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Charles Huntington, III a wonderful PA, passed away suddenly a few days ago. As we all are, he was many things; a husband, a father, a teacher, a leader, a clinician, an athlete and more. Charlie was one of those people you never forget. Fate brought us together. Well, fate and a shared love for the PA profession. We had a mutual belief that PAs were needed all over America. Please allow me a few minutes to tell you a bit about the Charlie I knew.
Looking back at our lives, we were polar opposites. Charlie was quite tall and good-looking. He was from an old NY family that had been in the U.S. since the days of the American Revolution I think even before. I was a shorter kid from Brooklyn whose grandparents came from Eastern Europe.
I grew up in an apartment building in Brooklyn and my first PA job was at a medical group in the middle of Flatbush. Charlie’s town had one stoplight and 500 people; mine had 4 million. Talk about opposites.
Charlie had come from a family of physicians. In fact, his great, great grandfather wrote the first scientific paper describing Huntington’s Chorea and the disease carries his name to this day. His dad was a radiologist while mine was involved in the textile industry.
Charlie was also an athlete. He was into running before most people, and he was the first person I saw wear real “running sneakers”, not the kind of sneakers we wore in Brooklyn to play basketball. He told me why people should wear those to prevent injury.
Upon graduation from PA school, Charlie moved to the “North Country” of New York State to set up a clinic in a town that had no physician. New York State had no NPs at the time, so he really was one of the first advanced practice clinicians out there alone. He was committed to rural health, not just in words but also in action and really set up the template for PAs practicing on their own-in their own clinics. Charlie spent considerable money and time setting up the clinic so that he could defend it legally. He left a framework that many other clinicians went on to use for their own clinics.
Charlie and I met while we were both active in the New York State Society of PAs. We were both in our late twenties and practicing clinically. Charlie was climbing up the leadership ladder and I was a few steps behind. A few years later, he became President while I was his President-Elect. As we worked hand in hand, we started to learn from each other.
At the time, the Medical Society of New York was clamping down really hard on PAs. They voted to abort” the PA profession by “any means possible”. They were also printing stories in their newsletter that were untrue about the profession, such as “PAs are running their own hospitals” and “PAs are doing home deliveries”. They were increasingly trying their best to hold the profession down. They also steadfastly refused to officially meet with any PA leaders as they felt that would “legitimize” the profession. They decided to use one thing they could control, the ability of their members to get malpractice insurance. They owned the medical malpractice company that insured most of the physicians in NY and they let their members know that they would deny coverage to any physician who worked with a PA, unless the PA practiced under direct (in the same room)! supervision.
New York had just passed legislation granting prescriptive practice to PAs a year before and prescribing really started to allow PAs to branch into areas and places where we would not need the physician on site. If the medical society succeeded with their malpractice insurance limitation, the rural clinics we were running would be doomed as well as the whole idea that PAs could be autonomous clinicians.
Charlie surprised us all when he announced that he had arranged a meeting with the President of the Medical Society. It was to be secret and we were to tell no one but this physician agreed to meet with us at 6 am in an upstate hospital cafeteria.
Another huge difference between Charlie and I at that time was, as a Brooklyn boy, I was more emotional. I wore my feelings on my sleeve and listening was a skill I needed a bit of help with. Being more emotional, I hugged almost everyone I met and kissed most of my friends. I know Charlie thought my behavior odd as he hid his feelings much better than I did and was an expert listener. As we worked together, I learned how to listen from Charlie.
We walked into the cafeteria and Charlie commanded me to start off by listening and said that I should follow his lead. I did exactly that until I saw Charlie get a bit frustrated and I came back with a very reasoned and logical response following up on the thread that the medical society should drop their insurance threat. Charlie then followed up by using phrases like “restraint of trade” and “insurance commissioner” and let him know we would not be afraid to do whatever it took to keep our clinics open and running. I listened. Needless to say, partly because they knew our whole state organization was willing going to go the distance, they later withdrew their threat. Charlie would not back down.
As the years passed, Charlie would bring that determination and leadership to the AAPA at a time when the profession was growing and changing daily, acting as Vice President-Speaker of the House of Delegates and later President of the AAPA. I remember the AAPA Executive Director resigning during Charlie’s term as president and he stepped in and served as the Executive Director for almost a year.
Charlie later left rural practice and went on to work in health policy and medical education, getting both his MPH and DPH. He felt he could effect real change on that level also. As frequently happens, we got involved in different things and drifted away from each other. I always knew how he and his wife (another great PA leader) and kids were doing, but that’s it.
There are so many more stories--many to do with how he believed and showed others that we were an answer to rural and urban underserved healthcare and how he fought for that. He believed that PAs should go out and show people how good we were and not let artificial barriers hold us back, either as individuals or as a profession.
He and I shared a friendship based on that passion and a shared vision of patient care. And by the way, over the next 25 years, every single time that I saw Charlie he gave me the kind of Brooklyn hug he knew would make me feel great. Funny, you never know what we learn from each other.
May you rest in peace Charlie, and may the many leaders you paved the way for be an inspiration to your memory.
Your friend,
Dave
 Dave has been a PA, and later NP, leader for thirty years. He strongly believes that NPs and PAs must work together to insure a better future for both professions. Most recently Dave has been busy launching another dream; Clinician 1, the first internet community for PAs and NPs. In October 2008, Dave was honored by the New Jersey State society of PAs with its “Lifetime Achievement Award”.
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