Skip to main content

"Hell Week," Electives and Bear Spray

I just finished what I'm lovingly calling "Hell Week." 

  • Monday: PAEA Emergency Medicine Exam and Pediatrics Exam (2 hours a piece)
  • Tuesday: End of Rotation OSCE exam
  • Wednesday: study day
  • Thursday: End of Curriculum OSCEs - this included a technical skills test on suturing, two small exams regarding diagnostics, an OSCE and a patient education OSCE
  • Friday: End of Curriculum PAEA Exam (five. hours. long.) 

By the end of the week, I was wiped out. I think I had a glass of wine (or two) while I watched Ozark Friday night. It's a bit of a blur, haha. 


I know that I passed my End of Rotation stuff, because I needed to pass before I could take my End of Curriculum exams. But sadly, I won't know the results of those exams until this week Friday. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

And while it feels like I'm done, now that those exams are over, it's not over yet. I am starting my last two rotations -- I'll be doing three weeks in orthopedic urgent care and then four weeks in pediatric urgent care. I think these rotations will help prepare me for my future family medicine position. 

I'd be lying if I was counting down the days until graduation (59 days) and taking the PANCE (73 days). And after three long years of hard work, I probably deserve a vacation before I start my job, right? So my sister and I are planning a trip to Banff!

I told her I was not at all interested in camping, but would be fine with a hotel stay and driving to our hiking destinations. But wouldn't you know it, we found this fun little campsite with trapper's tents and picnic tables and rentable camping gear. 

And, you know, some warnings about how not to attract bears. I have a bit of a sorted history with bears, but that's a story for another time...

I digress! Looks like I've be roughing it in the Canadian wilderness in a few short months. Wish me luck, because I don't think I've been camping since I went camping in my backyard when I was like 10 years old. And somehow I don't think it counts if you find an really long extension cord and bringing a small TV into the tent. 

*me suddenly realizing I probably won't have cell phone reception* 😟

Thanks for reading,

Olivia

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Three months: My life as a new PA-C

As I'm sure many new PA's can attest to, the end of PA school is a bit of a blur. One minute you're finishing up classes and studying for the PANCE and the next you're ... here? Three months into practice and wondering how it happened.  Graduation was on May 13, 2022, and that was a really wonderful day. My parents came to support me, I enjoyed beers on the terrace with my friends, and I felt wonderful standing on the other side of three years of grad school.  After a quick day of relaxation, I hit the ground running with my studying. I stuck with my plan for the most part, and felt equal parts "I can't possibly study any more!" and "But I'm not ready!" when exam day arrived.  I happened to be at the very same testing center as a fellow student, so when we finished our exams, we headed over to the local mexican restaurant to enjoy tacos and well-deserved margaritas. Hilariously, our brains were so absolutely melted from testing that we could

Rotation #3: Internal Medicine (and pondering my future)

When I decided to go back to school to be a physician assistant, internal medicine is what I had in my mind. As a clinical dietitian, I had the chance to collaborate with APPs and loved the idea of being able to provide that kind of care to patients. One of the APPs who I had the chance to work with often while I was a dietitian became my preceptor for this rotation! It was very cool to be standing in the exact spot I had imagined back then.  Back then, though, I did not appreciate just how challenging this job would be! I worked with a small private practice group that has privileges at various area hospitals, and my preceptor and I were based at one large metro-area hospital. The service was crazy busy the entire time I was there, and that was both good and bad. I got to see a ton of different diagnoses, a wide variety of patients, and was challenged to be relatively independent. But dang, it was hard to keep up most of the time. Honestly, I worked more and was more exhausted during

Rotation #2: General Surgery

Another one bites the dust! It's crazy to me that another rotation (and therefore all of my surgery experience) has come to an end.  If I want to be one thing, it's totally honest. This rotation was challenging . I had a ton of fun during orthopedics -- I felt like a lot of providers and residents wanted to show off how great their subspecialties were. And they succeeded! But I didn't get pimped very much and I wasn't seeing patients independently.  That all changed in a big way when I went to general surgery. Did I learn a lot because of this? Absolutely. Did I feel like an absolute pile of garbage most days because I felt like I couldn't do or answer a damn thing right? Yes. Did I talk to my classmates and get some reassurance that many rotations feel like this? Also yes. Thanks for making me feel less alone, guys. The days were long and the list of things to study was even longer. But here we are, one rotation down. We've survived, so far at least! One big t