Keep Pushing: PA Alumni Gives Back

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Keep Pushing: PA Alumni Gives Back

• By School of Health Professions
• September 9, 2025
• Education

Jemimah Omavuezi, DMS, MPAS, PA-C, always dreamed of working in healthcare and providing the best healthcare to patients. Understanding the steep competition in the program, she worked even harder to obtain her admission in TTUHSC Physician Assistant program.

Christina Robohm, DMSc, PA-C, DFAAPA, a Full Professor and the Regional Dean for the TTUHSC Nadine and Tom Craddock Master of Physician Assistant Program in Midland, paints a picture of the rigorous program:

With over 2,000 applications each year, the 27-month program selects approximately 72 students per year. The first 15 months are in Midland-all didactic education. Students study the basic sciences with physiology, anatomy and pharmacology. Then students turn to clinical medicine, where they learn about different diseases and conditions and how to diagnose and treat them. Finally, the last 12 months of the program are clinical rotations.

"We really do take the best of the best," Robohm said. "We choose people we know can thrive in this program and serve our communities with excellence, especially here in West Texas."

To Omavuezi's surprise, she would be selected as one of those 2,000 applicants. Yet her journey wouldn't be quite that easy.

Omavuezi was considered a "non-traditional student," meaning she came back to school to become a PA, making a strenuous educational process even harder because by that point in her life, she had a husband and young children. Despite her moments of doubt, she worked hard and ultimately graduated in 2023. Omavuezi says she couldn't have achieved this new step in her career without the support of her wonderful husband, family and the program's staff.

"My husband was always there to take care of the kids and the home while I was in school studying and attending classes," she says. "Most times during my didactic days, my family would bring dinner to school and we would all have dinner at the break room, I just couldn't get a break because I had to study for very long hours."

Experiencing this support prompted Omavuezi to pay it forward after graduation. She recognized the sacrifice that many students make in order to accomplish their goals of becoming a PA, so the Omavuezi Scholarship was created.

"The whole idea of this scholarship is to encourage students and let them know that someone out there is rooting for them. I just want to give someone that needs it that reassurance that they can achieve their goal as a PA," she says. "Going through the PA program is very challenging and we want to be among the people cheering the students to the finish line through the Omavuezi Scholarship'"

Robohm says that scholarships are critical to helping students, noting that some are going into debt of upwards of $100,000 just for the PA portion of their education, not including undergraduate education expenses. "Every dollar helps, and a scholarship of even a thousand dollars is a major scholarship for students to not have to take more money out in loans."

"We hope to continue this experience with alumni giving back, in whatever ways they can-whether precepting, giving scholarships, or mentoring and helping students." That, Robohm says, is what is most important.