Medicine

Physician assistant honored with Alumni Achievement Award

Penn College President Davie Jane Gilmour, left, presents the Alumni Achievement Award to Megan E. Wright, of Hummelstown. Credit: Pennsylvania College of Technology / Penn StateCreative Commons

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — A physician assistant at the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center received the Alumni Achievement Award at Pennsylvania College of Technology’s summer 2016 commencement ceremonies, held Aug. 6 at the Community Arts Center in Williamsport.

Megan E. Wright, a 2012 graduate of Penn College’s physician assistant program, is employed as a physician assistant in Hershey’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation department. She’s been engaged in an effort to establish a new consult service for the department and also serves on the Advanced Practice Council, which represents more than 300 physician assistants and nurse practitioners throughout the Penn State Hershey Health System.

Wright is also a member of the Advanced Practice Orientation Task Force, working with other physician assistants and nurse practitioners to improve onboarding orientation across the institution, as well as more focused orientation at the departmental level.

She wrote an article, “Neuropathic Pain: An Update on Diagnosis and Pharmacological Management,” that will be published in the Journal of American Academy of Physician Assistants. She attended the AAPA’s national conference on Healthcare Management and Executive Leadership in November.

Wright earned a master of science in physician assistant studies from Pace University in 2015, graduating with a 4.0 GPA.

In addition to certification by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants, she holds multiple certifications, including Basic Life Support and Advanced Cardiac Life Support, as well as active certification through the American Spinal Injury Association for the International Classification of Spinal Cord Injury and the National Institutes of Health for NIH Stroke Scale Assessment.

Wright actively participates in educational activities within Hershey’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation department, including journal club and morbidity and mortality rounds. For two consecutive years, she lectured on rehab pharmacology to first-year resident physicians. She also participated in an ethics panel discussion regarding hierarchy issues in medicine, which was presented to the inaugural physician assistant class at Penn State College of Medicine.

A former longtime resident of the Williamsport area, Wright now resides in Hummelstown. She is the daughter of Marianne DePasqua, of South Williamsport, and Thomas Wright, of Williamsport.

Penn College’s Alumni Achievement Award is bestowed upon graduates from the past 10 years whose postgraduate life includes noteworthy professional accomplishments or dedicated volunteer service to the college or community. Recipients also must demonstrate the importance of their Penn College education and continually support the mission of the college.

For more about alumni relations at Penn College, visit www.pct.edu/alumni.

For more about Penn College, a national leader in applied technology education and workforce development, visit www.pct.edu, email admissions@pct.edu or call toll-free 800-367-9222.

Last Updated August 8, 2016

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