PA school starts next year, right?

If you were to look in my apartment, you would think I started PA school months ago. The house is covered in books, notes, notepads, pens, and highlighters. The cop thinks I'm crazy. What he doesn't realize is that PA school indeed starts right now!

I've never had a problem with organization, planning, discipline, and good old fashioned hard work! I know I will need these skills, and many more, in order to succeed in school. It's important that I take the year that I have and use it to my advantage. I have a mental outline of what I need to accomplish within that timeframe:

1. Finish my degree: I can do this one of two ways. Either transfer the credits or go back to my alma mater and spend a sememster there. I would prefer the former, but at this point, NOTHING is gonna stop me from getting that worthless, useless piece of paper.

2. Finish my last two prerequisite courses: both are chemistry courses. I think I will do just fine with this.

3. Gain meaningful healthcare experience: I have 500+ hours under my belt so far, but as you all know, my goal is to work in a hospital setting where I can utilize my critical thinking skills and learn simple procedures.

4. Learn as many simple procedures on my own in the meantime: Any courses I can take to learn skills will be a huge benefit to me (ie. phlebotomy next Friday!!!!!)

5. Learn to read simple Chest radiographs: I LOVE reading xrays. To me, this is a really important goal. I want to be able to look at a shadow and tell if it's abnormal or not...then go from there.

6. Learn how to read EKG's: Yes...this was something that was suggested to me. Once you have a really solid reference, EKG's make a whole lot of sense. Not too difficult. Once you know the basics, it's all about reading often so you don't loose the skill.


Not too bad, huh? I want to talk a little about numbers 5 and 6.

I've already mentioned a great website that I use extensively to learn the basics of chest radiography (learningradiology.com). From this site alone, I have learned to see simple things-pnuemothorax, pleural effusion, cardiomegaly, pneumonia, fractures, etc. There are lots of other sources that I use. Looking at lots and lots of xrays is the only way to learn abnormal from normal. I've only touched the tip of the iceberg. And now for EKG's!

These are fun, fun, fun! I got the world renowned book by Dubin yesterday. I'm almost halfway through the book...it's really that easy to read (not the EKG's, the book itself). It's broken down into simple chapters that anyone who has basic reading comprehension can understand. I think some people believe the book is too simplified, and takes away from the mystery surrounding the reading of EKG's. I don't agree. I'm the kind of person who likes to break things down to 2 +2=4...and I must know why! If I don't know why, it doesn't make sense. I think what I appreciate about this book so far is the emphasis on understanding the material rather than memorization. If you are interested in recognizing what the rhythms look like, there are plenty of books that are written that way. If you want to understand why the rhythms look the way they do, get Dubin's book.

Would I recommend this for other pre-PA students. Not at all! Everyone learns differently. These skills, and many more, will be necessary on a daily basis. I've always known that I wanted to work in the ED, and that is why I feel these paticular skills are necessary for me to familiarize myself with. Someone who is interested in nephrology may be interested in studying KUB's. Tailor your learning goals, remembering that PA's are trained as generalists first! I think the goals listed above are more than enough to keep me ahead of the game without overdoing it. Now, if I had bought that yellow Lange book I saw, that would have been another story! Just flipping through that text made my head spin. It's amazing...for every thing we learn, there are 100 things we have yet to learn.