportunity to further involve more physician associates (PAs) and physician associate students. Physician associates are a new role in the NHS, trained to the medical model to diagnose, investigate, and treat patients.

The session I participated in centred on communication in medical education, a panel discussion facilitated by Rod Whiting, a broadcast journalist with extensive experience. As always, the challenge of participating in a discussion and needing to articulate my own impressions of the issues proved tremendously educational. For example, the relatively new problem of fake news came up, and we considered how medical education can begin to tackle that difficult issue and do so in a way that does not alienate people who may struggle to know what is fake and what is real—a problem that can affect all of us at times.

Other ASM sessions contained great messages, too. Prof Eric Driessen shared the metaphor of the medical teacher as a pinball wizard, suggesting that whilst students benefit from appropriate motivation from their tutors, there is balance to strike, and tutor input that is akin to micromanagement will only result in a ‘tilt’ on the pinball machine.

As a PA attending the ASM, I have reflected on how ASME could further reach out to the PA profession. Due to the novelty of the role—which, conversely, is well established in the United States—it can be a challenge to know which learning opportunities apply to us as well. “Medical education” as a name can seem rather ambiguous to a fledgling role such as the physician associate. As the learning process for PAs is more condensed than traditional medical education, it can be difficult to know where we fit in the equation. Arguably, most of our learning—both physician associates and medics—begins once we leave formal education. With the advent of new roles within the medical model, is the current model of medical education a one-size fits all?

A potential solution to improve accessibility to educational events such as this could start at the beginning of a physician associate's journey: university. By directly approaching both educators and students in PA faculties and courses, ASME may be able to recruit more PAs to conferences. In terms of scholarly inquiry, further consideration of the speed at which physician associates cover medicine at university may be fertile ground for medical research. As a final suggestion, many PA courses are Masters courses, they require a dissertation to complete the degree, and ASME could consider showcasing the best of these dissertations as a PA student theme in medical research.