Eugene A. Stead - Postgraduate Work

Postgraduate Work

In 1967, he graduated the first class of Physician Assistant students from Duke University's PA program. He interned at the Internal Medicine and Surgery at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and also at Cincinnati General Hospital and Boston City Hospital. His educational philosophy placed emphasis on knowing how to look up information for "just in time" delivery rather than memorizing volumes of information only to forget it before needed. The niche that he envisioned for PAs was that most health care encounters do not require extensive training and that superior medical care can be delivered by relieving the burden of mundane medical encounters by training PA professionals to know when to seek additional input. He wanted all PAs to be required to have mentoring relationships with Physicians to ensure access to a larger body of medical knowledge.