2017 Barry graduate Camille Paul, MPH, MCMSc, PA-C, is helping to lead the charge toward improved access to quality medical care in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The St. Croix native works full time as a physician assistant with The Heart Center, P.C. (THC), a private cardiology practice, and part time with both Frederiksted Healthcare, Inc. (FHC), a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), and the Gov. Juan F. Luis Hospital emergency department, “which is our only hospital on the island,” she says. Dedicating her PA skills across these various healthcare settings allows Paul to work with patients of every demographic, from the older, insured patients who visit THC to the younger, uninsured or Medicaid patients who seek her care at FHC or the emergency department. “In all settings,” she says, “about 90% of my patient's are minorities.”
For Paul, this wide-ranging access to members of her St. Croix community is at the heart of her mission to improve local healthcare. And, while her reach as a clinical provider is broad, she extends it further through volunteer and advocacy work that responds practically and efficiently to patient needs and gaps in care. Last October, in honor of Physician Assistant Week, she hosted a Facebook Live event dedicated to explaining her role as a PA. She enlisted the help of her sister, who holds a journalism degree and was well suited to play the role of interviewer. “She basically began by asking me to explain what a PA is and what we do,” says Paul. “I answered questions from viewers posting in the Facebook comments as well. The overall goal was to raise public awareness of the PA profession and help people better understand our role in the medical field.” Paul also announced some exciting news during the event: in September 2020, the PA Foundation awarded her a Nutrition Outreach Fellowship. “I took the opportunity during the Facebook Live to introduce myself as a nutrition fellow and tell viewers that I would be offering nutrition counseling to anyone in the community through this fellowship.”
Such proactive outreach to her patients and community members has made Paul an instrumental voice of progress among healthcare advocates in the U.S. Virgin Islands. She even serves as a committee chair for the U.S. Virgin Islands Academy of Physician Assistants, a position that enables her to push forward significant healthcare legislation. We asked Paul to tell us more about her work as a PA, her community advocacy, and how her experience at Barry helped shape her role as a healthcare provider.
How has your work inspired your involvement in your community? What local groups or activities are particularly meaningful to you?
Community is at the center of all that I do. My inspiration to become a medical provider was the lack of adequate, accessible healthcare in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I knew that I could help to bridge the gap and help to improve public health in the USVI. Prior to becoming a PA, I completed a Master of Public Health with a focus in Community Oriented Primary Care, which further fueled my drive to work on improving the health of my community.
Aside from my work clinically, I volunteer at various events throughout the community, including health fairs. Screenings at health fairs, in particular, are points at which you can capture individuals who may not visit medical providers regularly and are unaware of their health status. They can also serve as events encouraging healthy behaviors and thus disease prevention. Additionally, I am presently the U.S. Virgin Islands Academy of Physician Assistants legislative and governmental affairs committee chair. Over the past two years, I've worked to move legislation forward to modernize laws and regulations governing PA practice in the USVI.
What have been your greatest challenges and triumphs in your job as a PA?
The physician assistant profession is still fairly new for many in the U.S. Virgin Islands. One of my greatest challenges has been not only educating patients on what a PA is, but also educating my colleagues who are not familiar with or have never worked with PAs. I am the first PA to be employed at THC and, as a new PA, establishing my role in the practice was definitely a challenge.
My greatest triumph in my job is having the privilege to serve my community and, in return, realizing the trust that I have earned from my patients. Health is a sensitive subject and, in order to make a difference in someone’s life in my field of work, there must be mutual respect, and, above all, there must be trust.
How have your work and patients been affected by Covid-19?
In Spring 2020, when we realized the impact of the pandemic on the island, THC completely stopped seeing patients in-office. It took a couple weeks for us to come up with a plan to move forward, and we slowly transitioned to seeing patients via telemedicine. As the local government began to implement mitigation strategies, we slowly transitioned back to seeing patients in the office. Our schedule was thinned out so that as few patients were in the waiting room at one time as possible. The pandemic caused a delay in care for many patients. Patients that were typically seen at regularly scheduled intervals now had to wait longer to be seen for their follow-up visits, and new patients referred to cardiology experienced a longer wait to be seen for their initial visit. Additionally, because patient visits had decreased at all outpatient settings, I was temporarily removed from the schedule at my part time job at FHC. I actually started working at the emergency department during the pandemic, in July 2020.
What aspects of your Barry training and network do you most rely on and appreciate in your daily work?
I am extremely lucky that I was able to attend Barry University's PA program while there was still a campus on St. Croix. I was born and raised on St. Croix and completing rotations in my own community allowed me to network and build bonds with other providers while I was still a student. Those relationships have strengthened my practice and allowed me a leg up, as I was familiar with many of my colleagues when I first began practicing in St. Croix.