ReachMD

Dr. Reginald Carter is a graduate of Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he received both his bachelor of science and PhD. He served on the Duke University Medical Center faculty for 34 years, holding joint appointments in the departments of community and family medicine and cell biology. He became involved with the Duke PA Program in 1972, first as a teacher, then associate director and eventually became division chief and program director. Dr. Carter helped establish the PA History Center and the Society for the Preservation of Physician Assistant History at Duke. He served as the director of the Center and Society from 2001 to 2007 and as the Center's and Society's historian from 2002 until 2008.

Dr. Carter's contributions include service on the research and development committee of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) and the Association of Physician Assistant Programs (APAP), which laid the foundation for documentation of the profession. As president of the APAP, he helped successfully write grants to fund the first major workforce studies on PAs, and as a member of the Education and Research Foundation (predecessor to the PA Foundation), he helped establish small research awards focused on PA workforce issues.  As a commissioner for the National Commission on the Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA), Dr. Carter helped usher in a new age of computer-based testing. He has chaired and served on various other PA professional committees, authored many articles, chapters and reports on PAs, and served as reviewer of federal training grants and small research grants awarded by the PA Foundation. He is co-editor of a landmark book on PAs, entitled Alternatives in Health Care Delivery: Emerging Roles for Physician Assistantsand co-wrote and produced a 35-minute videotape, Physician Assistant: History of a Health Manpower Innovation, used to introduce PA students to the PA concept.  He has served five 3-year terms as a trustee of the North Carolina Baptist Hospitals, Inc., Winston-Salem, and a 4-year appointment on the National Advisory Board for Partnership for Quality Education focused upon educating primary care residents, PAs and nurse practitioners in managed care environments. 

Dr. Carter has been a staunch advocate for preserving the history of the PA profession and has developed an online, searchable archival database and virtual illustrated history website for the profession. Until his retirement in 2008, he served as the feature editor for the history section of the Journal of the Physician Assistant Education Association and a reviewer for Advance Magazine for Physician Assistants.

Among many awards and certificates of appreciation, Dr. Carter has received the Twentieth Anniversary Appreciation Award from the American Academy of Physician Assistants (1988), the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Duke University Physician Assistant Program (1996), and the Presidential Award from the American Academy of Physician Assistants (2001 and 2007).  He was awarded the title of historian emeritus by the Society for the Preservation of PA History in 2008.