Amy Snow, PA-C

Amy Snow, physician assistant-certified, is a practitioner on the move.

Since March, she’s opened Snow Dermatology, taken her free mobile clinic to teenagers in rural Central Oregon and has offered free skin cancer screenings in remote areas of Oregon, as well as farmers markets. And that’s only the present. What’s she’s done in the past is equally impressive.

Snow, originally from Idaho, worked as a dermatologist in Beverly Hills, California, before moving to Oregon, eventually settling in Bend. Her practice on SW Bond Street focuses on medical, surgical and cosmetic dermatology for adults and pediatrics, treating everything from acne and rashes to skin cancer.

She founded her nonprofit, Project Happy Face, in California.

“I started Project Happy Face in 2009, which began with a simple, joyful exchange. I would treat the teenagers’ acne in return for a smile.” The mobile outreach unit of her practice offers services to teens in underserved rural areas. This year it’s at Culver High School the first Tuesday of the month and Redmond and Ridgeview High Schools the fourth Tuesday of each month. She also travels out to Condon, Mitchell and Fossil on occasion. Snow says she sees, on average, 50 young smiles through Project Happy Face each month.

“I see how acne can condemn a young person’s confidence, especially those that are disadvantaged or under-resourced or geographically challenged, because they don’t have access to specialty care or dermatology care. In smaller towns there aren’t even over-the-counter medications present at the grocery store available to them. So instead of identifying them as disadvantaged or under-resourced, we are flipping that narrative. We want to celebrate them as a future leader by helping them feel proud in their own skin,” Snow explains.

Her mobile unit also partners with the Oregon Health & Science University Knight Cancer Institute, traveling around the state for skin cancer screenings to locations like the Pendleton Round-Up. She also volunteers at Volunteers in Medicine, which provides health care to low-income, working adults in Central Oregon who have no medical insurance or means to pay for care.

“I think giving back is the most important thing we can do, and empowering our youth and building bridges, and I think every mile that we travel and everything we need just reminds us that health care is not just about medicine, but it’s about community and humanity.”

Snow also travels to California once a year for a three-day health fair called Care Harbor Los Angeles. Practitioners like Snow offer free care to anyone without insurance. After the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Snow traveled there to help as well. She spent 10 days treating up to 70 patients a day, some of whom walked overnight to see her.

“After relocating to Oregon and looking at the map and realizing the amount of rural citizens that are not receiving health care or are close to a health care center — I believe it’s close to 900,000 people in the state of Oregon — I realized that we don’t have to travel internationally anymore to serve, because we can bring care to the rural communities across Oregon,” Snow says.

Snow is comfortable in remote areas, having grown up on a farm in Idaho. She now lives in Powell Butte with a number of pets including a guinea pig, a bunny, cats and a dog named Annie who may be the most popular face at her office.

Access to healthy, fresh food is also a passion of hers, which is why she’s on the board of the Bend Farmers Market. “Locally grown food and locally rooted care, in my opinion, go hand in hand, and it’s all about building a connected community.”

Snow goes on to say, “I believe that healing doesn’t start in the clinic. I feel it starts in the community. So the people that I serve are my neighbors, my mentors, my inspiration. They are the first responders that are keeping us safe. I think that giving back isn’t an obligation, it’s a joy, and I’m honored to be a provider and just plant seeds of hope and confidence and connection in every corner of our community.”

Her dedication hasn’t gone unnoticed. This year she received two awards — the Society of Dermatology Physician Associates DermPA of the Year 2025 and the Oregon Medical Association 2025 Physician Associate-Citizen of the Year.

This article appears in the Source October 2, 2025.