Video: Meet Your Professors — Shelley Irving Has A Passion For Rural Healthcare
Shelley Irving
Shelley Irving, MSPAS, PA-C, is an Assistant Professor and Site Director of the Morehead Campus of the University of Kentucky College of Health Sciences Physician Assistant Studies (UKPAS) Department. A 2008 alum of the UKPAS Morehead Campus, Shelley joined faculty in 2016 where she serves as Chair of Admissions and provides curricular instruction as part of the clinical team.
“I’m really passionate about caring for patients in the Appalachian region and when I had the opportunity to come back as a faculty member, I really took that opportunity,” she said. “I felt like I could really make a difference by investing in future providers who were also passionate about caring for patients across Kentucky.”
Irving is Board Certified through National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants and licensed by the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure. She has 11 years of experience practicing rural primary care in Eastern Kentucky and continues to care for underserved patients in the region through work as a volunteer provider and member of the Board of Directors for People's Clinic in Morehead, Kentucky. Primary interests involve preparing future Physician Assistants (PA's) for practice in underserved areas to improve the health and well-being of Kentuckians. To achieve this goal requires preparing students for interprofessional collaboration, leadership, and community engagement. To provide for these needs of our learners, she serves as a Fellow of the UK Center for Interprofessional Health Education and as a Member of the CME Committee for the Kentucky Academy of Physician Assistants (KAPA).
“The best way I think to instill passion and to truly connect with the passion that our students come into the program with is to engage with them in as real-world situations as possible.”
Her practice currently is as a volunteer provider, a free clinic in Morehead that serves patients from 11 counties who either don’t have insurance or they’re underinsured.
“You just make a connection in that situation where you can teach, and you can show (students) you can really tackle some of the challenges in rural healthcare,” she said. “The Morehead campus of the UK PA program is an awesome place to learn how to provide quality health care here at home in rural areas. We will teach you what you need to know, we will give you resources, we will provide connections so that you can be properly supported as you learn and begin a career.”
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