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Ohio native Dr. Randy Pastor knew around age 12 that he wanted to become a doctor.

His dream was even more specific than that — he decided during the sixth grade that he wanted to be a family doctor in a small town.

“My whole life has been aimed at accomplishing that goal,” said Pastor, who joined the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) in July as the first full-time medical director of the UCA Student Health Clinic. “I played sports, and I was good at them and I enjoyed it, but I mainly played so that I could get a scholarship to go to college and medical school.”

After growing up in Girard, Ohio, about 70 miles southeast of Cleveland, Pastor earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Hiram College, a small liberal-arts college in Ohio.

“I was the very first person even to go to college in my whole family, cousins and everyone,” said Pastor. “Since then, my brothers have gone to college ... but I was the first to pave the way.”

The next step on Pastor’s path to becoming a family doctor was earning a medical degree from Ohio University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine. Though he had dreams of being a doctor from a young age, he didn’t know about the option of osteopathic medicine until he was in college.

“My grandfather was a chiropractor, and being very involved in sports, I’d get beat up in football and he would always work on me, and I’d feel better within a day or two,” Pastor said. “So I knew how much manipulation helped. Our training in four years of medical school involved learning different types of physical manipulation. It’s very similar to chiropractic techniques, but more like physical therapy.

“Over time, most D.O.s designate most of the physical manipulation to physical therapists and as medicine has advanced, it’s become more specialized in the last 20 years,” he said, leaving D.O.s less time for the physical manipulation aspect.

According to Ohio University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine, the training of D.O.s is based on four basic principles, the body is a single unit, the body has intrinsic self-regulatory and healing mechanisms, the body’s structure and function are interrelated and disease is an effect, not a cause.

Pastor earned his medical degree in 1986, and in 1987 was on his way to Hope, Ark. to begin his medical career.

“My wife and I came through the state on our honeymoon. I loved how natural the state is, and there is such a need for physicians,” he said of Arkansas.
After spending nine years practicing medicine in Hope, Pastor was recruited to join a large family practice in Jacksonville. He spent four years working at Jacksonville Medical Clinic, primarily with a senior health center. When the senior health center shut down, Pastor became the first hospitalist at Rebsamen Medical Center in Jacksonville. During Pastor’s time at Rebsamen, the hospital added three more full-time hospitalists.

After seven years as a full-time hospitalist, Pastor decided he was ready for a change. “It’s very demanding hours, and a demanding job,” he noted.

Part of his interest in the UCA position dated to his time in medical school, where he completed an extra year of pre-graduate fellowship family practice. He spent that year teaching first and second-year medical students anatomy and osteopathic manipulation, as well as assisting in osteopathic clinics.

“I always loved dealing with students when I taught for one year ... I always in the back of my mind had a desire to get back to a university,” he said.

Previously, nurse practitioners served the UCA community, with a physician on site every two weeks, but UCA wanted a full-time physician on campus and found Pastor a good match with the school’s mission. “He’s a terrific doctor and we’re really excited to have him on campus full-time for our students, faculty and staff,” said Kristy Watkins-Carter, who works in UCA’s Division of Academic Outreach. “I go to him myself, and he’s just very good and able to relate well to the students.”

The UCA Student Health Clinic is available exclusively to UCA students, faculty and staff members.

After more than 20 years in Arkansas, Pastor said he and his wife, Kathy, consider it their home. All three of their children — Jesse, a sophomore at UCA, and Hannah and Sarah, a junior and a freshman respectively at Abundant Life School in North Little Rock — were born in Arkansas. Today they make their home in Sherwood.

Pastor’s father and stepmother still live in Ohio, which he said he and his family visit about once a year, but he moved his mother and her husband to Jacksonville last year.

The Pastors are involved in their church, The Church in North Little Rock, where Pastor serves as an elder. He also acts as the physician for the Abundant Life basketball team, traveling to all the games and attending to any injuries. His daughters both play basketball and run track for the school.

“I think I really wanted to go to an area with a great need, a big need for medical care,” Pastor responded when asked why Arkansas appealed to him. “I never got into this for the money. I always got into it to really be helpful to people, and to serve my community.”



February 2008

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