Threatened loan forgiveness program is ‘a lifeline’ to this FP—and her patients

June 24, 2025, Scott Wilson — As the AAFP fights to preserve the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program and other federal student debt relief vital to the primary care workforce, hundreds of Academy members are in Washington, D.C., this week to advocate in person for PSLF and other key policy aims.

How did you find your way to the PSLF program?

Shin: I’m an American citizen, but I grew up in the Dominican Republic for 18 years because of my dad's job. My parents still live there in the Caribbean. When I was applying to go to college, I was doing it as an out-of-state applicant for every school. My parents were able to help with one or two years of college, but I had limited access to scholarships. My parents are both Korean, but because I grew up in the Dominican Republic and Spanish is my first language, I also feel ethnically Hispanic. At that time, I wasn’t able to qualify for the Latino scholarships I’d hoped to apply for because of my heritage and how I look. So I was forced to take out loans in order to have any chance of pursuing medicine.

But I don’t regret my loans, because I feel they’ve helped me get to the point where I’m now able to do the medicine that really suits me. I’m at a federally qualified health center, which qualifies me for public loan forgiveness, and without the program I’d be in debt longer. I wouldn't be able to help support my parents as they age. I feel confident I can help take care of them now working at an FQHC even though the pay is less specifically because of the promise of loan forgiveness through PSLF. And that's really meaningful to me, because I get to do a lot here. I get to see uninsured patients. I'm working with lots of Spanish-speaking patients, Korean-speaking patients, underserved patients.

You speak Spanish and Korean?

Shin: Yes.

Were you still in medical school when you found out about the PSLF program?

Shin: Yes. I didn’t go into medical school knowing it would be an option, and by then, I’d already begun accumulating debt, but it seemed I had no choice. I graduated college in 2011 and then took a year off to work simply so I could pay for applications to medical school and for travel to look at those schools. I couldn’t commit to a full-time job because I’d have to tell an employer that I’d need to quit to go to medical school, so I worked four part-time jobs. It was one of the hardest times of my life.

Were any of those jobs before medical school related to health care?

Shin: One was: I was a medical interpreter, Spanish to English. But one of them was at a grocery store, and another was a catering job. The other was just something local. And I applied for hardship assistance because I was applying to about 14 medical schools and had to pay for travel to the interviews.

That sounds like a very intense year of applying to medical schools.

Shin: It was. It was challenging. I cried a lot. And then, from 2013, I was in medical school.

I had a family emergency come up which delayed me a bit, so I ultimately graduated in five years, then started residency in 2018. I finished in 2021 and have been working four years at this FQHC.

Do you think you would have considered another medical specialty if loan forgiveness such as PSLF hadn't been an option?

Shin: Maybe, yes.

How did you find the right place to practice that would qualify for medical school loan forgiveness?

Shin: When I was looking, it was a little bit challenging because I was looking not only at the loan program but also for the population I wanted to serve. There wasn’t an abundance of choices because I wanted to remain full spectrum and still do OB care, but thankfully I found that North Carolina, where I already was for residency, had what I needed.

You have three to four years left in the program as it is now. Assuming the PSLF program remains in place and you keep moving toward forgiveness, what do you envision for yourself at the end of that time?

Shin: My ideal is, honestly, to stay where I am. My husband and I—if the loan forgiveness works—plan to have children, with me changing to working part time but staying where we are. I love practicing so much. My ideal would be to go part time instead of full time, just so that I can spend time with my children when I have them in the future. But you know, if I have to pay off my loans by myself, without the PSLF program, I would probably have to go somewhere else.

What do you feel like you're able to do for your community and your patients because you’re part of PSLF and the program helped guide you to Wilmington?

Shin: Because of PSLF, I'm able to do something that really appealed to me, which is work on population health at a federally qualified health center. The pay is less, and the risk of burnout is higher because there’s so much need, but this is what I want. I want to work with the underserved.

For example, we have a newborn care team, and we go to the hospital to round on the newborns: We give prenatal care and get to deliver the babies ourselves. But we also of course do adult health and geriatric care. So we’re able to serve across many areas of need.

But if I didn’t have the loan forgiveness program, yet also had this lesser income, I would be forced to go to another practice where they pay more but where I'd be unable to work with the underserved in broad-spectrum medicine the way I am now.

That’s how it's moving right now for family medicine —they're asking us to do less but see more patients. If the idea is to see a patient every 10 minutes, how am I going to give a new mom instructions on breastfeeding and tell her about all the normal things to look out for in her baby? How am I going to have an effective encounter with an 80-year-old with a long medication list and slower speech? So it's been very important for me to have this program. It lets me help the people who need it most.

If your members of Congress walked into your clinic today, what would you tell them about PSLF and the risk it’s under right now?

Shin: Honestly, I would say that it is essential, and not just for me. I have colleagues who are enrolled in that program, and I know that it’s how they’re hoping for financial stability, too. It’s how we’re able to feel we’re making the right choice in a career that is incredibly demanding and schooling that is incredibly expensive. It’s a lifeline, and it allows us to move forward in our lives while we’re also trying to help the patients in the greatest need.

I know how to live within my means, but I also want to not worry about whether and when I can afford to have a child. Making decisions without the overwhelming burden of loans is something I know many of us think about all the time.