Quinnipiac University student Richard Bottner named to National Leadership Council for Primary Care Progress

Quinnipiac University physician assistant student Richard Bottner, of New Haven, has been named to the National Leadership Council for Primary Care Progress.

Founded in 2009, Primary Care Progress is a national non-profit network of medical providers, health professional trainees, policy experts, advocates and educators who aim to revitalize primary care in the United States.

“Quinnipiac has started to place a great deal of focus on primary care,” Bottner said. “Primary Care Progress is a growing national movement with amazing energy around it. I think it is important for this institution to be part of it.”

Dr. Andrew F. Morris-Singer, president and founder of Primary Care Progress, said Bottner and Cynthia Booth Lord, clinical associate professor of physician assistant studies and director of the physician assistant program at Quinnipiac who was named to the national advisory board for Primary Care Progress, have been assets to the organization.

“Their energy, ideas and commitment to the cause is infectious and totally inspiring," Morris-Singer said.

Leadership Council members provide feedback and serve as spokespeople for the organization and the movement to transform primary care. The council met for the first time in June, 2013.

Bottner, who first introduced himself to Morris-Singer at a primary care conference, founded Quinnipiac’s Primary Care Progress chapter. He is one of few students on the National Leadership Council and the only representative of physician assistants.

“Serving on the National Leadership Council has been a great experience,” he said. “We are tasked with developing strategies for the organization moving forward, including the nationwide Primary Care Project campaign we are getting ready to launch. I am the sole voice of physician assistants on the council, and I take that responsibility seriously.”

Bottner, 28, graduated Babson College with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 2007. He owned a successful human resources consulting company, but decided his entrepreneurial skillset may be better utilized in the medical field. Bottner enrolled in the 27-month physician assistant graduate program in 2011.

“I have always had a passion for medicine and the sciences,” Bottner said. “My whole family is involved in business though and for a long time, it was a natural path for me. Ultimately, I realized that our healthcare system is just as sick as the patients it seeks to serve. Working clinically to improve patient care became something I was extremely excited about.”

Bottner has immersed himself in the physician assistant program. He is president of his PA class and is an urban health scholar, a program for students who have a desire to work in primary care with the urban underserved.

Quinnipiac is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian institution located 90 minutes north of New York City and two hours from Boston. The university enrolls 6,400 full-time undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students in 58 undergraduate and more than 20 graduate programs of study in its School of Business and Engineering, School of Communications, School of Education, School of Health Sciences, School of Law, Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine, School of Nursing and College of Arts and Sciences. Quinnipiac consistently ranks among the top regional universities in the North in U.S. News & World Report’s America’s Best Colleges issue. The 2013 issue of U.S. News & World Report’s America’s Best Colleges named Quinnipiac as the top up-and-coming school with master’s programs in the Northern Region. Quinnipiac also is recognized in Princeton Review’s “The Best 377 Colleges.” The Chronicle of Higher Education has named Quinnipiac among the “Great Colleges to Work For.” For more information, please visit www.quinnipiac.edu. Connect with Quinnipiac on Facebook at www.facebook.com/quinnipiacuniversity and follow Quinnipiac on Twitter @QuinnipiacU.