National Mentoring Award for St. Luke’s Physician Assistant

For the second time in three years, a St. Luke’s University Health Network physician assistant has won the nation’s top honor for mentoring PAs in training.

Kenneth D. Sherry, PA-C, has been named the 2018 Preceptor of the Year by the American Academy of PAs and the Physician Assistant Education Association.

Sherry has been a PA preceptor, or mentor, for more than 30 years.

In 2012, with the guidance of Sherry, St. Luke’s Miners started its first PA student preceptor program.

Sherry now oversees the rotations of surgery and internal medicine students.

Students can benefit from this small hospital learning by getting more hands-on experience.

Sherry told the American Academy of Pas, “A lot of times students get lost in the shuffle, but here they don’t have time to feel like we’re not interested in having them. We are here to help them.”

In 2016, Maureen Barrett, PA-C, who works with Sherry within the surgical division, was named Preceptor of the Year.

“It’s an amazing accomplishment,” St. Luke’s Advanced Practice Chairman Marisa Schwartz, DNP, CRNP, said of St. Luke’s Miners staff winning this prestigious national award two times in three years. “It’s an outstanding achievement that shows our dedication to mentoring the next generation of PAs.”

Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the pre-eminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania.

In partnership with Temple University, St. Luke’s created the region’s first and only regional medical school campus.

It also operates the nation’s longest continuously operating School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 28 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 226 residents and fellows.