Helping at Home

Recent PA graduate Carlos Barajas is back in his native L.A. area assisting those displaced by the recent wildfires.

It seems Carlos Barajas was destined to find his calling in the medical profession. He himself was in and out of hospitals as a child, instilling in him an appreciation for the care he received, and his mother inspired him as a nurse.

So it comes as little surprise that Carlos is excited about the work he’s doing after completing George Fox University’s physician assistant (PA) program. A December 2024 graduate, he has returned to his native Covina, California, to serve his community – including those recently displaced by the region’s wildfires.

“It’s all about the connections I make with people, honestly,” says Carlos of his career choice. “You see how grateful they are after you’ve helped them, and you get a feeling of satisfaction. In that sense, you can really see how medicine can bring people together.”

An Early Appreciation

Carlos’ appreciation for the medical world began in childhood, when he suffered from complications associated with being born prematurely. He often struggled with seizures, and at age 7 he began experiencing abdominal pains. At first he thought it was something bad he ate, but upon getting checked out he discovered he had hydronephrosis – a condition where fluid backs up in the kidney as a result of an obstruction. His kidney grew three to four times its normal size.

“It seems like I was sick all the time as a kid,” he recalls. “And on top of that, my mom got thyroid cancer when she was around 25. I just remember her going through that whole process and seeing her in the hospital after her thyroidectomy.”

His mother also inspired his career path in other ways. “She immigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador, and if you know anything about immigrant parents, they’re really big on medicine for some reason, and big on education in general. She ended up being a nurse and the one who got me thinking about medicine.”

An Unlikely Discovery

Still, Carlos wasn’t sure what route to take. He considered becoming a traditional medical doctor but was turned off by the amount of schooling it would take to get there. He eventually settled on majoring in kinesiology at Cal Poly Pomona, his mother’s alma mater. “I was trying to decide between physical therapy and PA, and kinesiology was the perfect starting point for both,” he says.

When it came time to pick a grad school, Carlos checked around locally but was drawn to the idea of applying to schools in the region his father grew up in – the Pacific Northwest. He conducted admission interviews at a few schools, but found them impersonal. 

“They did Zoom interviews, so there wasn’t a lot of connection there,” he says. “So I went online and found [George] Fox. None of the interviews I’d done to that point could compare to how it was when I stepped onto the Fox campus. The professors were amazing from the start, and it was a whole-day thing. They gave us food and took the time to get to know us. 

“It was very welcoming, and I was like, ‘If I’m going to commit to something for two years, I’m going to commit to this.’”

It was the most unlikely of choices.

“I had never heard of Fox, but once I looked into it and got to know the professors, I was hooked,” he says. “I sat down with Dr. [Curt] Stilp, and he took the time to listen to me. No other interview process I went through could compare to it. I felt like I was just a number at the other places. Here it was very personable from the start, even before having any actual connection or any seat in the program. I mean, how many PA schools have a dean with an open-door policy, allowing you to sit down and just talk things out? Not many.”

Once he enrolled, Carlos appreciated the program’s problem-based learning model, in which students team up to resolve a medical case.

“It’s very interactive and you aren’t sitting there looking at PowerPoints all day,” he says of his classroom experience. “You’re in a room with people and working on a problem collectively. You give a diagnosis on the board and you work your way through that case. It’s probably the best thing I could have ever done for my education.”

George Fox is the exception to the rule when it comes to pedagogy, as fewer than 10 percent of PA programs nationwide use PBL learning as the primary mode of instruction. In contrast to a traditional lecture-based format, PBL programs employ a student-led learning environment where faculty act as facilitators in small groups, allowing students to engage in self-directed learning using clinical cases to develop critical thinking skills and apply basic medical science knowledge to real scenarios.

An Emphasis on Service

Carlos’ choice was further cemented by George Fox’s emphasis on service. During his second year in the PA program, he went on a medical service trip to Costa Rica – an experience he says “reminded me of real-life issues in comparison to what our day-to-day is here.”

While there, Carlos and his fellow PA students teamed up with other medical professionals, including nurses and physical therapists, to set up small clinics. Much of the work was set up by local churches, and the patient load was upwards of 40 to 50 per day.

“Going to Costa Rica was probably one of the highlights of my life,” he says. “My mom is from Central America, so this was the second-closest thing I could do to serve in her native country, since the two countries are so close to one another. The people were so welcoming and friendly. No matter what clinic I worked at, they’d be like, ‘Can I get you a cup of coffee?’ and they had the best food there. When I came home I looked in the mirror and I was like, ‘Wow, I gained a lot of weight on that trip!”

Beyond the hospitality he encountered, Carlos gained valuable medical experience. “You saw a lot of things there that you normally wouldn’t see here, like stuff that would’ve been addressed had they gone to an emergency room here,” he recalls. “I ended up seeing someone with a brain tumor, for instance.”

Serving Back Home

Since returning home after graduation, Carlos is now serving in the community he grew up in. The timing of his arrival couldn’t have been better.

“I’ve been busy doing a lot of volunteer work helping the people of L.A. after the fires,” he says. “There have been a lot of mobile clinics set up, and I’ve gotten the invitation to come help out. There are a lot of displaced families that need medical care. I see them all, whether they are insured or uninsured. Sometimes I set them up with primary care through the clinic.

“Other times, I’m just there to help them with a lot of their chronic issues, whether it be refilling their hypertension meds or just trying to get their medications in order. I’m also getting to work a lot with the Latino population, which I’m finding very rewarding. You feel you’re doing something meaningful when you help them.”

When he isn’t volunteering, Carlos is taking classes to earn a doctor of medical science degree – an offering through George Fox’s PA program that allows you to earn a DMSc degree with the addition of one semester of three online courses. The degree is of particular interest to those who wish to assist in disaster medical relief and healthcare delivery in areas of high need.

Ultimately, Carlos has his sights set on helping address the lack of primary care in his area.

“I didn’t think I would like family medicine,” he says. “I always saw myself as an ER or trauma guy, but I’m finding I’m falling in love with the idea of family medicine – just the preventative aspect of it and being able to help people out.

“I know a lot of other PA and med school students who say they want to work in a rural setting, but I’m set on helping the people of this community in the [L.A.] area. This is home.”