Faculty & Staff

Alexandria (Xandi) Garino joined the Yale Physician Associate Program in 2006 and serves as the program’s director.  Committed to the education of competent and compassionate PA leaders, Xandi leads program innovation, curriculum development, student assessment, and program evaluation. She has 20+ years of administrative and faculty experience in higher education and has served as a national leader for faculty development workshops designed to transition clinicians into new roles as educators.  She teaches various topics in medicine, clinical skills, behavioral and preventive medicine, and motivational interviewing.  Xandi’s clinical expertise is in oncology and she worked clinically at the Yale Cancer Center on the malignant hematology service for 10 years.  She graduated from Catholic Medical Center’s PA Program in 1999 and earned a MS in biostatistics and clinical research design at Columbia University’s School of Public Health.  She earned her PhD in Learning Science at Fordham University.  Leveraging the theories of self-regulated learning and motivation, she strives to understand accurate self-assessment, errors made in judgment, and the attitudinal, motivational, and situational factors that influence those judgments.

• Assist the Program Director in the management aspects of the Physician Associate Program
• Maintain ARC-PA accreditation standards for the program
• Assist the didactic and clinical faculty with curriculum and exam development
• Chair of the Admissions and Progress Committees
• Lecturer in Patient Assessment I and III courses
• Small group facilitator for history taking, physical examination, communicating difficult news and shared decision making workshops for PA and medical students
• Associate Director, Section Leader and Clinical Coach for the Interprofessional Longitudinal Clinical Experience (ILCE) integrating pre-clinical training for first-year PA, medical and advanced practice nursing students.
• Academic advisor for PA students
• Clinical practice with the Hospitalist Service at Yale New Haven Hospital

• Develop and assess the clinical curriculum
• Maintain accreditation standards for clinical curriculum
• Lecture in and teach surgery, transitional skills, cardiology didactics, EKG course
• Academic advisement of students

• Develop and assess the clinical curriculum
• Maintain accreditation standards for clinical curriculum
• Lecture in surgery and emergency medicine topics
• Academic advisement of students

With more than 24 years experience as a clinical PA, Liz joined the Yale Physician Associate Program as the Academic Coordinator in 2013. Her interests are improving access to health care in the medically underserved, a path that has led her to practice mainly in the primary care setting. She currently serves as the co-medical director of HAVEN, a free clinic supported and run by the student from the YSM, YSN and the Yale Physician Associate Program. She also volunteers as an attending at this clinic.  Her pedogogical interests include the development of professionalism, social justice and LBGT health disparities. Locally she is the Connecticut Association of PA Board representative at HAVEN (Health Assistance InterVention Education Network), and nationally she is a PAEA Governance and Ethics Board Member and a peer-reviewer for the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants.

Jonathan has practiced internal medicine in the Yale New Haven Health and Yale University health systems for the last 20 years.  He currently practices at the Yale Diabetes Center at Yale Medicine, the clinical practice of the Yale School of Medicine. He works primarily with patients on diabetes management with a special focus on diabetes technologies. Previously, he has practiced as a hospitalist, primary care, urgent care and athletic medicine clinician. Throughout his medical career, Jonathan has remained active in Physician Associate education, program administration and leadership. Other academic interests and expertise include Health Care Policy, Medical Bioethics & Ethically Vulnerable Populations, Palliative & End of Life Care, Refugee Health and the International Development of the PA profession. He has remained committed to advocacy and professional service.  As past Chair of Legislative Affairs for the CT Academy of PAs, he was responsible for leading major health care reform efforts resulting in modernization of the PA Practice Act and improved patient care for CT residents. He is the recipient of several awards for his clinical service, teaching and professional service.  

• Coordinate, develop & deliver academic curriculum
• Maintain accreditation standards for academic curriculum
• Course director in behavioral health & preventive medicine.
• Teach history & physical exam and lecture in biomedical ethics topics
• Academic advising & mentoring of medical graduate students
• Oversight of graduate medical student academic assessment & progress
• Program Admissions, Curriculum & Self-Assessment committees  
• Clinical practice at the Yale Diabetes Center at Yale Medicine, the clinical practice of the Yale School of Medicine.