OJ the PA

Spring semester is in full swing now (already have one exam done!), and I want to be sure that this semester is a good one. Looking back on my summer and fall semesters , I've come up with a list of things that helped me do well. Probably should try and stay on track with these things, hey? 1. Have a consistent sleep-wake pattern.  Forgive me for sounding like a grandma (okay, I'm kind of a grandma), but I totally reworked my sleeping habits and it has really made a difference. Not only does it help me prioritize getting enough sleep ( which is so vitally important, omg ), it allowed me to break up my studying . I find that studying for long stretches of time is hard. I get distracted easily. So instead, I wake up real early (like, alarm starts going off at 4:55am and it's a** in desk by 5:15) so I can study for 1-1.5 hours before I go to work. Then when I'm done with work, I have about 3 hours of study time in the evening, and I'm in bed by 9:30, leaving me ...

As a part-time PA student, I have time to keep a job. So I've been working at a new hospital as a dietitian ever since I moved back from my summer on campus. It's been a huge adjustment -- I've dealt with some imposter syndrome , done a ton of training, and was finally starting to feel like I was getting in the groove. When I was originally hired, I was told I would be in cardiology/neurology. But then due to some staffing changes, I was offered the chance to job share with a dietitian who covered the Surgical ICU. I was elated. I cover the SICU at least two days each week, and it's a blast. The nurses are great, my pharmacists have been amazing support, and I've learned so much from the physician teams. I get to round with them, and we all have great discussions during this process. It wasn't uncommon for an attending to grab a marker and start drawing a heart on a patient's glass door to explain physiology. I was learning so much that I even brought a ...

The new year feels like such a clean slate. I've had time to rest and recover and reset my mind after a very long semester (lots of time on the couch with puppy cuddles definitely helped). As I mentioned before, one of my intentions for the new year was to be more budget conscious. And because I have some lofty savings goals, the idea of a No Buy Challenge really took hold. Here's what I've learned already, less than one week into the challenge: 1) Start soon after you decide to do the challenge.  I found myself "prepping" for my no-buy by buying things. A pair of new yoga pants, a weighted blanket I've always wanted to try. Yes, I was smart about finding good deals on these things, but it seemed like I took advantage of a big loophole from the get-go. 2) I definitely want to buy a lot of things I don't need.  Going into this challenge, I knew I'd be saying "no" to myself a lot. But wow, it's like daily. I busted a long phone char...

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...