Lucy Hopko

Quinnipiac Physician Assistant Program, Class of 2018

I was born in Huntington Long Island NY, and moved to Terryville, CT at age six, where I have lived since. I graduated from Quinnipiac University in 2012 with a degree in Health Sciences-PA and a double minor in Spanish and Global Public Health.

I have volunteered throughout Connecticut, including at the Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, where I assisted both children and their families during long stays in the ICU. I have also spent time in Anchorage Alaska where I helped provide meals to children through an organization called Kid’s Kitchen. I spent June 2014 in Puyo, Ecuador where I learned about healthcare in rural areas and the intersections between traditional medicine and modern healthcare. My stay in Puyo demonstrated to me that what I consider normal may seem utterly foreign to people in other communities. It also taught me about the disparity in quality of healthcare and access to primary care between better-served and underserved populations.

I am interested in the Urban Service Track because it teaches future healthcare providers ways of practicing medicine in underserved populations that may not be covered by a normal medical curriculum. I also believe that the best way to provide optimized healthcare involves being familiar with the populations of one’s patients, and that the best way I can gain this practical familiarity is by joining UST and learning from its interdisciplinary instructors.