Graduate of Family Nurse Practitioner/Physician Assistant's Program awarded fellowship for migrant health

Azucena Barocio, a graduating physician’s assistant student in the UC Davis Family Nurse Practitioner/Physician’s Assistant (FNP/PA) Program, has been awarded a four-month paid fellowship by the 2006 New Provider Practicum in Migrant Health.

Barocio will complete her fellowship at a clinic in Winters, California. The New Provider Practicum in Migrant Health is a program that provides for a four-month working and learning experience in a migrant health center for new health-care professionals. New providers are nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse-midwives and dental hygienists who have completed the training program for their profession and have an interest in working with migrant farmworkers. The purpose of the program is to increase the sensitivity and understanding of migrant health-care issues for the new providers as they consider careers working with underserved populations.

The mission of the UC Davis FNP/PA Program is to educate physician assistants and nurse practitioners to provide competent, culturally relevant primary health care to underserved populations throughout California.

Barocio is a native of Jalisco, Mexico, whose father used to leave home for months at a time to work in the Salinas, California, area. He would send money home and return to Jalisco to work on his parents’ ranch in the off season. According to Barocio, her father’s background confers extra meaning to her participation in the practicum program.

“We were not together because he had to work, so I can relate to a lot of the people from Mexico who leave their families to come work in the fields,” Barocio said.

As part of her PA program’s curriculum, Barocio worked 12 hours at a clinic in Esparto, near Winters, which serves migrant workers. They told her of being exploited, including not receiving overtime pay, and not being able to afford medical care or to take time off to go to the clinic.