PA Student Feature: Alyssa Espinoza

My name is Alyssa Espinoza and I'm a UNC second year physician assistant student. Prior to joining UNC's PA program, I was an active duty army officer in the medical service corps and I also had previous experience as a CNA in undergrad. I chose to pursue PA as the next step in my career because I worked with a lot of great PAs when I was active duty in the military and they really taught me a lot about teamwork and I loved how they got to coordinate with different providers and I also loved their flexibility and that's something that I wanted for my career. I chose UNC's PA program because I really loved their mission and I love their commitment to the veteran community. That's something that's very important to me being from a military family and being from a military background and I also loved their commitment to rural health care because I also think that's something that I'm very interested in. So far my experience in UNC's PA program has been great. I think it's more than what I could have hoped for. The faculty are all very devoted to the students and they just want to see us excel in every way possible and I don't think that I could have gotten such personable faculty and one-on-one time at any other program. It was a little bit scary at first to be the first student rotating through the VA surgical team but I think that my program prepared me very well for the rotation in and of itself. I felt like I had a good foundation of medical knowledge when I got there and the VA team was very very encouraging and they were all super happy to take on a student and it actually was one of my favorite rotations so far. I learned a lot about like cohesiveness of the team and that PAs actually do have a pretty big role in surgery. The PAs that I work with are really great with following up and doing consults post-op and checking up on patients and I think that that was something I wasn't really concerned because I was always like what is a PA going to do in surgery like we're not the surgeon but I think being at the VA was really cool because I got to see the PAs pre-op and then in the OR and then post-op and I actually had a really huge like responsibility in terms of like how they helped out the surgeons. Following graduation from the program I do have an interest in staying in North Carolina. I love the community here and I love the people that I've met throughout my rotations and throughout my program and another thing that I have been considering is possibly going back into the military as active duty because I had a lot of great memories in the army as well so that's something I'm also considering. I would definitely say to anyone coming from a non-traditional military background who's interested in the PA field to go for it even if your background in the military isn't in a medical specialty because I feel like some of the experiences that we have are really unique and can bring a lot to the field in terms of like what we've seen, what we've done, the different types of people that we've met along the way. I think that we have a really great perspective to bring to a healthcare team and don't be afraid of the pre-reqs, don't be afraid of the qualifications. There's always time to get those things done and if it's something that you want go for it.