Wallace Boeve, Ed.D., PA-C, has been recognized as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Physician Associates, the national membership organization for PAs. Boeve has been dean of the College of Health Sciences at Des Moines University since 2020. He earned this national recognition due to his outstanding contributions to patient care and the profession and his significant dedication and involvement in the education of future health care professionals.
DMU’s College of Health Sciences offers five graduate degree programs in occupational therapy, physical therapy, physician assistant studies, health care administration and public health.
PAs are medical professionals who diagnose illness, develop and manage treatment plans, prescribe medications and often serve as a patient’s principal health care provider. Educated at the master’s degree level, PAs practice in every state and every medical setting and specialty, improving health care access and quality.
The Distinguished Fellow program was established by AAPA in 2007 to recognize the exceptional contributions of PAs to the profession through professional achievement, leadership, professional interaction, learning, and community service. After acceptance into the program, Distinguished Fellows continue contributing to the work of AAPA and the PA profession. This distinction is earned by less than 2% of the entire AAPA membership and less than 1% of the PA population in the United States.
Boeve’s clinical work has included urgent care as a physician assistant with experience in rural family medicine, occupational medicine and inpatient psychiatry. Within the first year of practice as a physician assistant, he responded to a request from Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to serve as a clinical preceptor for physician assistant students in its College of Health Professions. That sparked his advancement, even while he continued to practice, to a faculty member, program director and department chair of Grand Valley’s PA program.
He served as the founding program director and professor in the physician assistant master’s program at Bethel University in Minnesota. He has served in leadership roles in state and national PA organizations, including as a past president of the Michigan Academy of Physician Assistants and a member of the executive board of the Minnesota Academy of Physician Assistants. Recent president of the Fellowship of Christian PAs, he now serves on the board as a director-at-large of the FCPA, a recognized constituent chapter of the AAPA and a specialty section of the Christian Medical and Dental Association. He also has been a consultant for numerous start-up PA programs and those on accreditation probation.
In addition, Boeve has conducted and published grant-supported research and authored numerous book chapters, articles, presentations and posters. He has advocated on medical issues in state legislatures and on the national level. And he juggled all this and more with the myriad requisite roles of academia, from advising students, evaluating dissertations and judging research posters to serving on seemingly countless committees.
Boeve and his wife, Kelli, a nurse, participated in their first global health trip, to Liberia, West Africa, in 2002. He has participated in several trips since to Kenya, India, China, Ghana, England and Mexico to provide patient care, develop potential clinical training programs, network with hospitals and explore student exchange programs.
Boeve earned his Bachelor of Science degree in biomedical sciences at Grand Valley State University and his Master of Science degree in physician assistant studies at Baylor College of Medicine. He earned his Ed.D. in educational leadership and administration from Eastern Michigan University.
