MCHC Health Centers recently welcomed Pamela Di Franco, a family nurse practitioner specializing in family medicine. Di Franco, who moved to Mendocino County from the Bay Area, started on New Year’s Day and primarily works at Hillside Health Center in Ukiah, while also seeing patients at Little Lake Health Center in Willits. She looks forward to advising people about their health, especially acute illnesses and chronic conditions, and making plans to help them feel better.
Di Franco has dedicated her career to caring for underserved populations in California, bringing nearly a decade of experience in community-based healthcare to MCHC. Most recently, she served as a family nurse practitioner at Davis Street Primary Care Clinic, a federally qualified health center in San Leandro. Prior to that, Di Franco spent nearly three years as the only nurse practitioner in a busy family practice in Antioch supporting an economically disadvantaged population. She started her career in 2015 as a clinic nurse manager at RotaCare Pittsburg Free Medical Clinic, where she managed the clinical nursing practice and supervised two dozen clinical volunteer staff members.
“Community-based healthcare is my passion,” Di Franco said. “Even when I was working in a private practice, it was with a physician who shared my values around serving the underserved.”
After visiting family members in Ukiah, Di Franco and her husband began considering a move to the area so their daughters, now 7 months old and 3 years old, could be closer to their grandparents.
“I grew up in the Santa Cruz mountains surrounded by nature, so relocating here wasn’t a tough decision,” Di Franco said. “While we were visiting my husband’s parents in Ukiah, I realized that our kids would have a better childhood if we raised them around our family, so we went back to the Bay and started looking for jobs.”
Di Franco knew from the beginning that she wanted to work at MCHC. “From the time I first reached out, MCHC was my number-one choice,” she said. “They’ve been around for more than 30 years, so they’re an essential part of the community. Most importantly, the clinic’s commitment to providing high-quality healthcare to everyone who needs it aligns with my background and personal goals.”
MCHC’s team-based approach to care, which gives patients access to a group of dedicated providers and staff who collaborate to provide holistic care, is another reason Di Franco was eager to work at MCHC, especially after she met some of the providers and staff.
“As I interviewed with more and more people, everyone was so lovely, I couldn’t wait to work with them,” she said. “My work environment is really important to me, and since everyone I met during the interview process was so kind and like-minded, I knew that I’d be happy at MCHC.”
One of the people Di Franco met was MCHC Medical Director Justin Ebert, who is now her supervisor. He said, “We’re excited to have Pamela join the MCHC family. She brings a wealth of knowledge and an incredible passion for community health.”
When she is not busy helping people plan their way to better health, Di Franco enjoys spending time with her family. She also loves her animals, including four dogs and a flock of chickens, which she says are her latest obsession. Di Franco loves to garden, too, and enjoys having a little more room to grow fruits and vegetables in Mendocino County than she had in the Bay Area.
Di Franco earned two degrees from San Francisco State University: a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2013 and a Masters of Science in Nursing with a Minor in Community Health in 2014. She also received a Family Nurse Practitioner Post-Masters Certificate from the University of California, San Francisco in 2019.
