“He was going to die in a few months and he didn’t care.”

Arjun Bhattarai is talking about a friend he met while Arjun was working as a care coordinator in Buffalo. Interactions with that friend helped set Arjun on the path to becoming a physician assistant at Neighborhood Health Center. 

The friend was a 42 year-old Vietnamese man from West Buffalo, who had come to the U.S. from Vietnam as an orphan. Arjun was care coordinator assigned to the man’s care team. The man was losing weight rapidly and they soon learned he was bleeding internally. They asked him to go to the hospital for infusions but he wouldn’t go. 

“He was very frustrated with life at that time. He wouldn’t talk to anyone at Jericho Road,” explained Arjun, who was working at Jericho Road Community Health Center at the time. “He would only talk to one of the front desk women and eventually, me.”

Arjun shares that there were moments he felt like giving up because the man wouldn’t speak to him, but Arjun was persistent. He would go to the patient’s house just to try to talk with him. Eventually, the man opened up and let Arjun personally take him to the hospital where they found a large tumor on his stomach. Diagnosed with stage four cancer, it was projected that the man would only live a few more months, but he didn’t seem to care. 

Arjun continued to work with him and bring him to Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center for treatments, and the man continued to let him help. In that time, he and Arjun built what became an impactful friendship. The man found someone he could trust, and that person was Arjun. 

The man ultimately lived for another year following his diagnosis. Arjun describes the man in his last year as cheerful, his quality of life in that year was life-changing for him. Arjun visited him in his nursing home the day before Christmas Eve and he was happy. 

The following day, Arjun received a call from a nurse at the nursing home. His friend had passed away. 

“I still wear the cologne that he gave me,” said Arjun. “Every time I wear it, I think of him. I will always remember him.”

His connection with this patient inspired Arjun to continue his education and become a physician assistant. At the time, he was 38 and had three daughters at home. He never thought that becoming a physician assistant would be the next chapter of his journey.  

Originally from Nepal, Arjun didn't plan on coming to the U.S. He wanted to be a doctor in Nepal, but there were only two medical schools he could attend there, and so he decided to continue his education in the U.S. In 2006, he attended Liberty University in Virginia for one semester before moving to Baltimore to attend the University of Maryland. He received his bachelor’s in public health, before moving to Columbus, Ohio. There, he got married and completed his master's in public health. 

Arjun and his wife, who is a nurse practitioner, are active in global mission work. In 2018, Arjun led a group of University at Buffalo medical students on a medical missions camp in the mountains of Nepal. Returning to Nepal, he saw the medical need from a global perspective.

Arjun explains that in Nepal, and other countries abroad, the barriers to care are a lack of doctors, a lack of transportation, and the lack of nearby hospitals. During this trip to Nepal, a man fell off a roof and suffered a neck injury. They tried to fix his neck as best they could, as he didn’t want to go to the hospital because he didn’t have money. Arjun used money from a fundraiser collection to send the man to the hospital. However, the nearest hospital was six hours away. He died on the way there.

“Going back (to Nepal) after nine years in the U.S., and seeing the need for health resources, it made me realize how much more work I want to do,” said Arjun. After returning from that trip, Arjun went to Physician Assistant school, completing the program in spring of 2023. 

He was drawn to Neighborhood Health Center because he wants to care for underserved populations. As a physician assistant at Neighborhood, Arjun treats many kinds of conditions and collaborates with physicians. He says Neighborhood’s model of caring for the whole person aligns with his own values. As a provider and as a person, Arjun not only takes into account his patients’ physical health, but their spiritual and mental health as well. 

“When you reflect back on the people you connect with and impact through this work, there is this joy,” said Arjun. “When you are wired to do this, the next day you wake up and want to do it all over again.”