The Arizona State Association of Physician Assistants (ASAPA) is to confer the first annual Physician/PA Partnership Award to Dr. Marc Kaplan, DO and Mr. Thomas A Harris, PA-C.

The award honors the physician-physician assistant (PA) team that best exemplifies health care collaboration in treating patients. The PA and the physician as a team, provide greater medical service to their patients and their community than either professional could alone. The award will be presented at the ASAPA Awards Luncheon on Friday, March 26, 2010 at noon at the Fort McDowell Radisson and Convention Center, Scottsdale, AZ.

The Kaplan-Harris team practice in Sierra Vista is located near the Mexican border in the southeast corner of Arizona, approximately 80 miles from Tucson. It is a small rural community with a population just over 43,000.

It is into this small rural community that Mr. Harris moved, beginning what would become a 13 year partnership. "Dr. Kaplan and Mr. Harris in my opinion, as a team, deserve this award," said Chris Peltonen, office manager at the Cochise Health Alliance Medical Group. "They have worked together for almost 13 years and truly exemplify the relationship of trust, collegiality and mutual respect. They depend on each other to provide quality care to their patients. As a team they promote exceptional patient care and quality of a fair and honest work place for all."

Dr. Kaplan is a Phoenix native. After graduation from Arizona State University, he attended Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, Missouri. He graduated from medical school in 1981 and moved back to Arizona where he became a General Medical Officer and Flight Surgeon for the U.S. Army at Fort Huachuca outside of Sierra Vista. He began the Cochise Health Alliance Medical Group in Sierra Vista,attending to the military stationed at Fort Huachuca and the Sierra Vista community.

Mr. Harris is a graduate of King's College Physician Assistant Program in Wilkes-Barre, Penn. Prior to attending PA school, Harris served in the U.S. Navy as a medical corpsman and was stationed at the Naval Undersea Medical Institute. Shortly after graduation, he responded to an ad placed by Dr. Kaplan and moved, along with his family and parents, from Pennsylvania to Sierra Vista.