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28. Student involvement in the PA profession
180 Plays1 year ago
In this episode I talk with Alec Wlliams PA-S2 about how he has been involved in the PA profession by serving in student leadership with the AAPA.
See Alec on instagram (@alecw_pa) or LinkedIn
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Transcript
Introduction to PA Experience Podcast
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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.
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Meet Alec Williams: PAS2 at Quinnipiac University
00:02:38
Speaker
Hello everyone. Welcome to another podcast today. I have a great guest for you. Um, he comes from a rival PA program, which they really exist, but, um, and we're going to have a lot of fun. So Alec, can you introduce yourself?
00:02:55
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. So hi, everyone. My name is Alec Williams. And again, thank you, Sebring, for bringing me on the podcast here. So I am officially a PAS2 now, just finished up didactic year and just looking to start clinical year in what's now four days. That's pretty, pretty crazy to say. Originally from Syracuse, New York, but now at Quinnipiac University. And we've been there for about
00:03:18
Speaker
I guess five or almost six years now. Again, just a while to say out loud. So I was in the ELPA program there, which is the entry level master's position assistant program. And so I started as a freshman, had a place in the PA school coming in. So the whole way I knew I had that seat, there was about 30 to 35 of us. And it definitely took a lot of stress off in kind of the PA graduate process, that's for sure.
00:03:43
Speaker
That's interesting, because Sacred Heart just started that program, so it'll be interesting to get your perspective on how that went for you, the process that looked like, because I think there's more and more programs starting to offer that, which is interesting. I have my own thoughts about it, but as a non-traditional student, it's hard enough getting into BA school, so. Okay, well, that's awesome.
Alec's Journey in Student Government
00:04:05
Speaker
So I heard that you are involved in student government. Can you talk a little bit about that?
00:04:11
Speaker
Yes. So student government has been something that I've always kind of been taken to ever since high school. I by no means am a political person in the slightest, but student government I've always felt kind of inclined to. So in high school, you know, I was the high school president and then I went to college and I was freshman class president, sophomore class president, got into a fraternity. I was the fraternity president and now
00:04:35
Speaker
kind of moving into a profession being, you know, physician associates, physician assistants, they have the AAPI. And that's kind of the government portion, I guess, of the PA profession. It governs the guidance, governs the philosophy of the PA profession.
00:04:51
Speaker
and kind of how we progress as a profession. So I've always been intrigued by that. I've learned a lot about it through undergrad experience, through exposure, kind of being on that PA track. And so by the time that I got to be a grad student, they had a lot of opportunities. And I said,
00:05:09
Speaker
you know, this looks like something I would be really interested in. So I tried to get involved in leadership any way I could. Quinnipiac was absolutely phenomenal in being able to offer some of those opportunities. They knew the routes to get in. They knew ways for me to kind of sneak in as a student and say, here's where you can apply. Here's where you can volunteer. So initially I got started with the Standing Rules Committee, which kind of works with
00:05:35
Speaker
just the rules of the House of Delegates, things of that nature. And coming in, I say House of Delegates. And you can probably ask 80% of physician assistants across the country,
Student Influence in the PA House of Delegates
00:05:47
Speaker
right? They have no idea what you're talking about. So I was lucky enough to learn about that from some mentors in the program, as well as some alumni, some people transitioning out at Quinnipiac. And they had told me, this is where you're able to guide the profession. And I think as students, to have that power is really incredible.
00:06:05
Speaker
So I get involved in that and then I was actually a delegate myself on the student academy last year and now I've kind of transitioned into this role of chief delegate where I am the chief of those 33 delegates at conference and at this house of delegates which I kind of call Congress I guess of the of the PA profession.
00:06:25
Speaker
Interesting. So how does that work as a student? Cause I know the delegates like vote on stuff. Like for instance, they voted on the name change, the proceed with that. Like as a student, what are your capabilities in that role?
00:06:46
Speaker
Can you hear me? Yeah, there you go. Sorry about that. Can you just repeat that again? Yeah, so as a student, what are your capabilities in that role? Because I know the House of Delegates, like they vote on things, for instance, the name change, the preceded with that, they voted on that. So as a student, how does that work?
