“Being of use is what guides me in my life.”
Sunlight filtered through the front windows of downtown Yakima’s Essencia Bakery, catching the steam rising from PNWU Student Doctor Moira Claire’s coffee. She had pharmacology and anatomy lab scheduled on campus in the afternoon, but insisted our conversation take place face-to-face rather than via email exchange.
“Connection matters,” she said. “You show up differently when you’re sitting across from someone.”
Fittingly, her own journey here – to Yakima, and to higher education in general – was also very different. “I know a lot of people are like, ‘I knew I wanted to be a doctor for a long time,’ and that wasn’t me at all,” explained Student Dr. Claire.
After a difficult high school experience, she enrolled in college out of expectation rather than drive. One year into a biology major, she dropped out. “Education’s not it for me,” she recalled thinking. “Let me just work and make my way.”
She moved to Switzerland to bartend, determined to build an independent life. And then COVID-19 hit, shuttering the bar and the entire world. The borders closed, and she was stuck. What was supposed to be one season in Switzerland turned into two years.
“I lost my housing, I lost my job, I lost security,” she explained. The instability was shaking, but it brought clarity. “When I realized I didn’t have the education to keep myself secure, my perspective on education changed.”
“I realized education was one of the only things that couldn’t be taken away from me.”
In 2022, Moira finally returned to the U.S., earned an associate’s degree, and re-enrolled at the same college she had once left—but this time, she reshaped the experience.
“One thing I did was help form a union on campus. It was a work college. Students cooked, cleaned, landscaped. Taking action, taking control—that’s something I need to do with my frustrations.”
She constructed her own major, as well, piecing together biomedical sciences and, as she put it, “just picking and choosing to get what I needed.”
Following her first spring semester back, she arranged an internship with rural Indiana midwives for the summer, inspired by her mother, who had trained to be a midwife when Moira was a teenager.
“I saw her excitement—getting up in the middle of the night to go to a birth. That probably sparked the interest.”
Now it was her turn.
“It was intense—waking up at 2 a.m., driving across the state. My role was emotional support: rubbing a mother’s back, warming the bath, trying to make her feel less bad. It was so engrossing. I fell in love with that work.”
But alongside beauty came danger.
“A mother and newborn on a neighboring midwife service died while I was there. That was a real wake-up call… I realized: I love this work, but I want the skills to handle the crises. I needed more tools in my toolbox.”
After graduating, she became an EMT in Minneapolis.
“That was my way of testing the waters,” she said, admitting that she was considering additional educational opportunities. “What stood out most was mental health crises—suicide attempts, overdoses. Even in a medically resourced city like Minneapolis, we were driving patients three hours away to find a mental health bed.”
Whether rural or urban, she saw the same cracks people fell through.
“Feeling limited in the care I could provide made me want to step up.”
With the possibility of medical school on her mind, a friend told her about PNWU. She looked it up online.
“’Revolutionizing community health?’ I was like, okay, I’m about that.”
“Institutions of healthcare often fail people, but that phrase gave me hope.” explained Student Dr. Claire. “I have a clear ethical compass, and that doesn’t always align with systemic medicine.”
Inspired, she applied, not because of prestige, but proximity—to real gaps, real need, real possibility. Today, as a first-year Osteopathic Medical Student in Yakima, she feels aligned.
“I like being in a place where people are just working—doing their jobs. I like that environment. And 300 days of sunshine is attractive, for sure.”
As she advances in her education, Student Dr. Claire’s mission becomes ever simpler; bolder: “Be a high-level provider of care in a rural place. Make sure patients—especially women and those in underserved areas—feel listened to. Help them get what they want out of healthcare.”
She took a sip of her coffee and smiled.
“Being of use… that’s what’s guiding me in this moment.”