OJ the PA

I flipped the page over on a 2019 calendar before I tossed it in the trash today. January 2019. In big, all capitalized letters I had written "MADISON INTERVIEW." Wow, that feels like it was an eternity ago. Interviews are such an exciting and stressful time. I spent hours and hours drafting answers to sample questions and made sure my "key messages" came across in my answers. I practiced answering them out loud to be sure I could confidently get my thoughts out. When I heard back from School A about an interview, I was thrilled . I knew the competition was going to be stiff, but having a public relations and communications background, I feel like interviewing is one of my strong suits. I prepared like crazy and went for the day-long interview. We toured the school, talked with current students and one former student, enjoyed a casual lunch, watched a presentation about the school, and then completed our interviews. I interviewed the with program director and ...

Even if not required by all programs, volunteering and shadowing are often strongly encouraged for your PA school applications. Here's a quick little run-down of how I chose and completed by volunteer hours and shadowing experiences: Shadowing I have the lucky experience to have worked in a hospital as a dietitian prior to going back to PA school. What this meant for me was making all sorts of good connections over the years with APPs and doctors. It's much easier after you've had the opportunity to built some rapport to ask for shadowing experiences. Plus, coordinating the ability to shadow was super easy when I was already an employee of the institution I was shadowing in. Here's who I shadowed: An internal medicine nurse practitioner - we worked closely together so we already had a great working relationship; plus, she also ended up writing a letter of recommendation for me! An abdominal transplant physician assistant - this was actually a hook-up from anothe...

I MADE IT. Two semesters of didactic down, three to go. After spending the summer on campus , this was my first semester as a distance learner, and I'll admit that it was quite challenging. Here are some of my main take-aways from my fall semester: PA school is so time-consuming This obviously isn't new information to me. I knew going into this that PA school was going to be my life and I wasn't going to have much time for anything else. I've heard the stories from former students about missing weddings and other events or studying during family gatherings. But, guys, actually living it is so much harder than I expected. Maybe you read my post about what my day-to-day schedule looks like . Study, work, eat, study, sleep, repeat. It's been a grind. Today, I watched probably seven hours straight of TV shows because I didn't know what else to do with myself. Yes, Netflix, I'm still watching. The amount of information you learn will blow your mind Psyc...

One of the intentions I recently set for 2020 was to stop spending needlessly. There's a really important reason for this -- clinical year is coming. And while I may have the luxury of working a part-time job right now, that's going to go out the window as soon as clinical year rolls around. Ultimately, what I want is to have enough money saved that I can stay in my house without having to get a roommate for that time (I'm getting too old and like my personal space too much for a roommate anymore!). I had a shocking revelation when I was paying my credit cards. Sure, it started because I got a notification that said I've spent less in November than in recent months (cool!), but upon further investigation, I was asking myself, "but how did you even spend this much ??" In November, I had managed to spend an average of $30 per day . And in previous months, that figure has loomed closer to $40. And that didn't include my mortgage, car payment, or utiliti...

Wow, it has been a whirlwind the last few weeks. Between work (and pulling some extra hours here and there), school and life, I feel like I blinked and November was over. Quick updates? I kicked butt on my endocrine module exams, did pretty well on my ENT exam, and now need to survive one more Big 3 exam (dermatology, yikes) and a couple smaller exams before I can finally take a much-needed break. Almost there!! The end of the year is fast approaching, and I'm a big fan of reflecting on how the previous year went. And wow, it has been a whirlwind year! If I think about how I thought 2019 would go in January, it definitely looks a lot different here in December. Yes, I started the year knowing I was going to PA school, but I ended up taking a spot at a different school and starting three months earlier. I left my dietitian job at a hospital I loved (I miss my dietitian, nurse, NP and doctors friends so much!). I moved into a tiny studio apartment on "fraternity row...