When Jamison Trower began looking at his post-graduate options, he found himself in a situation that was a mix of familiarity and foreignness.
As a 2018 University of Maryland Eastern Shore graduate who played on the baseball team and majored in biology, Trower was deliberating what to do next. After mulling over his future, he got wind that UMES was in the process of establishing a physician’s assistant program, leading to his application submission.
Following the application cycle, Trower was one of several students who were accepted into the first cohort of the program. That first cohort walked across the stage during the Dec. 16 commencement ceremony.
“(The program) intrigued me mainly because it felt really comfortable to come back here and to be part of the first cohort,” he said. “We’re essentially the trailblazers of the program for years to come.”
“Being a part of the inaugural class kind of gives me a sense of ‘ok, we’re setting the model for the program in the future.’ We just have to make sure that we’re doing what we can to achieve what we need to achieve to make it a long-lasting, successful program overall.”
Many of the members of this first grouping of PA students came from a variety of backgrounds, including some with years of experience working in the field of medicine already.
Hillary Winkler began considering attending PA school after working as a mental health therapist in the Baltimore City Public School system and not seeing it as a long-term career choice.
“It was very emotionally draining and I felt myself getting emotionally drained more often than I really should have, so I was actually talking to my husband, who is in healthcare too as a CRNA, and we were going through some things of what I can do,” she said. “I still love the patient interaction and being with patients one-on-one, and I love being in the healthcare industry, so we started going down the path of research and I found a physician assistant career and I’ve just never really looked back since.”
Winkler, 31, said that the draw of UMES being an HBCU was also appealing to her as well.
“The fact it was also an HBCU (called to me) because I went to (University of Maryland) in my undergrad and being a part of an HBCU is definitely something that, looking back, I wish I did in my undergrad. So, I am so glad that I got to experience being at an HBCU.”
Jennifer Keithly, who worked in and out of the healthcare field in a number of roles for 13 years, said that her experience allowed her to figure out what role suited her best.
“I’ve lived all over the country, but I’ve spent a lot of my life here in Salisbury,” she said. “So, I already knew about UMES … I know the area, and I know they’re in need of healthcare workers.”
When it came to being part of the first group of the new program, Keithly said there were some disadvantages, including not having a group of predecessors to rely on as mentors and basically working “on a learning curve,” but because of those challenges, the cohort members bonded and were able to persevere.
“To be honest, I think our cohort personally has become pretty strong with everything we’ve had to go through,” she said. “But it was challenging learning how to overcome everything on our own, which really made us stronger at the end of it.”
Some of the other challenges the new cohort faced included managing workloads, trying to manage work-life balance, and for some, being away from family, not to mention the COVID pandemic as they were beginning their studies.
“It was definitely more downs than highs, especially the clinical year studying nonstop all day every day,” said PA student Marian Marrero, a Tampa, FL native. Marrero, who is a military wife, had to spend more than a year away from her husband, who is stationed in Dover. “There were a lot of insecurities, anxiety, depression that happened, but there were students who were going through the same (experience), and we were able to rely on each other and I think that helped with this challenging moment.”
Because of the challenging workloads, the students used their free time to break up the monotony of their studying through group activities.
“We would get together on a weekend and do a study session (and try to change it up) like, ‘let’s just go study at the park,’ ‘let’s study at the library,’ or ‘let’s do a taco night or let’s do a movie night,’ but it was rare,” Marrero said. “We were hardly able to go out or do much.”
But with the completion of the PA program, the students knew that all the long hours of studying paid off once they walked across the stage.
Trower said while he’s still trying to figure out what he wants to pursue in his future, he wants to continue to repay those who contributed to his success, including at UMES and in his native Virginia.
“I (grew up) there (in Virginia) and I know it’s a very underserved area and I wouldn’t mind giving back to the area where my family grew up in,” he said.
Winkler said, for her, it will be a sense of pride not only from completing the program but also accomplishing the feat at UMES.
“It’s just been a great experience thus far and I feel like I have learned all the skills that I need to and I feel really prepared going into life as a future physician assistant,” she said. “I’m (also) really proud of being a future UMES alumni(us).”
Keithly said reaching the finish line was a mix of emotions.
“Relief, joy, excitement, and a little sadness,” she said. “More relief from just from not having to do the (heavy) schoolwork, but also sadness leaving an amazing cohort and amazing friends and family members that I made from this experience.”
For Marrero, the emotional impact was instant as she held back tears.
“As a Puerto Rican and representing Latinos and Latinas in medicine, there’s this saying, ‘lo que es para ti nadie te lo quita,’ which means, ‘what is meant for you, no one will take that away from you,’” she said. “It was hard to get here and really a dream come true too.”
“People will tell you that you can’t do it, people will tell you you’re not good enough, people will tell you ‘No, you’re not a traditional student,’ but never give up. You are worthy, you are important and you are here for a purpose and do what you believe and most want in your heart.”
