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The Colorado Plateau Center for Health Professions is creating healthier communities in northern Arizona by building, training and strengthening the health workforce. Read and watch below to hear more from the amazing medical students and providers who are the heart and soul of everything we do.
My name is Anthony Blackhorse, and I’ve been working at North Country HealthCare as a certified medical assistance since August 2020. I grew up in a small town called Kayenta on the Navajo Reservation, about 30 minutes south of Monument Valley. It’s a small community that’s mostly off the grid. I moved to Flagstaff eight years ago, and I have three teenage daughters.
My oldest sister was my biggest inspiration to get into the medical field. Before she passed, she was a registered nurse for 15 years. My second oldest sister was an EMT [emergency medical technician] for 20 years. I was also an EMT for 10 years. But dealing with the traumatic side of healthcare got tiring; I suffered from that. As a medical assistant, we get to help people for minor things – a medication refill, a common cold. I work not only with the patients, but also with the providers and patient relations representatives. Healthcare is something I just keep coming back to – it’s a calling.
To obtain my medical assistant licensing, I went to College America for a 16-month intense program. That’s where I was connected with my externship at North Country HealthCare. It was 180 hours of on-hands practice, which allowed me to talk to patients, do initial intakes, and gather information from their medical history. I could practice having patient contact, getting vital signs, doing EKGs, and giving injections.
The first day of my externship was nerve-wracking, but I had the help of people who were willing to teach me everything about the process. Now I’m comfortable in my position, and some of the staff come to me with questions. Working with Elaine Accomando has been a great experience. Like all the staff here, she’s very knowledgeable. I rely on her, and she relies on me for a lot of things.
I love that North Country HealthCare’s focus is on the community. We don’t turn patients away. We help everyone in every way possible, to the best of our abilities, even those with financial hardship. I found that more intriguing than working at the hospital or private practice.
“Healthcare is something I just keep coming back to – it’s a calling."
“I look forward to working alongside others who are also focused on helping and improving our community."
Some of my most significant work in the medical field thus far has been as a medical interpreter at North Country HealthCare. As a native Spanish speaker, I am interested in helping overcome any barriers to communication for the population served by North Country HealthCare. This experience showed me firsthand how diverse our community is. It has been a very rewarding experience to help others have a deeper understanding of their personal health, as well as a better connection to their medical provider.
My time as a medical interpreter is one of the reasons I chose to become a provider: to increase accessibility for families to receive healthcare in their primary language. One lesson that I have learned is to always believe in yourself. You will face many failures, and this only means the beginning of your journey to success. Another important lesson is that being present in the moment with others and something as simple as a smile makes a huge impact on others.
I would like to thank everyone who has helped me along the way to be the best I can be. I look forward to when I become a doctor and work alongside other individuals who are also focused on helping others and improving our community.
There are many ways to engage with Colorado Plateau — as a volunteer, mentor, partner or donor. Start making a difference today.
I’m Rachel Christopherson, and I was born and raised in central Illinois, in a small town called Bloomington-Normal. On my free time I like to rock climb, hike and bike.
I first realized I wanted to pursue a career in healthcare when I was around 10 years old. I’m the oldest of three children, and I often found myself helping care for my siblings. I wanted to help people and be the kind of doctor I wish I had: approachable, kind, and easy to talk to. Becoming a physician appealed to me because I wanted to be the person making decisions and having a voice to implement healthy policy changes. I’ve always felt myself gravitating towards leadership, so I felt being a physician would be the best fit.
My parents are both teachers, and I’m the first person in my family to pursue a career in medicine. My undergraduate degree is in chemistry. I took time off prior to medical school to volunteer at a low-resource community health center. This experience solidified my desire to pursue healthcare for the underserved.
The thing that intrigued me most about doing a residency at North Country HealthCare was that they offer patients a team-based approach, with staff from behavioral health, pharmacy and dental onsite (just to name a few). I love that we offer wrap-around services for our patients. I’ve also become interested in learning more about Native American culture and how to best help them to achieve their healthcare goals.
Some lessons I’ve learned along my journey so far is that a little kindness goes a long way, and that a positive attitude can make the sun come out on even the cloudiest of days.
“I love working closely with patients to best help them to achieve their healthcare goals.”
“I believe by empowering people through their health, you can make great change in a community.”
