Brian Breckley, MS, PA-C

Physician Associate, clinician-educator, and former U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman

More than 21 years in healthcare and 8+ years of PA practice. Experience spans military medicine, deployed trauma care, surgical services, orthopedic trauma, high-volume urgent care, clinical operations, and student precepting. This breadth of practice now provides the experiential foundation for doctoral work focused on rigorous inquiry, writing, and teaching in philosophy of medicine and related fields.

Philosophy of medicine

Phenomenology of illness, pain, and care

Institutional ethics, moral injury, and professional integrity

Clinician–patient relationships and intersubjectivity

Professional formation, altruism, and medical vocation

Bioethics, neurophenomenology, and health humanities

Master of Science, Physician Assistant Practice

Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

Bachelor of Science, Counseling Psychology, Cum Laude

Edgewood University

Master's thesis

Increased Risk of Cardiovascular Disease in Combat-Related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Selected academic preparation

Logic · Bioethics · Neuroscience · Cognition, Memory, and Perception.

When Altruism Becomes Coercion: Professional Virtue and Institutional Exploitation in Medicine

Research question: Under what conditions does institutional reliance on clinical altruism cease to be a legitimate part of medical professionalism and become a form of exploitation or coercion?

Martyr for Hire: Weaponized Altruism and the Hidden Costs of Caring in Modern Medicine

A book-length project in philosophy of medicine examining how institutional structures can capitalize on clinician altruism, reshape professional duty, and transmit harm into the experience of caring and the patient–clinician relationship.

Physician Associate, Clinical Preceptor & Mentor

Physicians Immediate Care & Providence Urgent Care

• —Precept and mentor PA students, pre-PA learners, and clinical shadowers in urgent-care practice, with continuous teaching experience beginning in 2019.
• —Teach clinical reasoning, history and physical examination, diagnostic interpretation, differential diagnosis, procedural skills, patient communication, and appropriate escalation of care.
• —Model decision-making under diagnostic uncertainty while maintaining active clinical practice and integrating evidence, patient values, clinical judgment, and interprofessional consultation.

Physician Associate, Urgent Care

Providence Urgent Care

• —Provide acute-care evaluation and treatment across the lifespan in a high-volume ambulatory setting, integrating history, examination, diagnostic testing, imaging, treatment planning, patient counseling, referral, and escalation of care.
• —Maintain substantial procedural practice including fracture and dislocation reduction, casting and splinting, incision and drainage, joint aspiration and injection, laceration repair, local anesthesia, and foreign-body removal.
• —Serve as clinical preceptor for PA and pre-PA learners.

Physician Associate, Urgent/Immediate Care

Physicians Immediate Care

• —Evaluated and treated acute illness and injury using physical examination, laboratory testing, and diagnostic imaging including radiography, ultrasound, CT, MRI, MRA, and EMG.
• —Provided pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatment, preventive counseling, patient and family education, specialty referral, and transfer to higher levels of care when indicated.
• —Participated in frontline COVID-19 care, including diagnostic testing, treatment initiation, and telemedicine follow-up for patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Physician Associate, Orthopedic Trauma

UChicago AdventHealth, Bolingbrook & Hinsdale

• —Managed outpatient, inpatient, postoperative, and perioperative orthopedic patients with traumatic, musculoskeletal, and rheumatologic conditions.
• —Performed hospital rounds and consultations, wound care, diagnostic interpretation, fracture management, casting and splinting, intra-articular procedures, medication management, and interdisciplinary coordination.
• —First-assisted in orthopedic surgery, including positioning, preparation and draping, exposure, instrumentation, closure, and perioperative care.

Hospital Corpsman, United States Navy, Active Duty

Eight years of active-duty military medical service encompassing deployed trauma care, orthopedic medicine, surgery, clinical operations, and healthcare administration.

Surgical Clinic Manager

Naval Hospital Rota

• —Managed operations across three surgical clinics, including clinical and operative scheduling, space and resource allocation, supply accountability, patient-flow coordination, and process-improvement initiatives.
• —Worked in an international military healthcare environment serving active-duty personnel and their families.

Orthopedic Technician

National Naval Medical Center

• —Provided orthopedic care to military personnel, veterans, and families in collaboration with orthopedic surgeons and Physician Associates.
• —Performed and assisted with fracture and dislocation reductions, casting and splinting, emergent musculoskeletal care, open reduction and internal fixation, and arthroscopic procedures.

Hospital Corpsman, Deployed Medical Operations

Expeditionary Medical Facility

• —Provided acute stabilization and treatment of military casualties with penetrating and blunt traumatic injuries in a deployed medical environment.
• —Participated in casualty stabilization, preparation for transport, and movement of critically injured patients to higher echelons of care.

College of Health Professions Diversity Scholarship, Rosalind Franklin University

Cum Laude, Edgewood University

International Honor Society in Psychology

Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal

Dean's List, University of Maryland

Distinguished Honor Graduate, Naval School of Health Science

Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal

FAWM Candidate, Wilderness Medical Society

Orthopedic Technician Education, Naval School of Health Science

Naval Hospital Corpsman School, Great Lakes Naval Station

Basic Military Instruction, Great Lakes Naval Station

National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants, PA-C

Oregon Physician Assistant/Associate License

Advanced Cardiac Life Support, American Heart Association

Basic Life Support

Physician Assistants in Orthopedic Surgery

Conversational and written Spanish

Clinical information systems

Epic, ASAP, Centricity, Experity, and Athena.

Scholarly and clinical methods

Evidence appraisal, scientific literature interpretation, interdisciplinary clinical reasoning, patient and family education, and procedural medicine.

No peer-reviewed publications listed at present

Journal articles, book chapters, reviews, and invited commentary will be listed here with full citations and DOIs.