With mortar boards snuggly pinned in place and students donning black graduation gowns, 48 individuals in Bryant’s Physician Assistant Studies program crossed the stage and received their diplomas in late March. Since then, they’ve taken their certification exams, landed jobs, and enjoyed some leisure time after an intensive, 27-month program that’s called for countless hours of learning inside and outside the classroom. As they prepare for their upcoming adventures, meet a few of the faces of Bryant’s PA Class of 2024:

Anne Malloy

When Anne Malloy ’24 MSPAS, PA-C, started searching for PA programs, she wanted one that wouldn’t go easy on her.

“Bryant’s PA program offered the most opportunity to push my learning,” says Malloy, a Massachusetts native who comes from a family of nurses and healthcare professionals. “The faculty weren’t afraid to tell us during the interview process how rigorous PA school was going to be, and that they weren’t going to be easy on us.”

Following her didactic year and another 12 months of clinical rotations that took her from the East Coast to an island in the South Pacific, Malloy will take on a trauma surgery PA role at NYU Langone Health come June. Malloy spent two of her rotations at NYU Langone Health in surgery and internal medicine and orthopedics; and trauma surgery caught her eye while she was there.

“When a trauma comes in, you're maintaining the patient’s airway breathing, doing their initial work up, and getting them stabilized and admitted to the hospital,” says Malloy, who served as the class chair for Clinica Esperanza. “You're helping out on rounds, you're managing the floorwork, you're going to the ICU, doing procedures, and you're working with a big team of residents, students, and attendings.”

Seeing PAs doing so much and being in the throes of it all, Malloy — who received her bachelor's in psychology from Amherst College and her master’s in public health from Southern New Hampshire University — knew a surgical setting was the place she wanted to be.

Christian Aguilar

Hailing from Connecticut, Christian Aguilar ’24 MSPAS, PA-C, will return to his home state in the next several months to work at Trinity Health of New England in Hartford. His position in family medicine will entail providing care to kids and adults at clinics in East Hartford and Enfield.

“The cool thing about primary care and family medicine is that you have to know a good amount about a lot of things,” says Aguilar, who graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in nutrition sciences.

Aguilar notes that his clinical rotation at a Massachusetts-based primary care office reassured him that family medicine was the avenue for him.

“I'm someone who really likes getting questions thrown at me during clinical rotations because it allows me to pull from the information I’m studying and really think about it,” Aguilar says.

When he wasn’t in the classroom or at a clinical rotation, Aguilar was busy serving as vice president for his class. Engaging with the Bryant community and beyond, he organized blood pressure screenings for Bryant students and Operation Stand Down Rhode Island, an organization assisting homeless and at-risk veterans, and volunteered at Clinica Esperanza — an organization providing linguistically appropriate and culturally attuned medical care to uninsured adults living in Rhode Island.

“It was good for me to go to Clinica Esperanza because I had the opportunity to practice my Spanish,” Aguilar says. “That's the patient population I want to work with and the background I come from, so it was nice to speak to patients in their own language.”

Sophia Stone

The Discovery Health Channel was Sophia Stone ’24 MSPAS, PA-C's favorite TV station as a little kid. No matter the surgery or amount of blood on screen, Stone was entranced by the medical professionals who nimbly worked to save lives. Pursuing her love for the medical field in college, Stone recently accepted a general surgery PA position at Boston Children’s Hospital and will start in June.

“I’ll be working with the pediatric population, which will be a mix of clinics, consults, and time in the operating room,” says Stone, a New Hampshire native.

Stone obtained her bachelor’s in nutrition and dietetics from Simmons University. Following graduation, she became an emergency medical technician and worked for Boston EMS. Delivering patients to the hospital, Stone saw how the PAs worked together in the emergency rooms, which solidified her desire to enter the profession. When it came to choosing a PA program to attend, Bryant caught her attention.

“I was really interested in Bryant’s PA program because of the amount of community service they do,” says Stone, who became class president of the 2024 PA Program Student Society and helped organize a black-tie gala and 5k that raised tens of thousands of dollars for Rhode Island organizations.

Between knowing how to suture and how to hold a scope in a laparoscopic surgery, Stone says PAs have versatile skills that allow them to assist in a variety of specialty areas.

“PAs are expanding access for people. If there's a PA in the office, there are more slots available for people to come in,” Stone says.