Life Of A PA - A Day In The Life Of A Physician Assistant|The Every Day Life Of A Physician Assistant

Day 144:

Wednesday January 21, 2009

A somewhat early start to the day at 9am, we started with a lecture in pharmacology.  I have started to print out the lectures or powerpoints and I realized just have HUGE these lectures are.  Something like 100 slides.

Next was a lecture at 10am-noon on pericarditis by Mr. Carbon Stewart.  He is actually one of the people who interviewed me when I was trying to get into PA school.  Overall he is a very playful guy.  I love it when he has smart comments for people.  Its like they just flow right out of him.

The rest of the afternoon was devoted to surgery.  We started with a lecture from a current PA student on her research rotation lecturing about “wound healing.”

After that we had to prove to the teacher or one of the teaching assistants that we could tie our knots.  This was no problem and only took a few minutes.  That being said, we actually got out a little early today!  Which is great news considering the first pharmacology test is tomorrow.

Day 143:

Tuesday January 20, 2009

Today was my second day at Pain Management.  I continued today to shadow the PA to get a better idea of how she handles the patients.  The patients are a unique group.  Some of them have major pain, while others don’t have that much pain but are seeking a way to get rid of the pain that they do have.  She is also teaching me how to spot a drug seeker.  It seems that some people can be very good at hiding the fact they are seeking.  Something else interesting happened today.  It came up that I play guitar and I was told that the doctor is a world famous violin player.  He used to play for a group called the Dixie Dregs.  His name is Dr. Allen Sloan.  We talked for a bit about music and whatnot.  When I come back next week he wants to talk some more.  I’m just humbled to be able to talk to someone that was is such a great musician.

After that I went to my first lecture of the day at 1pm.  The lecture was given by the father of one of our students.  He is a doctor and gave a lecture on atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease.  He was a very nice guy and the lecture went well.

The last lecture of the day was given by the same person teaching surgery, Mr. Robert Stowers…what a cool guy

He lectured on angina and coronary artery disease.

After that long day I was ready to get home and rest for a while before doing it all over again tomorrow.

Day 142:

Friday January 16, 2009

I’m not a fan of getting up early on Friday, but then again, its Friday

We started out at 8:30am-11am with a lecture by a PA-C that has been working with one of the best cardiologist in the nation.  She gave us a very informative lecture on “diagnostic approach to valvular heart disease.”  I have to say, its nice to see PA come back and lecture that also graduated from the program.  It almost gives you a feeling of hope.  To know that you too will one day in the not so distant future be a practicing PA and be able to come back and teach if that is what you desire.

From 11-12 we had another pharmacology lecture.  Its Friday….nuff said!

From 1-3pm, our last lecture of the day, the PA that lectured earlier in the day came back and lectured on “congestive heart failure/inpatient vs outpatient/acute vs chronic.”  Again, another great lecture and a lot of stuff to learn.  I think this weekend would be a good time to go over the EKG book from last semester and make sure I have all that down.

And its time to celebrate……………..its a 3 day weekend!  Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day so we get a 3 day weekend.  YAY!

Day 141:

Thursday January 15, 2009

So Today was our first Clinical Medicine exam of the semester.  It was our first Cardiology exam of which we have two.  The next exam is the week after next and is comprehensive.  I guess that really isn’t such a bad thing, being comprehensive.  As one of our professors says “you need to know this stuff so you can’t forget it.”

All and all the test wasn’t very bad.  We actually had quite a few EKGs to read.  I missed a few of those, but got a few right as well.   There were also a few ACLS questions on the test, but nothing too hard.  I think we got really lucky that the professor went over things with us on Tuesday.  She basically gave us an outline of what to expect and the test pretty much followed that outline.

So all and all…I did well on the test!

Now time to sit back and watch some TV.  I think i’ll call it TV thursdays!

Day 140:

Wednesday January 14, 2009

A somewhat early start to the day today…9am!  I know, I shouldn’t be complaining. :)  We started with pharmacology and I have come to another conclusion for this class.  It is hard to know what to study.  You may study the book for the next test and then nothing from the book is on the test or it doesn’t help much.  You may study the powerpoint slides presented in class and you may ace the test or you may not do well at all…as it seems the information may come from anywhere.  I guess its all about studying the right thing and a little bit of luck.

Next from 10-12am was an ACLS lecture.  We went over Acute Coronary Syndromes for those two hours.  I finally bought the book we need for the ACLS lectures and test.  Its a tiny book, but it carries a somewhat big price.  I think the book ran about $50 and its all of 142 pages.  WOW!!  It would be a dream come true to have someone sponsor me or donate money via this blog to help me pay for books ;)  I’m sure every student with a blog is saying that!

