Congratulations to James Gehring, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), on his election to the board of directors of the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA).
Gehring will serve a four-year term as physician director-at-large beginning in January 2018. He comes to the position with years of experience working with physician assistants (PAs) and PA students.
“I am passionate about PA education and ensuring the opportunity for continued scholarship in the field,” Gehring said. “I look forward to working in this role with the NCCPA to further those opportunities.”
In addition to his faculty position at SMHS, Gehring serves as the division director of hospital medicine at GW Hospital. He helped to establish the PA hospitalist service there and acted as the program’s primary supervising physician for seven years. Gehring is the medical director of the GW PA Program, a role in which he supervises PA students during their internal medicine inpatient rotations. He also serves on GW’s Medical Records Committee, Medical Executive Committee, and Quality Council.
Gehring holds professional memberships with the Society of General Internal Medicine and the Society of Hospital Medicine, and he is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. Gehring received his medical degree from the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine and completed his residency at Drexel University College of Medicine.
He is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and practices in Washington, D.C.
The NCCPA is the only certifying organization for PAs in the United States. The board of directors is made up of board-certified PAs representing stakeholder groups who regulate, employ, supervise, and seek out certified PA professionals.
“Dr. Gehring’s deep experience with PAs from their entry to the profession through in-patient PA practice provides a strong foundation for our work as the PA certifying organization,” said Dawn Morton-Rias, EdD, PA-C, president and CEO of the NCCPA, in a Press Releases. “We welcome Dr. Gehring and look forward to the perspective he will bring to the work of NCCPA.”
