{"id":23218,"date":"2023-12-14T23:32:27","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T23:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/medex\/?p=23218"},"modified":"2023-12-14T23:35:33","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T23:35:33","slug":"it-doesnt-have-to-define-you-an-interview-with-sarah-serpinas-ms-pa-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/medex\/magazine\/2023\/12\/14\/it-doesnt-have-to-define-you-an-interview-with-sarah-serpinas-ms-pa-c\/","title":{"rendered":"It Doesn’t Have to Define You: An Interview with Sarah Serpinas, MS, PA-C"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sarah Serpinas, MS, PA-C, is a Lecturer on the Didactic Faculty of the MEDEX Spokane campus. A graduate of MEDEX Spokane Class 12 (2010), Sarah joined the MEDEX Spokane faculty in 2014. In addition to her teaching duties, she is a provider at the Kaiser Permanente Riverfront Medical Center in Spokane. <\/em>Sarah recently contacted MEDEX Communications with the idea of talking about her family\u2019s experiences of homelessness while growing up, and how those experiences continue to shape her approach to work as a clinician and an educator. We gladly accepted, and what follows is a lightly edited version of that conversation.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

[Editor’s Note: We are aware that the word \u201cunhoused\u201d is currently a preferred<\/span> descriptor for being without a safe and stable place to live, but we choose to honor the language used by Sarah and by those for whom the story of unstable housing is theirs to tell.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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MEDEX Northwest: <\/strong>So Sarah, why don\u2019t we start with this question: Why is it that you want to talk about this part of your past now<\/em>, after having not really spoken of it much over the years? What’s motivating this discussion?<\/p>\n

Sarah Serpinas:<\/strong> My hope is that the story might be inspiring to others. When you\u2019ve had to overcome any adversity, whether it’s homelessness or anything else, things can sometimes feel overwhelming\u2014especially something like going to PA school and becoming a provider. I know a lot of potential applicants to MEDEX follow our website and our social media, so I thought it could be inspiring to anyone with a similar background. That’s why I want to share it now. It’s not something a lot of people know about me because it doesn\u2019t come up in conversation very often.<\/p>\n

MEDEX:<\/strong> Why do you think that is? Is it a stigma?<\/p>\n

Sarah:<\/strong> I think people would probably be surprised to hear it. It’s not something that I\u2019m ashamed of, but it\u2019s also not something that I bring up in, you know, everyday conversation. And while I do have conversations with my coworkers and my students, they\u2019re not on the level of \u201ctell me about your childhood,\u201d you know? It\u2019s just not something that typically comes up and so not a lot of people know that about me.<\/p>\n

MEDEX:<\/strong> But it is a part of your personal and professional story, it sounds like.<\/p>\n

Sarah:<\/strong> Oh, yeah. I mean, it doesn\u2019t define<\/em> who I am, but it has shaped me, definitely. It\u2019s a big part of who I am. It has influenced me as a provider and as a faculty member and teacher.<\/p>\n

MEDEX:<\/strong> Maybe you could start by telling us what the story is in whatever ways you want to present it. And then we can come back around and talk about how it informs your life now, personally and professionally.<\/p>\n

Sarah:<\/strong> Well, when I was growing up, my family was either homeless or housing insecure from about the time I started school until about middle school. So, for most of my childhood, although I didn’t necessarily realize that we were \u201chomeless\u201d or \u201chousing insecure\u201d until I was older.<\/p>\n

MEDEX:<\/strong> Because you didn\u2019t know the difference?<\/p>\n

Sarah:<\/strong> Because there\u2019s definitely a stigma about homelessness. When we think of homelessness, we think of the people who are visible to us out on the street. We often associate it with mental illness or drug addiction. But remember that about 30% of the homeless population in the U.S. is made up of children and families\u2014families with children.<\/p>\n

My family, we weren\u2019t the stereotypical \u201cliving on the street\u201d family. We would live in a house\u2014a rental house\u2014for the school year. Then as soon as the school year ended, we would pack up, put our stuff in a storage unit, and we would camp. So I always just thought that we camped a lot. We would live in tents for three months of the year mostly because we couldn\u2019t afford to continue renting, or because something happened, and we would be evicted. We\u2019d have to leave one house for some reason, and then we would find another place to live.<\/p>\n

And so a lot of my childhood was spent living in tents over the summer, which, again, I just associated with camping. I didn\u2019t really realize we were homeless; we usually always had a place to live when school started again. But because of this, we moved a lot. I went to 12 or 13 different schools between kindergarten and high school.<\/p>\n

MEDEX:<\/strong> Was this in the Spokane area?<\/p>\n

Sarah:<\/strong> It started in Spokane, then we moved to California for about five years, and then back to Spokane. It wasn\u2019t until I was a little older\u2014probably fourth grade\u2014that we lived in California, and we actually lived in a motel. It was a motel that a lot of families and kids lived in that did longer term rentals; that’s where I started realizing, \u201cOkay, this is not normal.\u201d I didn\u2019t really want to go to school when I was living there because it was embarrassing. But they actually had a school in the motel for children.<\/p>\n

So, for that year, I actually went to school in a motel room. It was for all ages. Maybe high schoolers weren\u2019t there, but it was for all ages elementary and middle school. It was a classroom in the motel room. It still actually exists today, the Mustard Seed School<\/a>.<\/p>\n

MEDEX:<\/strong> Wow. And this is in California?<\/p>\n

Sarah:<\/strong> Yes, in Sacramento. Even though it was a motel, they did long-term. You could rent for a month at a time. And I think that there were so many children there, they had to do something.<\/p>\n

Then we moved back to Washington, to Colville, north of Spokane, and that was the first time that we actually lived in a homeless shelter. I was in the 7th<\/sup> grade. We lived in a homeless shelter for families. I\u2019m the oldest of six children, and we had one big room with bunk beds. That\u2019s the first time that I really realized, \u201cOkay, like, we\u2019re homeless.\u201d You know? I didn\u2019t want to tell people at school where I lived, or have people over, or anything like that.<\/p>\n\t

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