“Empathy is the compass.”
At low tide on Washington’s coast, the shoreline opens to ribbed sand and eelgrass. Shells clatter into a bucket and shimmer in the moonlight. One hand braces in the mud; the other rakes for clams. It’s where Student Doctor Dalton Edwards learned endurance—watching his father and grandfather, lifelong shellfish farmers, work through midnight tides and, eventually, chronic pain.
“When my dad finally found a DO who treated his pain without relying on heavy medication, the difference was undeniable,” Student Dr. Edwards recalls. “It kept him working, kept him present. That experience showed me how whole-person care can change a family’s trajectory.”
Service followed.
Student Dr. Edwards volunteered with his local fire department and later worked in a small emergency department—as an EMT, an ED technician, and a unit clerk arranging transfers from a critical access hospital to larger facilities. There, he saw what distance and scarcity do to health: patients waited hours for transfers, days for beds; specialty care was over an hour away.
“Health extends beyond the clinic,” he says.
“The exam room matters—but so do the conditions people return to. In rural communities, the diagnosis is often distance, poverty, or distrust—not just disease.”
One patient, “Joe,” made those stakes plain.
A 57-year-old living far from specialty care, Joe rationed insulin he couldn’t afford. Minor foot ulcers progressed until amputation was unavoidable. Student Dr. Edwards changed dressings, made calls, and watched systemic barriers outlast good intentions.
“I don’t just want to treat disease,” he reflects. “I want to dismantle the barriers that make it worse. Joe’s story taught me that, if we don’t address the conditions outside the exam room, we’ll see the same tragedies again and again.”
That purpose led him to Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences.
PNWU’s mission—training physicians to serve rural and medically underserved communities with culturally competent, patient-centered care—matched his lived experience and his goals.
Now a first-year Osteopathic Medical Student in PNWU’s College of Osteopathic Medicine, and a Mission Fit Award recipient, Student Dr. Edwards is building the skills to pair clinical excellence with advocacy, problem-solving, and leadership.
His plan is straightforward: learn, listen, and bring it all home.
When his training is complete, Student Dr. Edwards intends to return to communities like the one that raised him—to coordinate care, expand access, and change the arc of stories like Joe’s.
“Mission-driven healthcare is grueling, but necessary,” he says.
“When I feel discouraged, I return to the stories that called me to this path—and they remind me why showing up matters.”
Today, as a member of PNWU-COM’s Class of 2029, his path forward is blazed by the community physicians he witnessed in the ED, and how they bridged gaps in real time. That kind of persistence—and partnership—is the standard he is chasing.
“My father and grandfather taught me endurance. The firehouse taught me trust. The ED taught me compassion,” he says. “Medicine is where I bring it all together—for the people and places that raised me.”