JENNIFER VIVAR – LEAD MEDICAL ASSISTANT, MCKINNEY, TEXAS

Our employees are all patient care champions, but some go the extra mile and we want to give them the recognition they deserve. They embody the PPOA values known as S.I.T.E. – Safety, Integrity, Teamwork, Empathy – which informs our service to patients and the community through high quality health care. 

Sometimes people find the medical profession by chance; others just seem born to do it. Jennifer Vivar, lead medical assistant based in the PPOA McKinney, Texas, clinic, falls into that category.

“I love helping people. It’s a gift I have. I put others before myself,” she says. “I’m very, very kindhearted.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find a single person who would disagree with her self-assessment.

“She’s very engaged in providing exceptional patient experiences for the patients in McKinney,” says her regional supervisor, Rhonda Boysen.

Born in Dallas and raised in the small town of Little Elm, Texas, Vivar was the first among her siblings to graduate from high school. She immediately enrolled in PCI Health Training Center and earned her Certified Medical Assistant certificate in 2015. She did her externship at PPOA in its now-defunct Prosper office and was hired full-time.

After working at a few PPOA clinics she came to McKinney in 2016.  Recently promoted to lead medical assistant, she now trains new hires for the role, but the McKinney clinic is her home base.

“Jennifer is always a team player and has a strong desire to grow her career path,” says her supervisor, Rhonda Boysen. “She has the respect of her teammates and they have wonderful collaboration amongst their team.”

“The clinic is our secondary home – actually more like our primary home because we spend more time here than anywhere else,” Jennifer Vivar laughs. “We get along so well. Patients see that and it makes them more comfortable.”

The patients – she always comes back to the patients.

“As a medical assistant you really do bond with patients,” she says. “They become like family because you see them every month and they tell you about their lives. Most important, you want them to be comfortable.”