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Determination to overcome challenges helps grad to succeed

A series of unexpected twists and turns have guided aCPASS student to an undergraduate major, and now, a decision about the right fit for a graduate program. Allison Fansler, WVU Honor’s College student, will graduate from  WVU on May 13 with a bachelor’s degree in athletic training, and will begin the physician assistant master’s program at Alderson Broaddus University at the end of May.

Fansler’s road to her undergraduate degree was difficult at times. She suffered an ACL injury which involved a lengthy recovery. Fansler then sustained another knee injury, which required a cartilage implant and a more significant surgery.

“With ACL injuries becoming more and more common, everyone knows it’s a devastating injury. Having an end goal in mind helped me to overcome the injury. By having the mindset of ‘being able to do anything if you set your mind to it’ has carried over in other aspects of life for me as well, whether it was getting back from a knee injury, or learning new things in clinical hours, or working hard in school to get accepted into PA school,” she explained. 

Fansler says she discovered her passion for athletic training thanks to that knee injury. Travis Randolph, a local physician’s assistant who was a WVU graduate of the athletic training program, treated her injury. 

“After getting into athletic training, talking to Travis and other older students helped me to discover the physician assistant profession. He allowed me to shadow him multiple times, gaining valuable experience and really helped me a lot along the way with the application process for physician assistant school,” she said. 

Fansler is grateful for her time at WVU and is thankful for everything that she has learned. 

“I think CPASS is a wonderful college to be a part of. We have top notch professors in each field available at our fingertips for guidance and learning. Our faculty has accomplished some amazing accolades and I am grateful to have learned from some of the best,” Fansler explained. 

Fansler’s favorite class created a new career vision. “For a whole semester we were given the opportunity to fully dissect a human body. Being one of the first classes taken after being accepted into the athletic training program that not many other undergrads get to partake in, it, along with other factors, helped me realize I wanted to be somewhere involved with surgery in my career,” she explained. 

Her goal is to one day work in orthopedics, but she is open to gaining interest in other areas of medicine, depending on how her schooling progresses.

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