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Stethoscope & Sparkle

My journey through life as a PA-C

/ PA-C, PA-c/s

Studying for the PANCE

In the 6 months leading up to the PANCE, I had so much anxiety it was insane. The closer I got to taking the PANCE, the more anxious I became. I was convinced that I was going to fail, lose my position in the fellowship, and basically prove correct every person who ever doubted me. It was awful. I actually ended up pushing my PANCE test date back a week because I was having such anxiety related to taking it.

However, in the end, I passed. I actually ended up doing very well.

And now that I’m on the other side (by a few months – oops), I can look back and say that I did all of the right things. My study plan and methods were solid, and the score I got showed that. Do I recommend having a panic attacks and pushing back your PANCE date a week? No…but I do recommend actively assessing yourself and deciding whether or not you actually are READY.

So where do you start?
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/ Food for Thought, Lifestyle, Medicine

Healthy In Medicine

As a PA in the emergency department, I spend a lot of my time thinking about and talking about health – mainly the health of my patients. And a majority of the time, that means I put my own health on the back burner. My shifts are absolutely insane – I’m at an ED that sees more than 150,000 visits a year – and that insanity means that I’m more focused on my patients and making sure I don’t miss something than my own self. Some days I get done and realize I’ve never used the restroom, or never took a sip of water, or ate 9 hours ago and am starving. You don’t need me to tell you how unhealthy that is. 

In addition to being unhealthy, it also makes me a hypocrite. How am I supposed to education my patients on how to be healthy when I don’t follow the rules I preach? How can I recommend avoiding excess sugars when I have a coke sitting back in my office? Or how can I recommend getting 8 hours of sleep when I’m running on 2.5?

That’s I’m super excited to have teamed up with a group of amazing PA bloggers to share with you the campaign #HealthyInMedicine! 

Each of us will be sharing some of the ways we stay healthy in medicine or what being healthy in medicine means to us, and I encourage you to join in! Healthy might mean mental health and what you do to avoid burnout/stress, or it might mean physical health. For me, my mental and my physical health are closely intertwined. 

So how am I working to stay #HealthyInMedicine?

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/ Future PA

Am I ready to apply?

This can be one of the hardest questions any pre-PA student has to answer. Applying is a HUGE undertaking, both in the time / energy it takes and the amount of money! It’s super important to have some method to try and gauge whether or not you’re actually ready to apply and hopefully be successful.

Since I applied during my junior year of undergrad – which meant I was trying to go into PA school without a gap year – I really want to make sure I actually had a chance of getting in! So I developed some steps that helped me figure out what kind of candidate I actually was, and I wanted to share them with you guys!

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/ Future PA

Making the Decision: What school should you go to?

At this point, the acceptances from schools should be coming in (woo!), and while this is SUCH an exciting time, it can also be incredibly stressful. How are you supposed to make the decision on where you want to spend the next 2-3 years of your life? What happens if you make the wrong decision? What should factor into your decision on where to go? I’m going to talk about the factors that helped influence my decision on where to attend PA school, and landed me at my school

Early on in my interview trail, there was one thing I was told that really stuck out to me.

I had a program director who stood up in front of all the interviewees and gave a speech on the “fit” of a program. She told us that while that day was about determining whether we were the right “fit” for school; it was as much about determining if the program was the right “fit” for us. This statement stuck with me through the rest of my interviews at different programs, and is still something that resonants with me today.

Bottom line: You want to choose a school that fits YOU

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/ PA-C, PA-c/s

Fears as a new PA-C

Today is actually my 90 day evaluation, which makes it a fitting time to share this post! I started my APP Fellowship in Emergency Medicine in September, and let me tell you, I had a TON of fears starting out.

I still do.

But with every day, things do get just a little bit better. Every day I feel less overwhelmed and *slightly* less terrified. I feel a little bit more like I actually know what I’m doing and that I’m NOT going to kill someone.

I’ve been asked a lot to share some of the fears I faced during the transition from PA-S to PA-C, and I honestly struggled with how to write this post for some time (which is why its being shared now – roughly 3 months after starting my job). I had SO MANY fears starting out that I was actually embarrassed to share them with all y’all. Would you guys think I was insane if I actually wrote down all the fears I had? I’d like to think that I seem on top of things, and I was worried that if I shared my fears I wouldn’t seem like I knew what I was doing. And then how could I possible have a blog were I posted tips?

So I put the post on the back burner and ignored the requests I got asking me to do this. It was the easy way out. And I’m disappointed in myself that I did it.

Part of my goals for 2019 is to be more active here on Stethoscope and Sparkle and impact others lives in a positive way. And so, I am finally doing this long over-due post because this is what all y’all have requested!

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/ Future PA

What kind of Patient Care Hours should I do?

This is the question that EVERY future PA asks at one point. How are you supposed to know what you want to do to get experience when so many of you have just started actively pursuing your future career of becoming a physician assistant?

Most schools require or strongly encourage that applicants have PCE. Originally, it started out as a requirement because PA school was so quick when compared to Medical school, and the admissions committee wanted to feel confident that applicants already had some medical knowledge and experience interacting with patients. This has kind of become outdated, but schools do still use it for these purposes!

To help all y’all figure out the best route to take, I’ve put together some information on the most common choices of what people like to do for Patient Care Experience. I even polled my classmates to give y’all an idea of the distribution from my PA school (keep in mind this was application cycle of 2015-2016).

At the end of the day, it is so important that you do your own research to determine what the best route for YOU is!

This is the distribution from my class! I did combine all the different aspects of research together as there were a few different kinds
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