My name is Tasha Harder, and I am second-year family medicine resident at the Colorado Plateau Center for Health Professions. I am originally from Phoenix, Arizona, then I went to Northern Arizona University for my undergrad and fell in love with Flagstaff. I attended A.T. Still University (ATSU) in Phoenix for one year with my subsequent didactic and clinical years in northern Arizona. My love for this region is immense, and when the residency program received the green light, I was ecstatic for the chance to stay.
I am married to another medical provider, a physical therapist (our dinner conversations can be very interesting!). My hobbies consistent of anything dealing with nature, mainly trail running, hiking, and camping. We have a dog who accompanies me on every run and will jump into any body of water she can.
I knew I wanted to be a scientist in 6th grade and pursued science-heavy topics for some time. In college I initially chose to major in exercise science, hoping to become a physical therapist. This changed after meeting a cardiovascular surgeon, Dr. Dietrich, and Dr. Barbara Polstein from North Country HealthCare. Dr. Polstein showed me what osteopathy is: an amazing tool in our tool belt to manually help patients with their pain through gentle techniques. It was after shadowing Dr. Polstein that I knew I wanted to be an osteopathic doctor.
My training at ATSU was heavily focused on caring for underserved populations. I was drawn to this because I believe by empowering people through their health, you can make great change in a community. At North Country, this is no different. One of the many things I appreciate about working here is that patients have access to many resources they wouldn’t get at a private practice. We have a behavioral health team, staff to help patients enroll in and navigate insurance, a lab, and a pharmacy – all working together to ensure our patients get the best treatment. At North Country it truly feels like we care for patients as a team.
There are MANY lessons I have learned this past year, and that I learn daily. One of them is to always ask for help. Our faculty are unbelievably helpful in fostering a safe learning environment where we feel comfortable saying “I don’t know,” and an environment where we can teach one another. Other things I have learned are that my colleagues are my community, the patients care about us too, and to eat a big breakfast because you never know what might walk in during your lunch break!
My name is Alex Lam, and I’m a second-year family medicine resident at North Country HealthCare. On my free time I like to get outside as much as possible. Flagstaff is beautiful, so I like to get out on the trails every day. I love trying all the great restaurants in Flagstaff and testing out new recipes at home.
I decided to become a doctor my second or third year of college. Originally, I worked as an emergency medical technician (EMT) for a couple years, and that got my feet wet in the healthcare field. I then spent time shadowing several physicians. Working with those amazing individuals, seeing how medicine impacted their patients, was really kind of a miracle. That pushed me over the edge, and I decided to pursue a career in medicine.
The thing that excites me most about healthcare is getting to talk to patients, getting to know them, and seeing them get better. A huge component of healthcare is simply talking to your patients, and they start to feel better automatically just by their medical provider being present and taking the time to listen to their issues and complaints.
I chose to do my residency at a community health center because the work feels so important – our patients tend to be a little sicker, a little more impoverished. Our patients just need a little more help. You’re able to impact their lives in multiple different facets. There’s so many different modalities and specialties here that come together to provide a variety services at a community health center. Being part of that feels really special.
Thank you to everyone who’s supporting North Country HealthCare and all the residents and education programs here. Education is a super important facet, and it’s amazing to have a pipeline to educate medical students, physical therapy students, nursing students, and medical assistant students. Everyone here is part of the same team trying to make a difference in these people’s lives, and you being a part of that is truly amazing!
“A huge component of healthcare is simply talking to your patients, and they start to feel better just by being present and taking the time to listen."
"In a small community, we can often find those who want and need our help. They will, in turn, return the care in unexpected ways.”
Since 2016 I have owned my own primary care provider business in Flagstaff: Mary Pasternacki Family Healthcare, PLLC. I am also the current president of Northern Arizona Provider Group whose membership includes about 80 healthcare providers from the region, primarily nurse practitioners. We provide monthly CEU opportunities featuring local experts and networking with local colleagues.
I am married to Stu, and we live on a 26 acre “ranchette” in Parks. We are enthralled with a totally amazing border collie named Katch. I love dog training, and Katch has the titles to prove it! She has several American Kennel Club titles including Trick Dog, Agility, Tracking, and Herding (my husband does the herding training).
