Brigham and Women’s PA Fellowship Program graduation ceremony celebrates new and experienced PAs

The Brigham and Women’s Physician Assistant (PA) Fellowship is a 12-month post-graduation inpatient hospital medicine fellowship program for PAs which provides new graduates or PAs transitioning from a different specialty with additional educational opportunities while providing a robust curriculum and clinical experience at both Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital.

Upon the completion of the program, a graduation ceremony is held. At this year’s event, two familiar faces here at BWFH were honored: Lucianna Barone, PA-C, graduated from the program and Jordan Winnicki, PA-C, received the Extraordinary Preceptor Award.

Lucianna Barone, PA-C

Lucianna Barone, PA-C, began her career in the healthcare industry as a medical assistant in a primary care office and briefly worked as a certified nursing assistant before going to school to become a PA. She says her inpatient general medicine rotations during PA school were her favorite and helped prepare her for her future. After PA school, she worked as a research assistant and then joined the fellowship. “The fellowship helped me feel out different specialties while getting to experience the Brigham’s APP-centered model as well as the team environment there,” she says.

The fellowship program brought her to BWFH where she was introduced to the Faulkner Advanced Clinician Team (FACT). Happily, upon graduation, she accepted a role with FACT. “I chose FACT for lots of reasons but one of the biggest ones was the independent rounding model for APPs,” she says. “I found that it helped me make stronger personal connections with patients and helped me practice really thinking through my own clinical reasoning to bring more to medical discussions with my attendings.”

Jordan Winnicki, PA-C

Jordan Winnicki, PA-C, is Chief Advanced Practice Provider for the ICU at BWFH and an ICU preceptor for the Brigham and Women’s PA Fellowship. As an ICU preceptor, he is responsible for introducing the PA fellows to the ICU and the unique diagnoses they treat such as shock, respiratory failure, metabolic disturbances, etc. “We build on their base from prior rotations and gradually increasing case complexity throughout their short time with us,” he explains. “Fortunately for us in the BWFH ICU, the PA fellows show up extremely well-trained and capable of handling ICU-level patients rather quickly, making our jobs as preceptors easy at times.”

Winnicki says he was drawn to the preceptor role because it’s a means toward recruiting the best talent to the MGB system. “I genuinely enjoy teaching and being able to watch the fellows grow in their short amount of time in the ICU,” he says. “It is an added bonus that all of our fellows have remained in the Mass General Brigham system post-graduation incentivizing us to train them to the best of our abilities.”

Upon learning that he had received the Extraordinary Preceptor Award, Winnicki says he felt honored. “I have to thank and credit my colleagues, Joe Cullivan and Eddie Innarelli, who jointly help precept the fellows. I also have to thank the fellows who make our jobs easy as preceptors. They show up engaged and interested to learn with thoughtful insights and questions on their patients. Through the fellowship’s leadership, these clinicians are ahead of the curve.”

Learn more about the Brigham and Women’s PA Fellowship Program

Published 11/28/23