Winter Commencement 2024: Physician Assistant grad Frank Fleming opens a new chapter

During their lifetimes, most people will work in one profession. Some will have two different kinds of jobs. Frank Fleming, a student in the physician assistant (PA) program at Radford University at Carilion (RUC) in Roanoke, is preparing for this third.

Fleming began his professional life in hospitality after earning his degree in business administration. He worked in hotels for a while before his path took a pretty drastic turn.

"I thought that's what I was going to do with my life," Fleming, a Washington, D.C. native, recalls. "But it was not. I got bored, and I joined the Army."

Fleming says after basic training, it's up to the individual to decide what they want to explore in the military, and he didn't know exactly what he wanted to do. He soon discovered medicine and found that it was an area that fascinated him.

"I didn't know that medicine was an option," he says. "I found that it was something I really liked. That's when the light bulb went off. I got to work on the ground with medics and doctors and nurses and PAs and kind of see where I fit."

For seven years, Fleming was in the D.C. Army National Guard. He says that he gained experience in the field as a combat medic but also took classes in the hard sciences between assignments to prepare for a possible future in healthcare. When he was discharged, he was close to earning his bachelor's degree but hadn't quite finished everything he needed to graduate.

Fleming's wife, a graduate of the physician assistant program at Jefferson College of Health Sciences (which became RUC in 2019 after merging into Radford University), guided him to her alma mater.

"I came to Radford University at Carilion to finish the classes I needed for my undergraduate degree," Fleming says, adding that it took about a year to finish. "When I got here, the things that kind of made it fit for me were the small class sizes and that RUC had a military resource center."

In fact, Fleming played a vital role in developing the Military Resource Center (MRC) at RUC - a resource for veterans that helps them understand and access their benefits, get involved on campus and adjust to the civilian life of a college student. Fleming says that adjustment can sometimes be the most difficult.

"When you get out of the military," Fleming says, "and you're used to kind of doing, doing, doing, there's a void sometimes. It helps to have a resource center that's there to support you. It plugs you in almost immediately, and it really helped me out a lot."

When he arrived, the MRC was just getting started, and Fleming was brought on board as a recent veteran to provide his unique perspective. Fleming says he got to work with the director of Student Life at RUC, who encouraged him to volunteer with the Office of Admissions, helping veterans as they came to campus.

"It gave me something valuable to do with my time that really made a difference for those students," Fleming remembers.

As he neared the completion of his undergraduate degree, Fleming considered again following his wife's lead and applying to the PA program at RUC.

Fleming recalls, "I applied to a couple of different PA programs, but the one thing that I really liked about RUC's program is that their pass rate for the certifying exam was really high. And you would think that that would be set in stone for a lot of programs, but that's not the case."

That certifying exam, called the PANCE Exam, is required for graduates to become fully licensed, practicing physician assistants.

The size of each PA program class - capped at 42 - also appealed to Fleming, giving him the chance to learn in a hands-on, real-world environment from practicing PAs, many of whom work for Carilion Clinic. He also was able to really bond with his professors as teachers and colleagues.

"The PA profession is kind of a happy medium," he says. "You have a lot of autonomy because you're seeing your own patients, you're prescribing medications, you're performing procedures, but you also work collaboratively with a physician and other members of the healthcare team."

After he graduates in December, Fleming plans on continuing his work with veterans as a primary care provider. He is a scholarship recipient through the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA). In exchange for the scholarship, he will work for a DVA hospital for a specified length of time. In this case, Fleming already knows he will be working with the Fayetteville Health System in North Carolina as a primary care provider for veterans.

"It's really the ideal job for me. I'll have my own panel of patients, but I'll literally be working on a team collaboratively with other providers. So, I can call on other healthcare professionals to help me treat people most effectively," Fleming Says.

While Fleming doesn't anticipate a fourth career change in his life, he does know that one day, he may explore some of the other clinical areas where PAs practice outside of primary care.

"If I want to switch it up, I can do emergency medicine, and I can work for community health clinics," Fleming says. "I can work in surgical specialties. Really, the possibilities are endless. And I feel comfortable doing that. Based on the experiences that Radford was able to provide."

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