The History of the Association of Physician Assistant in Cardiovascular Surgery
Dr. John Webster Kirklin is the founder of the nation’s first formal educational program to train surgical physician assistants.
He conceived training a specialty type of physician assistant, the surgical physician assistant, in the late 1960s. It was his contention in a time of apparent physician shortage, that a qualified, properly trained and supervised physician assistant could perform some of the more routine tasks traditionally performed by physicians.
Dr. Kirklin and his wife, Dr. Margaret Kirklin acting as the program’s first Academic Director, started the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Surgeon Assistant (SA) Training Program in 1967. The program, biased by Dr Kirklin’s being a pioneer and leader as a cardiac surgeon, provided a heavy emphasis on cardiac surgical training and from which a large number of Cardiovascular Physician Assistants (CVPA's) entered the profession.
The Association of Physician Assistants in Cardiovascular Surgery (APACVS) was co-founded by physician assistants John F. Byrnes, Jr., and J. Richard Milam, the first President and Vice-President of the association, respectively. Begun in 1981 as an educational organization, the APACVS represents the professional interests of the CVPA with the primary objective of promoting the clinical and academic excellence of its members, and enhancing the quality of medical care to their patients.
Today, the APACVS is the educational, scientific, and political subspecialty organization representative of the Surgical Physician Assistant practicing in the field of cardiovascular and thoracic surgery. The APACVS is over 700 members strong and is recognized and endorsed by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the American Association for Thoracic Surgeons.