Entrepreneurs: the wave of the future. See page 7
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Volume XCIX, Number 32
University of Southern California
Wednesday, October 16, 1985
BELINDA SANDAN DAILY TROJAN
Twenty-nine graduates from the Medical School’s Primary Care Physician Assistant Program received their diplomas Sunday. Physicain assistants (PAs) are mid-level healthcare practioners.
Physician assistants graduate
By Rita Choi
Staff Writer
Graduation ceremonies for the Medical School's Primary Care Physician Assistant Program were held last Sunday in the Keith Mayer Auditorium on the Health Sciences Campus.
Twenty-nine graduates, 17 women and 12 men, received their diplomas at the hour-long,
2	p.m. ceremony.
Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, D-48th District, was the keynote speaker, and Lonny Holmes, president of the California Academy of Physician Assistants, gave the commencement speech. They were among eight distinguished guests seated on stage.
Anthony Santos, clinical instructor of Family Medicine and coordinator of graduation activities, said the graduation went "very smoothly."
Santos said there was almost a full house, close to 400 people, with primarily friends and family of graduates, attending. A few physicians, preceptors and prior graduates also attended.
The class valedictorian award was presented to Victoria Boisen.
A reception for the graduates followed the graduation.
"Physician assistants are licensed to do histories, physical examinations, order lab and di-
agnostic studies, evaluate and interpret those studies, treat, formulate a diagnosis and institute patient management," Santos said.
"They are not allowed to sign their own prescriptions and cannot practice autonomously. They are subordinate to the role of the physician they work for.
"A generic term for a PA is a mid-level healthcare practitioner. They do work similar to that of nurse practitioners," said Santos.
A very small percentage of PAs go on to medical school. "Most are very satisfied with their position. In the eight years that I have been here, five have gone on to medical school."
Santos said, "The goal of the program is not to be a steppping stone to go on to something else. It's a career in itself."
The univerisity's program is one of four PA programs in California.
Waters' speech focused on the roll that physician assistants play in the delivery of health care in California.
Waters, who was first elected to the Assembly in 1976, is the first woman to serve on the Assembly, the first non-lawyer to serve on the Judiciary’ Committee and the first black woman to serve on the Rules Committee.
Prior to her election to the Legislature's lower house, Waters was the first black to be chief deputy for the Los Angeles City Council.
Fear for lives
Salvador students tell of death squad activity
By Einar Eisner
Assistant Editorial Director
Two students from the University of El Salvador, who are touring 33 university campuses throughout the western United States in an effort to bring their plight to the attention of the American university community, visited the university Monday night.
At a meeting in the United University Church Peace Center they told a group of about 15 people that death squad activities and human rights violations still prevail in El Salvador.
"President Napoleon Duarte and his government know who the leaders of the death squads are, but they don't do anything to capture them," said Rufino Antonio Quezada, the president of the General Association of Salvadoran University Students (AGEUS).
"Even the most ignorant Salvadoran knows that death squad members are also members of the National Guard and the National Police," he added.
press conference in which "we told the government that it had until July 20 to capture the assassins."
Although Duarte promised to bring death squad leaders to justice during his presidential campaign, nothing has been done since he became president in 1984, Quezada said.
Dr. Miguel Angel Parada, president of the University of El Salvador, said Saturday that three of the people on the list, including two students, had to leave El Salvador.
Referring to the danger involved in denouncing repression in his country, Quezada added, "We ask university students in the United States to be ready to denounce any acts of repression against us or any member of our university upon our return to El Salvador in November."
Jose Rodolfo Rosales, a 26-year-old medical student and the vice-president of AGEUS, said physical intimidation is not the only method of repression.
'The reality is that your money ... is not promoting the social and economic development of El Salvador. This money is in fact destroying the country.' Jose Rodolfo Rosales, medical student at the University of El Salvador.
Quezada, a 29-year-old agronomy student, said that his and his companion's name, along with the names of 11 other students, appeared on a death list on July 12.
The list, published in the three major newspapers of El Salvador by a death squad known as the Secret Anti-Communist Army, was accompanied by an ultimatum telling them to leave the country before July 20 or face death, the students said.
"We decided to confront the threat institutionally," Quezada said, adding that the students and the president of the University of El Salvador organized a
He said that the university does not have a budget to function adequately, and that the government has not allocated any funds for the reconstruction of the university after the 4-year military occupation.
The university was occupied and partially destroyed by the Salvadoran Army in June 1980. More than 60 students were killed during the occupation, Rosales said.
Aside from other basic needs, Rosales said Salvadorans also "need to have the right to think and express ourselves freely, and the right to uphold the re-(Continued on page 2)
4 million cars require smog checks this year
Two DMV programs monitor emissions standards
By Sean Grady
Staff Writer
Smog certification checks will be required of nearly 4 million southern California cars this year, said Erwin Cooper, an information officer at the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
These smog checks are required by state law before the cars can be registered with the DMV, Cooper said.
There are two types of smog check programs, Cooper said.
One program requires a used car to be checked when it changes owners, he said. This program affects vehicles depending on their vintage and is required only in certain counties, Cooper said.
The other program, which was enacted in March, 1984, requires vehicles that are less than 20 years old be checked every two years at a certified smog check station, he said.
The smog check is absolutely neccessary for a car to be registered in this state. Cooper said. "No smog check, no
registration," he said.
Cooper explained how the DMV determines which cars are checked each year. "It goes basically according to the last digit of a car's registration number and the last digit of the year," Cooper said.
"If the last digit of the registration number is even and it's an even year, that car has to be checked that year," he said.
Smog checks are required only in certain areas of the state. Cooper said. For example, Santa Barbara County and the mountain counties are exempt from the smog check, he said.
The high desert areas of Los Angeles County are also exempt, he added.
On the other hand, smog checks are required in an area ranging "from Ventura to San Diego, and as far west as San Bernardino," he said.
All cars that are sold or registered in California must meet the state's smog control requirements, Cooper said.
New cars brought into the state must have emission-
control devices, such as catalytic converters, and must be certified in the factory, he said.
Additionally, some car owners who move to California and wish to register their cars with the DMV might not be able to, he said.
"Some cars will not be admitted in California at all. No devices installed 'after the fact' will let them be registered.
"The car has to be factory certified as smog-qualified," Cooper said. And if that person's car doesn't meet the smog emission standards, "they'll have to buy a new car," he said.
The state does not require owners to make repairs totalling more than $50 if a vehicle fails the smog check, Cooper said.
"Unless, of course, the (factory-installed) smog control devices have been tampered with or removed," he added.
In that case, the owner is required to pay the full cost for bringing the car up to standards, he said.
(Continued on page 2)