After lunch was our second lecture in Surgery.  We had a lecture on preoperative evaluation.  I really enjoyed the information.  Surgery and everything that goes with it just seems to make sense to me.

After the lecture we just practiced doing our knots.  I have been trying to practice in my free time so i’m actually getting quite good at it.  Just can’t wait to learn to do sutures.

I get a lot of e-mails asking about  how much Physician Assistants make and how that compares to how much Physicians or a M.D.  makes.  I’ve decided to address this question in a formal post…so here it is.

If you are looking for how much a Physician Assistant makes check out the article I typed a while ago by click the following link…(link will open in a new window so you can read and compare to the M.D. pay I present here)

http://www.lifeofapa.com/?p=28

and to check out PA salaries by specialty look at this article:

http://www.lifeofapa.com/?p=302

Now, after reading those posts or while having them open; you can check out the reported base salaries of physicians based on net income below.

The last column would be the max pay reported.

SOURCE: Allied Physicians, Inc., Los Angeles Times and Rand McNally
To read more check out:
http://www.allied-physicians.com/salary_surveys/physician-salaries.htm#top

I hope that gives you a good idea of how PA salary stacks up against physicians salaries.  I think PAs do very well, but that may be a little bias since I am going to be one

Day 139:

Tuesday January 13, 2009

So today was my first day of small groups.  I don’t think I talked about it before, but we got the list of where we were going to be on Friday.  I am assigned to a PA that works in Pain management.  So, today was my first day.  I was there at 8am until noon.  We basically spent some time getting to know each other.  She actually graduated from the MCG PA program some years ago.  Other than that I just shadowed her for the day to get an idea of what she does.  I also met the doctor.  He is a really interesting guy.  He has tons of clocks on his wall.  All clocks that he has gotten from Pharm. reps.  I think this will be a good smal group!

After my first small group I headed back to school for a lecture on cardiomyopathies.  Another fun lecture.

The last lecture of our short day was again for clinical medicine and covered the assessment and plan of vascular disorders.  We also did a small test review since our first test of the semester is in clinical medicine and is this Thursday!

Day 138:

Monday January 12, 2009

I don’t know if I have said it before, but while in PA school you come to love the weekends.  Well, you actually come to love Friday because that means the work part of the week is coming to an end.

We started the day with more pharmacology.  That was followed by our Monday’s only class, Clinical physiology.  As with last week we are still covering neurology in clinical physiology.  I love this subject when we covered it last semester and still love it.  It just makes sense.

After lunch we continued on with our clinical medicine class.  We started with a lecture on pediatric cardiac cases.  I always find it interesting how there are always extra things or things that change when you talk about pediatrics.  I guess that is just the way it is.

The next and last lecture of the day was Lab evaluation…again for clinical medicine class.  We covered the different cardiac enzymes and who they could be used to tell if a cardiac event is occurring.  So far I like cardiology as much as I have liked neurology.  Cardiology as seems to make sense.  Now if just I can remember all of this cardiology stuff when the time comes on the boards.  But i’m sure it will happen

Day 137:

Friday January 9, 2009

We started our Friday off with a lecture in ACLS at 9am on PEA or pulseless electrical activity.  In other words, you don’t feel a pulse, but you still see electrical activity.

Next was another pharmacology lecture.  Not much to say here.

The last lecture of the day from 1-3pm was again in ACLS.  We covered aystole and then practiced everything we have done so far.  Asystole is quite cool.  Its what you always see on shows like ER or Scrubs.  Most of the time you you watch the show though they say “flat line” and not asystole.

Day 136:

Wednesday January 7, 2009

We start the day with a 9am lecture in pharmacology.  I looked ahead in the book last night and saw that we will probably be covering antibacterials at the end of this semester.  I really hope to get to those sooner as it seems these are drugs that are used most often.

After pharmacology we had our real first lecture for ACLS.  Today’s topic was on ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia.  Nothing too too complicated, but still a challenge.  We actually have quizzes that we will have to turn in.  The person teaching ACLS also likes to include people in the lectures.   By this I mean she likes to put peoples names or pictures on slides and ask them questions.  I guess this is a good way to make sure everyone pays attention, but wow…how stressful.

After lunch, we had our first surgery lecture.  The lecture was on introductory surgery and was basically a fast overview of surgery.  After that we had surgery lab.  Knot tying boards where handed out and we learned how to tie our first knot.  Some of us also went over how to tie a surgeon’s knot.  Playing guitar for quite a while not, tying knots is quite easy.  It seems after doing it a few times, like playing guitar, my fingers remember what to do without me thinking about it.  I think i’m going to really love surgery!

Lucky for us…we haven’t started small groups yet…which means we don’t have class at all tomorrow.  YAY!  Normally thurday will also be test day.  So we would normally have small groups in the morning and then a test at 3pm.