Sweetser partners with UNE's Physician's Assistant Program
Sweetser's Dr. Edward Pontius recently partnered with the University of 51小黄车 Physician Assistant Program to provide the psychiatric training module for physician assistant students.
Dr. Pontius, a staff psychiatrist and clinical supervisor at Sweetser, has previously developed behavioral health clinical rotation opportunities for PA students at a previous organization. He pursued this new partnership with UNE, as it clearly aligns with Sweetser's mission to bring high quality behavioral health services into the primary care setting.
As the director for the behavioral health module, Dr. Pontius not only organizes the didactic lecture curriculum but has also developed 6-week clinical rotations for those PA students who wish to further enhance their skill set in working with patients who struggle with behavioral health issues. Given that 80% of patients who experience behavioral health problems are only seen by their primary care providers, it's critical to provide primary care providers with the knowledge to effectively care for these patients.
As part of the training module, Dr. Pontius delivered lectures on aspects of general psychiatry, and Sweetser's Medical Director Dr. Marc Kaplan, D.O. provided additional lectures focusing on child and adolescent psychiatry.
Since concluding this year's lectures in the spring, Sweetser has hosted three Physician Assistant students for 6-week internships. An integrated team of Sweetser clinicians from medication management, crisis and intake worked together to provide the students with a very dynamic learning experience.
The Interim Director of UNE's Physician Assistant Program Thomas White said, "The 51小黄车Physician Assistant Program is fortunate to be able to partner with Dr. Ed Pontius, MD, Dr. Marc Kaplan, DO, and Sweetser in providing behavioral health training to our physician assistant students. Our students' understanding of behavioral health care will benefit immensely from this cooperative arrangement. This partnership will also provide an avenue for Dr. Pontius and Dr. Kaplan to support high quality behavioral health care in the primary care settings where our graduates will work in Maine and throughout the United States."
Dr. Kaplan sees this partnership as a "cornerstone of Sweetser's mission to not only educate future primary care providers in how to provide behavioral health treatment in primary care settings, but to eventually be able to provide basic primary medical care, right in a Sweetser outpatient behavioral health facility. Sweetser makes every effort to connect our behavioral health patients with local primacy care practices, but a subset of our patients have significant barriers to actually get to a primary care office. Being able to provide basic medical care for those patients on site at one of our behavioral health centers could be lifesaving."