I had set my sights on becoming a nurse for as long as I can remember. My mother was a nurse, and she was my lifelong inspiration. She also inspired my siblings, as my two older sisters are registered nurses and my older brother is a physician’s assistant. You can just imagine what conversations were like around our dinner table! I was able to identify the anatomical location of the “Circle of Willis” before leaving grade school.
I grew up in a small, rural community in eastern New Mexico. At that time my mother was a school nurse. She encouraged me to get a BSN nursing degree, so I attended West Texas State University (before it was an Aggie school!). The State of Texas foresaw the upcoming nursing shortage and supplemented nursing student’s education. Each semester I paid $50 for 15+ credit hours. Needless to say, I graduated in 1980 without any financial debt.
I moved practically every year searching out adventure in another nursing job or location that sounded like fun. I loved pediatrics and worked in pediatric and neonatal intensive care units. I found the drama of the emergency department intriguing and pursued that for several years. When I found Guardian Air Transport in Flagstaff, I enjoyed marvelous adventures transporting patients by air all over the amazingly beautiful Southwest. Flight nursing was a dream job!
But of course, I got the bug to mix things up again! The family nurse practitioner program started at Norther Arizona University and I joined several friends in the first Master’s level rural family nurse practitioner program graduating class of 1997. After graduation, I continued to work for the physician who was my preceptor as a student. My running joke is that I say I completed a 14-year residency training with him! That physician read and critiqued every chart note and every patient exam I performed for 14 years.
It was an incredible experience that gave me the knowledge and confidence to envision my own solo primary care provider office, which came to fruition in 2016. I have been fortunate to be able to create my own world as a successful solo medical provider that I built from the ground up. I currently employ one medical assistant/receptionist. I love it, and my boss never denies my vacation requests!
I am the current president of Northern Arizona Provider Group, which was started in the 1990’s by Karen Holder, NP, as a way of educating and networking with other providers in northern Arizona. Northern Arizona Provider Group has provided consistent monthly continuing education units, or CEUs, for almost 30 years.
About 10 years ago Karen aligned us with Colorado Plateau, formerly known as NAHEC, who has been underwriting our monthly programs since then. NAHEC’s collaboration with Northern Arizona Provider Group allowed us to have independent, unbiased presentations instead of the previous sponsorship by the pharmaceutical industry. NAHEC has allowed us to keep annual dues nominal and provide about 15 free hours of valuable CEU to each member each year. NAHEC’s sponsorship and collaboration with Norther Arizona Provider Group is a valuable gift to the membership.
Healthcare in a rural community is most rewarding. It is said there are only seven degrees of separation between all humans. In our rural community in northern Arizona, we laugh and say there are really only three degrees of separation. It means that no matter who you interact with, there is a ripple effect through the entire community. In a small community, we can often find those who want and need our help. They will, in turn, return the care in unexpected ways.
Medicine is a fascinating science. It never stays the same, it is constantly growing and changing. It takes a lot of work to stay afloat on this sea of changes. And those changes are critical to being a good and current medical provider. There are constantly new medications, new labs, new scans and interpretations, new disease entities, and new treatments. It is enough to make your head spin and your feet slide out.
I worked at a big teaching tertiary care hospital in Phoenix. I loved being on the cutting edge of changes in medical practice. I loved standing beside the medical residents and listening to the sage advice of the “seasoned” physicians and other experts. I learned so much there. It is harder to find those mentors and day-to-day educational opportunities in this smaller rural area.
I was fortunate to find the education venue Northern Arizona Provider Group, where I could interact with my NP colleagues. It was there that I found a venue to learn from both the “older, more seasoned” and “younger, more current” colleagues in my community. As president of Norther Arizona Provider Group, I am privileged to be part of a team that helps to make that happen with other providers in rural Arizona.
It is so important that we help each other to integrate the most current and best medical practice models. Besides, it is always more fun when you learn it with a friend and colleague. We are all trying to stay up on our best medical game, and it is most enjoyable when a colleague takes you along on the learning journey.
Keep mixing things up in your healthcare career. Don’t get in a rut and find yourself burned out and cranky. There are so many opportunities in healthcare. Step out of what you know and onto the edge of what you don’t know, so that you will find yourself grinning with the wind beneath your wings as you fly.
