By Dave DeFusco
When Abigail Assenza stepped onto the floors of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, she didn’t just enter one of the world’s top hospitals. She inhabited a space that mirrored her own past, where the hum of machines and hushed voices of medical professionals echoed the defining loss of her life: the death of her father from gastric cancer during her first year of college.
“I chose Sloan Kettering for a reason,” said Assenza, a student in the M.S. in Physician Assistant Studies and president of the 2025 PA cohort. “I have a personal connection to cancer. Seeing the patients there—men in their 50s with cancer—that was my dad. Every patient felt like him.”
Her father’s passing left a wound, but also carved out a path. It ignited a drive that has powered her through grueling rotations, late-night study sessions and emotionally charged hospital wards across New York City and beyond.
Now deep into her clinical year, Assenza has made her mark not just through academic excellence, but through an extraordinary set of rotations that have exposed her to the full spectrum of human vulnerability—from neonates in respiratory distress to immunocompromised cancer patients fighting invisible enemies.
Her rotation with the infectious disease team at Memorial Sloan Kettering proved transformative. There, among some of the most immunocompromised patients in the world, Assenza encountered cases of invasive fungal infections so rare that they’re studied more often in textbooks than treated in practice.
“Even after volunteering for two summers in Kenya, I’d never seen infections like the ones I saw at Sloan Kettering,” she said. “Some of the patients were severely neutropenic—completely unprotected. It was a patient population I had never worked with before.”
One case in particular stayed with her: a young patient with mucormycosis, a rare fungal infection that necessitated extensive surgery. Assenza followed that patient’s journey closely, checking in daily, offering comfort to the family and working alongside PAs to develop treatment plans.
“I was very close to that family,” she said. “Even after they were transferred out of the hospital, I kept thinking about them.”
The rotation was also a sobering encounter with life’s capriciousness. “These were pediatric patients, some who wouldn’t live to see their 18th birthday,” she said. “You just think: Why them? Why not me? There’s no answer. But it forces you to appreciate life, to live more gratefully.”
Assenza’s dedication to medicine extends beyond borders. For two summers, she volunteered at Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya, working across wards and immersing herself in local culture. She plans to return annually to focus on women’s health, hygiene and mental health awareness.
“The time in Kenya shaped how I connect with patients,” she said. “It taught me humility and cultural sensitivity—skills that are just as critical as clinical knowledge.”
Back home, her rotation at Lenox Hill Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit brought another level of intensity. “It was incredible,” she said. “We learned less invasive surfactant administration, practiced intubating neonates and did daily physical exams. You’re learning the fine line between fragility and resilience.”
One moment stood out in particular. A baby had a collapsed lung, and Abigail helped perform a chest tube placement—something she had studied meticulously in school.
“To go from learning about neonatal respiratory distress syndrome in class to actually administering surfactant in the NICU—that was a full-circle moment.”
Assenza’s journey is built on the foundation of a rigorous PA curriculum. In moments of crisis, the training showed.
“In the NICU, when that pneumothorax case happened, I immediately thought of what we learned in the classroom,” she said. “It was surreal, reading it in a textbook, being tested on it and then actually doing it.”
At Mount Sinai Brooklyn, another pivotal rotation, Assenza performed bronchoscopies, inserted NG tubes and even placed central lines—hands-on experience few students are afforded.
“We don’t always get these opportunities,” she said. “But when we do, you rise to the occasion. You summon everything you’ve learned.”
What sets Assenza apart isn’t just her clinical prowess. It’s the empathy she brings to the bedside. She carries the memory of her father in every step, in every case, in every life she touches.
“This could happen to anyone,” she said. “We breathe the same air. What separates us is circumstance, not strength. Being a PA is about standing in that space between fear and hope and saying, ‘I’m here. Let’s face it together.’”