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty incredible because the Student Academy is apportioned in a lot of delegates. And just as we'll say Connecticut, which is obviously kind of my constituent organization, they're apportioned in a lot of delegates based off of how many AAPA members are in that state.
00:07:24
Speaker
And then you have some other constituent organizations, you know, some caucuses like the LGBTQIA Plus Caucus, maybe you have the Veteran Caucus, people like that who are also a portion of certain delegates. So the Student Academy, we have nearly, I think it's actually 19,000 student members of the AAPA across the country.
00:07:44
Speaker
So we're apportioned, I think it's one to every 250 students or something along those lines. So this year, we're going to have close to 25 delegates in the same exact conference. So we are still voting members, the Student Academy, we are able to do everything else that someone in a different caucus or a different delegate is able to do. And I think that that's really special because, so for example, with that name change is
00:08:10
Speaker
I knew some people who were actually student delegates at the time and they were able to vote on the floor for that name change. So being a member of that academy is definitely something I hold kind of close to my heart in the fact that we're able to guide our own future. We're able to
00:08:27
Speaker
kind of provide that student voice maybe sometimes that younger voice sometimes it's it's not a younger voice but it's a new voice into the profession someone with a very different perspective and so I can definitely appreciate that a lot so all the same kind of all the same voting privileges all of the same duties responsibilities but we really deal with that student perspective more.
00:08:49
Speaker
That's really interesting. I didn't realize that they enfranchise our student voice because in PE school, I always felt like we were kids.
00:08:58
Speaker
the PAs were the adults and they treat us like kids and then now that you become a PA you are treated like an adult kind of a I don't know relationship but that's really cool that I didn't realize that was built into the profession because like yeah PA students are important because they're going to be PAs really soon and it's good to get their input even though I felt like as a student my
00:09:25
Speaker
knowledge was very limited in the profession. And only like it's grown exponentially since being in practice as a PA, where I understand a lot of the interests, like the relationship between the physician and all these issues and with patients. So that's really cool.
00:09:42
Speaker
Will you know what's funny it's funny because as you know twenty three years old i can i can raise my hand and say you know what there are a lot of things that i just do not completely understand yet but there's also a lot of things that like you said you know being a ps student might not have the medical knowledge but you have that knowledge of.
00:10:01
Speaker
taking tests. You have that knowledge of seeing your peers who need just maybe a little bit of extra time or hey you know we really need that highlight feature on these EOR exams or when we take the pants you know it would be really nice to just be able to have a cross out feature. And so this year we actually had one of our delegates who presented that to the delegation
00:10:23
Speaker
And, you know, there was a little bit of debate on it, kind of going back and forth. Well, how about this? How about this? And finally, it was, I believe, PAEA or RPA or someone from kind of one of those constituents that came up to the microphone and said, hey, no worries. We can get that done for you kind of beginning next year. So it passed. And now they're kind of working on implementing those highlight features, cross-out features for everyone going into the EOR and pants, which I think is that type of change is really what's impressive.
00:10:53
Speaker
That's that is that's real change, man. That one. Yeah, I mean, would have changed a little bit. But like, for instance, at Sacred Heart, we had a really nice exam taking software in didactic year. And then we go to the EOR and it's like bare bones. And it's so much more jarring. Maybe that's makes even the EOR is even more difficult than get to the pants. It's fine.
00:11:23
Speaker
Like I've gotten used to that way because of the EORs. But that's awesome that you're able to enact those things as a student. Yes. There it is. Exactly. So you as a leader, do you just kind
Leadership as Chief Delegate
00:11:38
Speaker
of help? Do you help bring up ideas or just motivation or how does that work?
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, a little bit of everything. So being in my role as chief delegate, so I serve with the student delegation for the HOD. I'm kind of that lead delegate. So I'm the person that will say other delegations come up to with their ideas. I'm kind of that conduit between the student academy and we'll say all these other constituent organizations. So if someone has a policy that they're putting forward that involves students in any way, or if they just want kind of a larger voice, but we have the largest delegation,
00:12:13
Speaker
at the HOD. People will come up to us and say, hey, can we get your backing on this? Do you think there's anything that we should change? What's your perspective? And so usually I'll bring that to my delegation and say, you know, kind of here are my thoughts and opinions. What do you guys think? Let's hash this out. And for a lot of the students coming in, they're absolutely amazing leaders, whether they're
00:12:33
Speaker
returning students to the HOD again or they're new to the HOD or they just want to get involved in some way and they said the AAPA is for me. I want to help out in the future of our direction, of our profession. You know, I try to help guide kind of that thought process of, okay, let's say this passes.
