For Autumn DeFrank ’23, MPAS ’24, Healthcare is a Family Affair
Autumn DeFrank ’23, MPAS ’24, stands in front of the green wall at Chatham Eastside. (Mick Stinelli)
When Autumn DeFrank ’23, MPAS ’24, was young, she’d visit her mother at the assisted living facility where she worked, and she’d listen as her mom spoke with patients.
“They always said the most thoughtful things about her,” DeFrank remembered. “They’d say, ‘Oh she’s one of the nurses here that cares.’”
Healthcare is a family affair for DeFrank, who listed not only her mother but her grandmother, two aunts, and an uncle as other relatives in the industry. When she’d overhear them talking about work, DeFrank, now in her final semester of Chatham University’s Master of Physician Assistant Studies program, wanted to join the conversation.
“It just felt like something that I wanted to be able to do someday,” she said. “I liked the caretaker aspect and being knowledgeable about healthcare.”
DeFrank started at Chatham in 2019 as an undergraduate, and she completed her biology degree in 2022. A native of Greensburg, PA, she knew she wanted to be close to home and chose Chatham because of the good reputation of its School of Health Sciences.
Other aspects that drew her to Chatham were its beautiful Shadyside Campus and its smaller size, which allowed her to build tight relationships with professors and students—something she thought would be difficult at bigger universities with massive lecture halls.
A student in one of Chatham’s Integrated Degree Program (IDP), DeFrank took graduate-level courses during her third and final year of undergrad. Her favorite courses involved Problem-Based Learning. DeFrank felt the group discussions gave her the tools to teach herself and provided her with confidence in her clinical rotations.
“It’s kind of like solving a mystery,” she said of PBL. “A lot of the facilitators, the faculty that run PBL, are practicing PAs or used to be. It was interesting to have that close of a relationship.”
Autumn DeFrank, left, poses for a photo alongside her PA classmates during a learning experience at Allegheny Health Network’s West Penn Hospital. (Courtesy of Autumn DeFrank)
As part of her studies, DeFrank completed nine clinical rotations, including one in family medicine at Squirrel Hill Health Center.
“I really liked seeing the relationships my preceptor had with many of his patients, who’d been seeing him for years,” she said. “He saw their children, grandparents—the whole family went there.”
That impacted DeFrank, whose passion for healthcare is undergirded by a desire to treat the whole patient, giving them the resources they need to make informed decisions about their own health.
“I feel like it’s so much more effective when patients have that knowledge, and they’re able to understand why” they’re being told to take particular medications or change certain habits, she said.
After she graduates, DeFrank wants to stay in southwestern Pennsylvania, saying she’s “always been a Pittsburgh person.” For patients and providers in the region, that’s good news—they’ve got a soon-to-be PA who really cares.
More information about Chatham’s Master of Physician Assistant Studies degree, including the benefits of the Integrated Degree Program and Problem-Based Learning, is available at chatham.edu.