Well it has been 9 months since my last entry and whoa what a difference. I am questioning the accuracy of this blog's title now since I am a FULL-FLEDGED PA-S (Physician Assistant-Student) and well into didactics.
I just finished taking my MSK-Neuro Exam and I am happy to say that I passed (high 80 percentile). We also took our midterm exam last week and boy was it brutal! I made it in the high 80 percentile also and am now averaging a solid B/B+ avg in the program thus far. It looks like I am fairing well. Now, it would be irresponsible of me to not do a quick recap of this year since my last entry so here is the abridged version:
In March I was accepted into one of the oldest PA programs in the country-Our founder was actually one of the ORIGINAL instructors for the Duke PA pilot program in the 60's but I digress.
Anyway, I attended orientation in June and met my fellow classmates-We all LOVED each other then, today still love each other but not "IN" love with each other.
In Sept we started the program hitting the ground running with "power lectures" on Immunology and Infectious Disease. We were barraged with lectures and practical skills workshops EVERY day of EVERY week.
We performed "modest" physical exams on each other, showed med students how to draw blood, admin injections etc.
Every week was a new System and with it came an exam based ont he previous week. Some of my classmates began exhibiting undesirable traits like "complainitis" which proved to be quite contagious-I even found myself to have a mild case of it. The tx of choice: Whine-Inhibitors and STHU-Agonists given stat.
This week we were given the opportunity to do Rectal, Breast and Genital exams on LIVE patients!!! What an awesome opp to actually feel the human body and apply what we had learned in class.
Now that I am a week past midterm, I can truly say this has been some adventure so far. I have 5 more weeks of didactics and then promptly start clinical rotations in Family Practice and Internal Medicine in January. I am well on my way! Be sure and stay tuned...
