AHPBA Travel Grant will aid Lori Little’s proposal to develop APP training site
JANUARY 2020
Lori Little, MMSc, PA-C, an advanced practice provider (APP) for the Emory Division of Surgical Oncology and Winship Cancer Institute, has received an APP Travel Grant from Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association (AHPBA). These grants offset costs for APPs to attend the AHPBA Annual Meeting. The 2020 Meeting will be held March 5-8 in Miami Beach.
Ms. Little's proposal for the award described her goal of building an educational platform housed within the AHPBA website to serve APPs that work with hepatobiliary patients in a variety of environments with differing patient volumes and clinical focuses.
The wide-ranging, multidisciplinary experience Ms. Little has gained from working at Winship—Georgia's NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center and a major nexus of cancer research, innovation, and discovery—gives her a knowledgeable vantage from which to construct a highly comprehensive program. The planned online curriculum would serve to elevate APPs knowledge and skills to a level of excellence despite any limitations of their practice, and would feature training modules in pathophysiology, pharmacology, standardized protocols, and current research.
Carrying out Ms. Little's proposal will be expedited by the in-process development of AHPBA's Patient Education Portal (PEP), a project that is being co-chaired by Emory surgical oncologist Maria Russell, MD. Ms. Little plans to model the APP portal on PEP's navigation scheme and architecture while modifying the content to be relevant and informative for practicing APPs. During the course of the project, she will have access to Dr. Russell's expertise and advice and the overall mentorship of Emory surgical oncologist-scientist Shishir K. Maithel, MD.
Ms. Little's attendance at the AHPBA Annual Meeting will allow her to seek input from experts in online training approaches. She will also network with fellow APPs to assess their training needs, catalog their suggestions, and potentially begin building a team to establish what she hopes will be the nation's premier educational tool for APPs working in HPB surgery.