Katie Iverson, PA-C
If you’re walking into 2026 feeling a bit overstretched, over-messaged, and maybe even a little under-caffeinated, you’re in good company. Clinical work has never been more complicated. Information is noisier, time feels tighter, and tough conversations seem to show up in nearly every shift.
Every October, we pause to celebrate physician assistants (PAs)—a profession built on compassion, adaptability, and teamwork. At Hippo, we’re proud to have PAs not only caring for patients across the country, but also shaping the way clinicians learn and grow.
It is tragic that in 2025, measles—a fully preventable disease—has caused two deaths (at the time of writing) and sickened hundreds across the United States. With outbreaks making headlines, patients are flooding our inboxes and exam rooms with urgent questions:
On the PANRE-LA topic blueprint, NCCPA lists “Emergent Topics” as 2% of the exam. For many exam takers, these questions are causing headaches due to the lack of clear guidance on what will be covered. NCCPA lists “Legal, Ethical, DEI” on the blueprint, but no one knows the exact questions, and the specifics can’t be shared. Let’s dive a bit deeper into these three topics to help ease your anxiety and prepare you for whatever might come up.
Our Hippo PAs had a great time at our Crack the PANRE-LA Code: Tips from the Pros webinar talking about our experiences taking the PANRE-LA. Here, we have reviewed some of the nuts and bolts of the exam and our top tips and tricks. We read through all the questions asked during the webinar and have also addressed some of those here. We hope this helps ease your test anxiety whether you are almost done, halfway through, or about to start...
Mastering the nuances of dermatology descriptions is essential for accurate documentation and specialty communication. We often see patients coming in with various skin issues, especially as spring begins to bloom, but we frequently struggle to find the right rash description terms. Having a clear rash description chart can help you distinguish between lesion types with confidence.
When you are trying to tighten up your dermatology terms,...
Welcome, fellow PAs, to the PANRE-LA journey; whether you are about to start quarter six or quarter 2, we are all in this together. I am about to begin my 6th quarter and wanted to share some tips and tricks learned over the past five quarters that can help you succeed.
When the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve and 2025 is ushered in, PA students everywhere will also usher in a new era as NCCPA just released the new PANCE Content Blueprint. Here is what you need to know about the changes to help you prepare for your exam if you take it in 2025 and beyond.
As we celebrate American Heart Month, let’s take some time to review all the different ways our heart valves can break and how they present in the clinical setting. Ok, “break” is dramatic, but it’s February, when all sorts of heart puns are forgiven, right? ❤️
As December is Safe Toys and Gifts Awareness Month, now is the perfect time to emphasize the importance of toy safety to parents and caregivers. Toys bring joy and learning opportunities to children, but they can also pose serious health risks. According to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) report on Toy Related Deaths and Injuries in 2022, there were 11 deaths in children under age 14 related to toys. There...
As clinicians practicing acute care medicine, we’re tasked with treating a wide variety of patients.And no matter how thorough our didactic education or clinical skills training, many of the tools we use in acute care medicine are learned on the job. And there’s no better example of this than plain films interpretation. Unfortunately, this leads to wide variances in both imaging study experience and imaging interpretation accuracy amongst...
One of the biggest challenges for any PA moving to another state is the need for a new state license. This is especially true for active-duty PA military spouses due to their frequent moves. This uprooting not only personally affects couples and families, but also the patients, clinical teams, hospital systems, and communities due to turnover and loss of clinicians in the workforce as these PAs relocate.