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Hutchinson Community College alumnus, Amber Sawyer went on to become a Physician Assistant for orthopedic surgery. She started off doing athletic training and ended up finding her way into the physician assistant career. She loved the atmosphere at the time and said, “Probably mostly in the athletic department, I love how I was just welcomed in and I was part of the family.” She still stays in contact with some of the people there and said she still feels like part of the family. People recognize her
from all kinds of sporting events because she played basketball at HutchCC and she is recognizable in the community. Sawyer said she enjoyed being able to do physical training and playing a sport at the same time in college. As an athlete trainer, she had to arrive at school even before the fall athletes to complete her training. “We went about four to five days before the athletes and we were trained on taping ankles and doing evaluations and stuff like that and then the football players came in and I was taking care of them doing physicals and taping ankles, so I got the blessing of being welcomed into that family,” Sawyer said. She did travel with the teams and took
care of all the other athletes across different sports. Her husband ran track at the college too, so she got to be with him during some meets when she was doing athletic training stuff. During her time at HutchCC, her head athletic trainer told her that she should look into the physician assistant career. She took him up on it and went to physician assistant school and now she gets to do two things she loves. Sawyer said that when HutchCC had the women’s national basketball championship in Salina, she was asked to put together the medical professionals for the event and she credits it to having the athletic training back-
Starting
Brogen Willich, Reporter • Staff, Designer
on the
Sidelines
Student athletic trainer finds way to career as a physician assistant.
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