Update + My Top 3 Tips for Clinical Year!

Long time, no post! Since my last post, I have graduated from my PA program and passed the PANCE! I am now a PA-C! It still doesn't feel real! I am currently taking a much needed break at home with my family while looking for a position in dermatology.

As I was brainstorming post ideas, I thought that tips for clinical year could be very helpful. I wish that someone had told me these tips before I started my clinical rotations!

Update | Year 1, Semester 3

I'm still alive guys! PA school hasn't killed me...yet. Haha! I cannot believe I'm already in the 3rd semester of my first year. For those of you who don't know, the first year is the didactic year and the second year is the clinical year. The didactic year consists of all the bookwork (not that we actually read the textbooks...just the PowerPoints...some of which are basically textbooks). The clinical year consists of our clinical rotations (emergency medicine, OB/GYN, internal medicine, etc.). In the program I'm in, we get to choose 2 elective rotations (cardiology, neurology, plastic surgery, dermatology, etc.). My top choices are dermatology and plastic surgery. I'm crossing my fingers that I will get them!

My second semester was probably a little harder than the first semester because we had cardiology, pulmonology, endocrinology, women's health, and G.I. And that was only for one course. We also had a lot of group projects, which took up some of our time as well. I ended up doing really well, and I was so excited that I reached my goal of a 4.0 GPA for the semester! I'm glad that all the studying I did paid off!

As always, please leave any questions or blog post requests below!

-C

Random Rant

Hey guys!

I just wanted to write about something that has been really bothering me lately. In class last week, one of our professors told us that dermatology is the highest paying specialty for PAs. It seems like ever since then I have been hearing that more and more of my classmates want to go into dermatology. It is fine if you want to go into derm if you genuinely are interested in it, but don't just do it for the money. It isn't worth it because you won't be happy. I guess PAs are lucky in this sense since we can switch to another specialty fairly easily. I have been interested in dermatology since I was in high school, and I didn't know that it was a high paying specialty at that time. I would want to work in dermatology even if it was the lowest paying speciality because I am genuinely interested in it. I honestly wish it wasn't the highest paying specialty because that makes it more competitive, and I'm scared that I won't be able to find a job working in derm...but who knows? Maybe I will change my mind after my rotations and find out that I'm even more interested in something else.

If you are in PA school or medical school right now, what area of medicine do you think you want to work in?

-C