Navigating Life with Patients: A PA’s Approach to Holistic Healthcare

Getting into George Fox University’s PA program was Sage Sherer’s Christmas miracle. After a year of failed application attempts, he strengthened his resume and reapplied to schools, gaining acceptance into most while getting waitlisted by his No. 1 choice: George Fox.

The time came to make a decision. Sherer leaned toward Oregon Health & Science University, but waited to commit in the hopes he might hear back from George Fox.

“I thought, ‘I'm probably not going to get into Fox, even though that now feels like my top pick,’” Sherer says. “My wife and I prayed about it, and we were waiting for the deadline when I had to give a commitment to a different school.”

Then, right around Christmas, Sherer got a call. George Fox had a seat for him – and classes started in a week.

“My wife and I thought, ‘This is where we're called and what we’ve prayed about, so let's do it,’” Sherer says. “We packed our cars up in the middle of a snowstorm with several feet of snow on the ground and we moved to Newberg.”

Sherer didn’t have a place to live when he and his wife arrived in town from Southern Oregon. They hadn’t figured out any of the logistics; they just knew they needed to be there.

“We stayed in a motel for the first week of classes,” he says. “Our whole life was packed into two cars. Eventually, we got a little townhouse in Sherwood and the rest is history.”

From Marketing to Medicine

Sherer loves helping people. However, he didn’t start out in the medical field. For six years, he bounced around jobs, working as a merchandiser, sales manager, social worker and motorcycle salesman before landing a job as a medical scribe.

While working with clients as a social worker, Sherer discovered a calling into the service field.

“Social work was my first foray into health-related work with people in the community,” he says. “It was really rewarding, but I knew I needed to get more hands-on clinical experience.”

After his work as a medical scribe, Sherer shifted his future career pursuit from physician to PA.

“I was looking at a lot of schooling ahead to be a physician and interacted with a lot of PAs in my scribing roles,” he says. “I decided that this seems like a really great fit for my career. There’s a lot of lateral mobility, and you're not really married to a specialty. So PAs can kind of balance between specialties and are trained as generalists. That really appealed to me.”

After graduating from the George Fox PA program in 2023, Sherer moved back to Southern Oregon to start work as a primary care clinician at Providence Central Point.

“There’s a great need for primary care in my community,” he says. “I’m acclimating to the demands of clinical practice and still trying to grow as a new clinician.”

An Advocate in the Healthcare System

As a general care PA, Sherer sees himself as a participant in his patient’s health journeys.

“I have the opportunity to share space with people and talk with them,” he says. “I get to hear their concerns, work up their problems, and get them connected with other support they need, whether that be specialists or community services.”

A big piece of Sherer’s work is interacting with people in difficult places, which encourages him to have more humility when meeting people where they’re at.

“My patients may be struggling with something health-wise or mentally, emotionally or spiritually, and I get to be with them and experience some of the vulnerability surrounding those things in their life,” Sherer says. “I try to give people a lot of grace because you never know what someone's dealing with. They may have just received a terminal diagnosis or are waiting on a biopsy result to see if they have cancer.”

One particular patient came in dealing with an unsafe living environment and struggling with homelessness. In addition to helping her physically, Sherer saw the deeper problem and connected her with social workers.

After meeting with case workers, the woman was able to find temporary housing and get off the street. A couple weeks later, Sherer saw her again.

“She broke down and hugged me and thanked me, and I didn't feel like I’d done much to help her,” Sherer says. “But my efforts to connect her with resources and listen meant a lot. She was full of gratitude. That moment made me feel like the work I was doing was important.”

Tying It All Together

This holistic aspect of healthcare is what initially drew Sherer to the George Fox University PA program.

“The vision of the PA program was a service-oriented mindset that embodied the heart of the PA profession,” he says. “They’re trying to bridge the primary care gap and serve the community with a holistic view on people's health and wellbeing. That really appealed to me.”

Highlights of Sherer’s experience at Fox included a close-knit relationship with his peers, the person-first approach to medicine, and the problem-based learning style.

“My time at Fox translated to becoming a well-rounded clinician and striving to meet people where they’re at,” Sherer says. “I’ve learned to truly hear my patients and find compassion for the health journey they’re navigating.”

Sherer still stays in touch with his peers from the program, and found the experience of a tight cohort to be a change after the large lecture halls of his undergraduate years.

“I'm really glad I took the leap of faith and made some sacrifices to show up for the program,” he says. “I have no regrets.”