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31. Things i've learned as a PA
143 Plays1 year ago
In this episode I talk about a few principles of medicine outside of school that can help change your mindset after graduation.
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Transcript
Introduction to the PA Experience Podcast
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to the PA Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Sebring Sands, and as a PA, I take you behind the scenes to see what it takes to become a PA in all steps of the journey. Welcome everyone to another episode. Life has been great.
00:00:38
Speaker
I've been just chugging along, working, learning, having fun with my new baby for the last several months.
Reflections from the First Year as a PA
00:00:47
Speaker
But as the new year has started, it's been a year since I went to graduation, almost a year since I officially graduated from PA school, and I've been in working for over six months now.
00:01:00
Speaker
There's a few things I've learned while working in medicine, in real life medicine, that I wanted to impart to up and coming
00:01:23
Speaker
So there's a few things, there's probably more than this of things I've learned, but four main things have come to mind that I've really thought about it and I've tried to impart to
00:01:33
Speaker
Students that I help precept when I'm working in surgery that I wanted to impart to everyone because I think this is important information and very interesting to learn more
Learning Medical Skills Through Repetition
00:01:47
Speaker
about. So the first one is learning medicine is all about repetition and routines.
00:01:53
Speaker
And especially in surgeries, one of the surgeons that I work with, one of the joint surgeons, he always says getting your reps in, it is really important. That's a main principle of medicine. It's not that you learned it, you know, for an exam that you know, you know it, you didn't really only know it when you do the same thing, you diagnose the same thing dozens of times, hundreds of times.
00:02:19
Speaker
You've written a note hundreds of times, dozens of times over the course of months and years that you really get medicine down. As a peace student, if you feel like you don't do well on the exam, you're not going to know medicine. That's not the case. You have such a limited time to learn and you don't really get any reps in. When you see it in real life and you do it over and over and over again, that's when you really become a master of whatever your specialty is.
00:02:49
Speaker
whatever diseases and things are doing even especially surgical skills you know I learn I knew how to tie when I was a student but I didn't really know how to tie well and proficient enough until I did it dozens and dozens of dozens of ties hundreds of ties to get really good at it so that's those reps in real life situations that make all the difference
The Role of Personality in Professional Settings
00:03:15
Speaker
this is a big one that I think a lot of people don't understand because we feel like everything has to be based on merit and of course that is true we want to outperform other applicants and you know on a resume and in the interview but at the end of the day your personality is what counts
00:03:37
Speaker
For instance, the job I have, you know, obviously going to preschool, I have an underlying base of knowledge that I didn't have to accumulate. But a lot of times, a lot of PhD jobs, you learn on the job. You learn everything you need to know on the job. And sometimes you can teach a monkey how to, you know, do basic things, especially like administrative tasks on the computer. You could teach anyone how to do those things.
00:04:03
Speaker
And any PA could do whatever skill as long as they spend the time to learn and do the reps to learn it. But when it comes down to personality, do people want to spend time with you? Do the surgeon want to spend time with you in the OR? Even if there's 10 other people that can do the same job, but if they enjoy spending time with you, they're working time with you, that makes all the difference.
00:04:29
Speaker
Even in the office, you know, if there's a fun little banter, you like working with your colleagues, it's a good environment, that's what counts. And your personality is one of your biggest assets you can show, especially in the interview, to let them know like, hey,
00:04:45
Speaker
I'm fine or this or this personality trait. I can contribute to the team in this way. And you can't really don't really understand that until you start working. But that is very important. So if you feel like you have, you know, average chance of getting a job, know that your personality is what makes us very important at the end of the day, and that you could really show that in interviews. And when you
00:05:13
Speaker
hopefully able to go and see potential jobs, job sites in the future that people might want to spend time with you because you're a fun personality, you're a fun person, you like to have fun or you like to not so serious or maybe a little bit serious when it comes to time. And also, as you know, I'll talk about this in a later episode about surgery
00:05:36
Speaker
Do you break tension well with the surgeon? Are you able to lessen the tension after a pretty serious or pretty intense part of the surgery? That also is a very important skill to have that you wouldn't know on paper, but when you are working and working with people, that kind of comes out. So something to think about.
