Alumni Profiles

B.S. with high honors in sports medicine and health sciences, 2005

Master’s of Health Science Physician Assistant candidate

Quinnipiac University

Hamden, CT

To watch a video with Keith, click here.

Walk through a grocery store in Hamden, Ct., with Keith Paul. Pass customers and look for anything amiss — a limp, a rash, fingers that have trouble gripping. Then ask Keith what he thinks; he’ll immediately have an unofficial diagnosis ready and waiting.

It started when he was studying sports medicine at Guilford College. “They taught us to notice gaits, notice and try to determine the cause of any abnormalities in the way people are walking,” he says. Now he’s in graduate school, studying in Hamden at Quinnipiac University to be a physician assistant.

If physician assistants take a class to develop a good bedside manner — learning how to be caring and attentive health care providers — Keith can skip that class. Shoot, he could teach that class. Talk to him yourself, or even watch him talk to someone else, and in a few seconds you’ll see how patients are going to take to him instantly.

He is someone you like immediately. Athletic, outgoing, very bright with a sharp intellect and a quick wit, and most important, he truly cares about people … and it shows.

Keith came to Guilford College as a soccer standout from West Islip, New York, and he left as an award-winning student-athlete headed for great things. Looking for a school that would challenge him, he narrowed his interview offers down to five of the top graduate schools for physician assistants. He received offers from all five, and he chose Quinnipiac University in Hamden because the people there show the kind of true dedication that he seeks.

He wants to be kept on edge academically, and this graduate program can do that. Some days his classes start at 8 a.m. and don’t end until 9 p.m. It calls for a work ethic that he says began with his parents and was honed at Guilford College.

“Let me tell you this about Guilford,” he says, “the small classes mean that the professors absolutely know — and really care — about you. They care about your academic success, they challenge you and they will help in any way necessary.”

Nestled against the wooded and picturesque Sleeping Giant Mountain, Quinnipiac University is ranked among the nation’s finest when it comes to training physician assistants. The 27-month program provides intensive course work in medicine and the applied sciences, and it places the graduate students into fieldwork experiences that include working and learning in hospitals, medical centers, extended-care facilities and nursing homes.

Keith acquired a solid foundation doing fieldwork while at Guilford College, working first at Moses Cone Hospital then serving a second internship at The Sports Medicine & Orthopaedics Center. In fact, he spent his first two years at Guilford majoring in athletic training; he decided to become a physician assistant because it took his training to a new level, because faculty members encouraged him to do so and because it’s a great career choice.

As highly skilled and valued members of the healthcare team who are licensed to practice medicine with the supervision of a licensed M.D., physician assistants’ employment is predicted to grow much faster than the average for all occupations through the year 2014. They work in hospitals, private practices, clinics and health maintenance organizations.

And the work is challenging — they take medical histories, examine and treat patients, order and interpret laboratory tests and X-rays, and make diagnoses (not usually in grocery stores). They also treat minor injuries by suturing, splinting and casting. In 48 states and the District of Columbia, physician assistants may prescribe medications, and in rural or inner city clinics where a physician is present for only one or two days each week, the physician assistants may be the principal care providers.

“All of the great people in the athletic training, sports medicine and health sciences areas at Guilford College — that’s what inspired me to become a physician assistant,” Keith says, “because they really, really do care about the athletes as people. I mean, you come to Division III to play, not for money. So although winning is important, the lessons of athletics are even more important.”

Keith spent all four years at Guilford working as a trainer for the basketball team, and he credits the school’s Quaker tradition for shaping him in important ways. “I learned how to stand back and observe,” he says, “observing human nature and behavior. Best of all, I learned the value of patience when it comes to helping people.”

Keith is constantly alert, sharp, observing … and motivated. He gives this advice: “Even if you are the best in your field of endeavor, always perform like you are number 2 — striving to be number 1. If you stay motivated and focused, there is nothing you can’t achieve.”

He’s far too modest to say it, but he could add that it doesn’t hurt your success rate if you’re as outgoing and likeable as Keith Paul.