PA Student Juliana Feeney Aims to Boost Workforce Diversity by Educating Younger Generations
“Exposing more Spanish-speaking children at an early age to what a PA is could eventually have a really positive impact on our profession.”
October 11, 2024
By Dave Andrews

At nearly 20% of the U.S. population, Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority group in the country. However, less than 7% of the PA workforce identifies as Hispanic, according to the 2024 AAPA Salary Report.
Concerns about that disparity are growing, and not just among seasoned healthcare professionals, but also among aspiring PAs—many of whom can already see the potential challenges for their future profession. And, many are turning their concern into action.
Being of Puerto Rican descent and growing up just outside of New York City, Juliana Feeney is intimately familiar with the nuances of Hispanic culture.
“I think being culturally sensitive and having the ability to relate to my patients will be critical for me to be a successful provider,” said Feeney, who will graduate this semester from the PA Studies Program at Hofstra University. Her Hispanic roots have already come in handy on numerous occasions when she worked as a volunteer EMT in high school and throughout her undergrad.
Witnessing firsthand the value of having a cultural connection with patients is what helped spark her passion for diversifying the healthcare workforce. She feels that reaching students as early as possible will eventually help move the needle toward more diversity among PAs.
The Biggest Challenge to Workforce Diversity
The PA profession faces an uphill battle regarding diversification, especially among Hispanics, according to advocates like Paola Gonzalez, MPAS, PA-C, who practices breast oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
“One of the biggest drivers of the lack of diversity in the PA profession is the fact that many people—particularly those within the Latino community—are just not aware of this profession, and that’s because it simply doesn’t exist in our home countries,” said Gonzalez, a native of Colombia who was raised in New York City.
Experience has taught Gonzalez that the key to effectively raising awareness and creating a more diverse workforce is to educate students as early as possible. Throughout her career, Gonzalez has served in numerous leadership roles at AAPA and with several advocacy groups including PAs for Latino Health and Mi Hermana-Latina Health Champions. In those roles, she oversaw initiatives to promote the profession to a variety of age groups.

“We’ve done a lot with Project Access, which typically has targeted high school-aged students,” Gonzalez said. “But what we’ve found is that by the time they are in high school, it’s almost too late.
“So, we’re focusing more on the students at the elementary and middle schools because at that stage, they will have more time to proactively prepare for PA school by planning which courses to take in high school, identifying the right volunteer opportunities to pursue, and so on.”
Finding Ways to Reach a Younger Audience
Feeney agrees and has applied that approach to many of the outreach initiatives she’s been involved in while serving as the PAs for Latino Health Student Alliance northeast regional director.
She also found ways to encourage diversity through her PA program coursework. During Feeney’s didactic year, one of her class assignments was to engage with the community and help raise awareness about the roles of PAs. Feeney and her classmates visited local elementary schools to teach children basic health topics such as nutrition and hand hygiene.
And because the school district had a large portion of Spanish-speaking students—most of whom had never heard of a PA before—Feeney’s group needed to make their presentations and learning materials in both Spanish and English.
That experience helped Feeney recognize a need for more educational materials about the PA profession, specifically for Spanish-speaking children. One of the resources in the Project Access toolkit she found especially appealing was a children’s book about PAs. The book was only in English, so she decided to write her own book in Spanish with a unique plot.
Feeney’s story, “El Heroico Asociado Médico” (The Hero Physician Associate), follows a young boy through his day at school, which happens to be career day. After hearing presentations from a firefighter and an engineer, the boy and his classmates listen to a PA describe what they do for a living and why they love it. To help keep younger readers engaged, Feeney focused on infusing rhythm and rhyme within her text.

After drafting the story, she applied for and ultimately received a PAs STEP Up grant through the nccPA Health Foundation. The grant is awarded to PAs and PA students who “design and execute activities that promote diversity, equity and inclusion” in the PA profession.
With the grant money, Feeney can finalize her book by hiring a professional proofreader and illustrator. “My artistic skills are quite pitiful,” Feeney quipped. “So, I knew we’d need to hire someone who could illustrate the story in a way that’s colorful, engaging, and shows diversity.”
Rising Hopes of Making an Impact
Feeney had never written a grant proposal before, so she was pleasantly surprised hers was accepted. She gives much of the credit to her faculty advisor, Mark L’Eplattenier, PA-C, MPAS, an assistant professor of PA studies at Hofstra University who helped guide Feeney through the grant process.
“Even though PA schools place a high value on diversity, we haven’t yet seen a dramatic change as far as the numbers of Hispanic PA students,” said L’Eplattenier, who has more than 25 years of clinical experience serving predominantly Hispanic patient populations in Brooklyn, New York.
“For that to happen, I think [students] need to be made aware of the profession much earlier [than high school] to help them understand and prepare for the academic requirements to be accepted into a PA program. That’s why I believe Juliana’s book will be such a valuable resource.”
Feeney aims to have the book ready for publishing through Amazon by the end of this year. She acknowledges the “timing is a little tricky,” as she will be simultaneously wrapping up research projects and preparing to take her board exam. However, Feeney is passionate about the book’s creation and is eager to see it come to fruition.
“Exposing more Spanish-speaking children at an early age to what a PA is—even if it’s just getting them familiar with the term ‘PA’—could eventually have a really positive impact on our profession,” Feeney said. “Then, hopefully, more and more of them will pursue [becoming a PA], which will definitely help as we treat an increasingly diverse patient population.”
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