Joyce Francisco is a fourth-year student at San José State University, majoring in Kinesiology: Rehabilitation Sciences, and will be graduating this Spring 2026. She has been accepted into SJSU's Master of Science in Occupational Therapy program beginning Fall 2026. She comes from Saipan, a 12-mile island in the Pacific, and in her free time she loves hiking, watching movies, and baking!
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Joyce's path into healthcare was shaped early by growing up on Saipan, an island she describes as devoid of universities, malls, or regional hospitals. The constant shortage of physicians and mid-level healthcare providers meant that she witnessed firsthand the very real harm caused by an under-resourced healthcare system. That experience planted the seed for everything that followed. As a Personal Care Attendant for more than a year, she worked with older adults aged 80 to 95 diagnosed with conditions including Lewy body dementia, Alzheimer's, orthostatic hypertension, and macular degeneration, assisting clients with daily living activities such as eating, dressing, and bathing, as well as providing mobility support and medication monitoring.
One of her most meaningful contributions came through her work with a client living with severe vision impairment due to macular degeneration. Joyce provided in-home safety support and environmental modifications to help her client maintain independence, including placing textured stickers on her client's phone and setting up an emergency contact so that a simple press could connect her to her daughter without needing to see the screen. Before this, her client had simply been waiting for her daughter to call. Weeks later, when the client fell at 2AM, she was able to call for help on her own. That small, thoughtful intervention made all the difference.
The role pushed Joyce well outside her comfort zone in other ways, too. Every Saturday, she baked with her client, despite having grown up in a home in Saipan that never had an oven. Her client, an amazing baker known for her fudge brownies and sweet potato casserole, brought that tradition to life each week. Two months into the position, the client presented Joyce with a handwritten letter she had spent hours drafting, tucked inside a Trader Joe's envelope adorned with Joyce's favorite flowers. Inside, she wrote: "Joyce, I've liked having fun baking together, watching movies, and you letting me win at poker. But more than that, thank you for giving me the gift of believing I could be a normal, fun person again."
Moments like these have made Joyce increasingly certain that holistic, long-term care is her calling. She is drawn to building lasting relationships with the same clients rather than seeing different individuals each day, which is a large part of why Occupational Therapy stood out to her. She currently serves as an executive board member for both the Pre-Occupational Therapy and Pre-Physical Therapy Club at SJSU, where she mentors prospective healthcare students in finding their own passion. Every shift, she says, she hears stories from clients in their 80s and 90s about their travels, family, and friends. "Keep an open heart," she reflects, "and they'll help you more than you help them."