Starting on the

AHutchinson 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 Sidelines on the Student athletic trainer finds way to career as a physician assistant.

ground. She also served on the Kansas State High School Athletic Association Sports Medicine Advisory Committee.

“I spend two days in the office, two days in surgery, and Friday is kind of a make-up day,” Sawyer said about her weekly schedule. “I usually start with patients by 7:30-8 a.m. and I normally see 15 to 35 patients.”

That all varies upon weekend call ins and emergencies. She said on surgery days she is usually there by 7:30 a.m. because surgeries start shortly after then and she tries to be out of work by 6 p.m. every day.

Her usual day consists of surgeries and talking to patients.

“I assist in all the surgeries, I close all of our incisions and I also fill out all the orders for patient meds and I also do a lot of lab work and checking up on the patients to make sure they are making progress on track,” Sawyer said.

She also puts on casts, reads x-rays, orders MRI’s/reads MRI’s, orders and does injections, tests, and more.

With the Coronavirus pandemic shutting down businesses and keeping people inside and scared, Sawyer is still working. They still have to deal with post op patients and physical therapy patients since they have a physical training section with all the tools they need. With the pandemic, the number of people seen on a daily basis has definitely

declined.

“We’re probably only seeing half the patients right now and we’re almost not doing any surgeries we’re doing less than half, probably about 75-80% less surgeries than before,” Sawyer said.

She enjoys what she does and is glad she went to HutchCC. She said she was lucky to have been a part of this growing school. She also wants her two boys to explore the junior college options when they start looking at colleges as she feels they have very nice benefits.