Rea Katz, PhD, PA-C

Dr. Katz practiced as a PA for over 45 years; worked in physician assistant education since 2000; and, since 2013, concentrated on University-wide faculty development before her retirement. Her clinical career included positions in family practice, women's health, neurology, emergency medicine, urgent care, school-based healthcare, college healthcare, and pediatrics. She joined the RFUMS Physician Assistant Practice faculty in 2005, and in 2013 was appointed as the Associate Vice President for Faculty Development. As an extension of her career-long focus on addressing healthcare disparities, she coordinated Healthy Families Clinic’s pediatric service, a student-centered, free clinic now located at the Rosalind Franklin Clinics in North Chicago. Dr. Katz’s interest in curriculum design is reflected in the many online and classroom- based courses she has developed, revised and taught, as well as in the expansion of faculty development programming and resources that support educational expertise within the RFUMS faculty.

Dr. Katz earned her BA in cultural anthropology from the University of Wisconsin- Madison, and a couple years later graduated as a PA from the Johns Hopkins University Health Associate Program (BS).  In 1988 she earned a MS from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a concentration in medical anthropology. In May of 2011, she completed her dissertation entitled, “Becoming Culturally Competent: Clinical Service Learning in Physician Assistant Education,” receiving a PhD from Marquette University (School of Education: Educational Policy and Leadership).

Dr. Katz has witnessed many changes in the delivery of health care and in physician assistant education over the past five decades; and believes that all people have a right to high quality healthcare services from compassionate and dedicated clinicians who care for their patients with cultural humility. In addition, she takes a global view of health care having had the opportunity to work in clinics in Belize and Guatemala. Dr. Katz is a proponent of interprofessional education that prepares health care professional students to collaborate respectfully and effectively in order to provide patient-centered, evidence-based health care, and to be leaders in their professions and their communities.

SCHOLARSHIP & Research

Paper Presentations/Posters

• Introductions to Faculty-to- Faculty Mentoring: An Interprofessional Approach, AAMC GFA Professional Development Conference, July 2016
• Faculty Perceptions of the Academic Environment: Addressing Cultural Factors in Faculty Development and Does it make a Difference? AAMC GFA Professional Development Conference, July 2015
• Can Developing a Faculty Development Program based on a Needs Assessment Survey reduce Divergence between Requests and Attendance? AAMC GFA Professional Development Conference, July 2015
• Focused Discussion Session:Public Health in the PA Curriculum: Making Population Medicine Relevant,PAEA Forum, Seattle, WA (2012)
• Spotlight:Celebrating Your Program’s Hx: Plan, Collect, and Display, PAEA Forum, New Orleans, LA (2011)
• Spotlight:Evidence-Based Prevention:Use of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Guidelines to Teach Prevention in the Clinical Setting, PAEA Forum, Baltimore, MD (2010)
• Presentation:How to create a museum exhibit of PA history?PAEA Historians Meeting, PAEA Forum, Portland, OR (2009)
• Workshop:Community-Oriented Primary Care: A Framework for Service Learning? PAEA Forum, Portland, OR (2009)
• Workshop Category I CME:Doing Ethics: Using the Four Box Method in the Classroom, PAEA Forum (2007)
• Panel coordinator Category I CME:Diagnostic Surprises(Travelers’ infectious diseases), AAPA Annual Conference (2004)
• Presentation Category I CME:Eliciting a Genetic History, Wisconsin Academy of Physician Assistants Clinical Updates (4/2004)
• Presentation Category I CME:Integrating Diversity: Pearls and Perils, APAP Semi Annual Conference (5/2003)
• Poster Session:Video Insights into Culture: How to Teach Diversity without Stereotyping,AAPA Annual Conference (5/2003)
• Presentation Category I CME:Appreciating Cultural Differences, Wisconsin Academy of Physician Assistants Clinical Updates (4/2000)

Publications

Publication

Katz, P. (1993) Health education in a cultural context,JAAPA,6(7).