— Mary Pasternacki, FNP-BC
Continuing Education, or CE, is a vital part of our mission to improve the health of rural and underserved communities in northern Arizona by building, training, and strengthening the health workforce. Here we spotlight Amy C. Negovan, PNP, who helps school nurses by offering continuing education on topics and disease states that they see every day.
My name is Amy Negovan, and I have been a registered nurse for 25 years and a certified pediatric nurse practitioner for 19 years. I have worked for Dignity Health – Yavapai Regional Medical Center for the past 7 years and am currently the director of its school-based clinic program called Partners for Healthy Students which has been in existence for 22 years.
I have been married for 26 years and have three children, ages 22, 16, and 10 years. I was born and raised in the Los Angeles area of California. My family and I moved to central Arizona in 2011 to live a quieter, rural life with our children. We live on a two-acre hobby farm where we raise dairy goats, chickens, and have a huge garden. When I’m not taking care of the animals or working in the garden, I enjoy learning to the play the piano, scrapbooking, and swimming.
As a teen, I had a great role model who was pediatric nurse. I decided that when I went to college, I wanted to work with kids either as a nurse or teacher. I chose the nurse route and pursued a career in school-based health both as a school nurse and a nurse practitioner working in various school-based and mobile clinics.
When I first became a nurse in the 90’s, nursing positions were hard to find. Since I had worked in a hospital setting as an electrocardiogram (ECG) technician for 7 years, I was offered a job as a telemetry nurse and took it to get my inpatient experience which was a big thing at the time. A year later, I became a school nurse and had absolutely found my calling.
During my 14 years as a school nurse, I went back to school to get a master’s of science degree in nursing along with my pediatric nurse practitioner certification. After I was finished with that, I had the best of both worlds as I worked part-time as a school nurse and part time as a pediatric nurse practitioner on a mobile clinic in Los Angeles that provided free health care to the uninsured through the local Catholic hospital.
After moving to Yavapai County, Arizona in 2011, I discovered that they, too, had a school-based and mobile clinic program that provided no-cost healthcare to the uninsured, and I was hired to work on their newly designed mobile clinic serving the rural areas of our hospital district in Yavapai County.
In between all of this, I have also taught community health care courses to graduate and undergraduate nursing students for both University of Phoenix and Walden University. I currently serve on the board of the Arizona School-Based Health Alliance.
Because there is no continuing education requirement for Arizona RN’s to renew their license, I find that many nurses just don’t become life-long learners. The school nurses in our area are the “partners” in Partners for Healthy Students, and I love offering them continuing education on topics and disease states that they see every day.
As a former school nurse, I understand their struggles, challenges, and limitations as school nurses and being able to offer them continuing education in their workplace during their workday is so valuable to them.
In a rural area, there are less pediatric providers than in a big city. There are also no pediatric specialists (at least in my area) and specialty care has to be obtained in bigger cities. In a rural area, everything is spaced out and traveling to obtain health care can be a big barrier to accessing health care given the wear and tear on vehicles, cost of gas, and time lost from school (kids) and work (parents).
A wise person once told me, “Whatever career path you take, make sure that you love it because it is easy to do what you love.” I have found that so true! I love children and working with them every day brings me so much joy. It is also important to take time to care for oneself because it can be easy to get caught up in doing what you love. Taking time to recharge, renew, and refresh is so important!
— Amy C. Negovan, PNP
"In a rural area, everything is spaced out and traveling to obtain health care can be a big barrier to accessing health care given the wear and tear on vehicles, cost of gas, and time lost from school (kids) and work (parents)."
Hear from our Students
My favorite part about camp was all of the staff who seemed very passionate about the camp. Since this was my and many other people's first virtual camp, having amazing staff members made the camp much more relaxing.
Future Health Leaders Camper
I was reassured that the healthcare field is what I see in my future and camp motivated me to take more steps to get closer to reaching my dreams such as networking and volunteering.
Future Health Leaders Camper
My favorite part about camp was the various different sessions that we had the opportunity to participate in. This camp gave me so much useful information, and definitely opened my mind about the healthcare industry!
Future Health Leaders Camper
There are many ways to engage with Colorado Plateau — as a volunteer, mentor, partner or donor. Start making a difference today.
2920 N. 4th Street
Flagstaff, AZ 86004