The Concept of 'Just Good Enough' in Medicine
00:05:57
Speaker
Another major thing to think about medicine is everything. Every job becomes a just good enough type of thing. In school, everything has to be perfect. Everything has to be textbook. Everything has to be like this way. But that's not how the real world works. If everything had to be perfect, nothing would get done.
00:06:16
Speaker
So everything, every standard becomes just good enough. The notes are just good enough. The, you know, the interactions with patients are just good enough. Obviously, it's good to have some good experiences, but you can't see a lot of patients or you can't do 15 notes if everything has to be perfect. You just want to get nothing done.
00:06:35
Speaker
So, you know, you cover your bases, you have the most important, essential information in there, but you don't worry too much about it being perfect. And that's comforting to me, especially with notes, writing, and things like that. Obviously you want to be as accurate as possible, but you have to get through so many things. So, you know, if it's not perfect, and a lot of times people aren't going through your notes at the fine-tooth comb, maybe in some situations big organizations, but there's just so much, it's impossible to do that for everything.
00:07:04
Speaker
and no one's grading your work like in school so just keep that in mind everything just becomes just good enough and not to obsess over perfection so you can get work done and then go home at the end of the day and you don't have to worry about it because that's how things get done in the workplace
Impact of Academic Achievements on Professional Success
00:07:23
Speaker
another big thing too it's a it's kind of a little thing but i've realized this and no one really cares how well you did in school no one really cares how you did on the pants one asks that no one i can't tell if there are superstars in their program and my you know team you know maybe you might you know if you're working in er where you're really using your final knowledge
00:07:47
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might stand out a little bit but a lot of times you don't know who's the superstars from the people that just barely passed because we're all working as a team we're helping each other lifting each other up and we're doing our jobs and we do the principle of just good enough and just move on with our team so that's very comforting because i felt like as a very average below average PA student but i'm a average to above average person in the workplace i feel like i
00:08:17
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contribute well to the team. I help others when I can. I don't ask for a lot of help unless I really need it and it's essential. I can figure out some things out. I need help for other things. I help reduce other people's burdens. But no one really does it matter what you did in school in order to do well in the workplace.
00:08:35
Speaker
For those who are feeling that you had 100% on the pants to get your dream job, that's not the case. Don't even worry about GPA unless it's stellar on your resume. I was able to get a really good job without ever talking about my GPA. That's true for most every places, so we get to relax and enjoy the fact that someone is wanting to talk to us in an interview.
00:09:00
Speaker
and that we're candidates and they're looking for personality and how well they might work with the team. So those are some things to think about. Obviously there's probably many more things I've learned and as a practicing PA, but those are some of the big ones that you might not hear a lot, especially only focusing on PA school and finishing PA school.
00:09:23
Speaker
some of the things you don't think about when you enter the real world because the beast goes on for two years and it's not meant to be all-encompassing, just a good transition, good base and foundation for us to learn clinical medicine in the real world.
Future Episodes and Career Navigation Discussions
00:09:41
Speaker
Well, that was a nice short and sweet episode. I plan on doing many more episodes this next year. The pace is a bit slower. I do it when I feel like I have something to say and contribute to the overall conversation and impact of the community. Watch out for more in the future. I'm planning on getting some more experienced PAs to kind of go through how they navigated their career.
00:10:09
Speaker
us to think about when we're navigating our careers after PA school, what specialties, how long to stay at jobs, when to transition, how to transition. I plan to discover those from fellow experienced PAs. So I hope you have a great new year, that you have plans and aspirations and goals that you're able to achieve. Okay, take care and have a great week.