00:12:52
Speaker
Well, what are the consequences to this? What are we not looking at? What are everyone else's perspectives? So I try to guide that conversation a lot along with being able to give some information as to how the policymaking works as the kind of
00:13:05
Speaker
how the handbook works, how the HOD runs, everything like that. And then again, along with motivation, because a lot of people come in with these ideas that I would never even imagine to think of. Our SAPO, which is our Student Board of Directors, they would never think of. And it really impacts students in a positive way. So I try to bring about those ideas too.
00:13:28
Speaker
Our goal is to hopefully present some new policy this year, AAPA, that will kind of empower students moving forward. And I try to be the leader in that whole experience. That's actually really cool. Yeah. So how did you initially get into this? Like you mentioned earlier with advisors, is this just an application you send into AAPA? Or is it also, do you need letters of recommendation? How does that process work?
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah, so to start, right? So I guess the best way that I put it is that there's two branches of the AAPA that I like to think of. You have kind of this executive branch and kind of this congressional House of Representative branch. And this House of Representative branch is more of your HOD, your House of Delegation. That's where you have a couple representatives from all these different constituents. They comment, they make the policy.
00:14:23
Speaker
And the policy then acts as a guidance, a philosophy that then goes to the board of directors who carry it out. And the board of directors is like that executive branch, right? They have the president, the vice president, a few other positions. So the students have their own kind of the same thing. So we have our student board of directors, which is made up of directors at large kind of for each region that disseminate out information to the region. And then a president, myself, I think, I believe a chief diversity and inclusion officer and then a communication officer.
00:14:53
Speaker
So to start, I got involved with HOD and I was just a delegate. So I had nothing to do with the board of directors, but I put an application and the student board of directors look it over and they say, you know, these are some really good applications here. Let's bring them on into the delegation.
00:15:12
Speaker
And that's just students across the country. So I had the privilege of working with people from Chicago Medical School. I had people from Stanford. I had people from Texas, like the University of Austin. I had people from all across Connecticut. So it was definitely an inclusive delegation, which is really cool. So you put in your application, you get chosen, and then you work all year towards this national conference.
00:15:35
Speaker
And then this year, I said, you know what? Let's take it one step further. Let me apply for the student academy board of directors as the chief delegate. So I kind of wear two hats now. And as the chief delegate, I had to make a little platform, send it into AAPA, and you run against pretty much anyone who wants to run. And for that, you get voted on by any student in the country. So the voting application goes out to every student in the country, and they say,
00:16:03
Speaker
for president you got these three people here's their platform choose one and vote so you're on a ballot more or less um and so i was lucky enough that this year i was elected into the chief delegate position so now i serve kind of in in in both perspectives okay so the initial being a delegate that's not elected at all correct correct yeah that's appointed by the student board of directors
00:16:28
Speaker
Okay, so you send in your application. What if there's like more people applying than there are spots? How does that chosen?
00:16:37
Speaker
Yeah, very common, very common. I think this year, there was something like around 50 or something like that applicants, but you know, we can only take 30 something. So it's just kind of based off of the application process, who do we feel would fit the delegation well, we definitely try to add some diversity to it. And then that's the board of directors who selects those.
00:17:01
Speaker
Okay. So it's kind of like, do you interview at all or this just based on your like CV you send their application? Yeah, that's it right there. CV in an application. They're usually asking, uh, it's a hundred word response for four prompts and the prompts are, why do you want to do this? What do you understand the role to be? What makes you unique? And you know, what's something right now in the PA profession that you feel is an issue. And so based off of those, um, people are chosen. Oh, that's really awesome.
00:17:31
Speaker
And I was talking to Ashton earlier and she told me dirty secret with PA politics is not a lot of people run. And that's why you could probably get into places you might not think you could get into. Did you have like competition to get your spot now, your chief delegate spot?
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, so it's funny. So the chief delegate spot, you have to have a year of how to delegate experience. And there was a lot of returners when I had joined last year.
00:18:02
Speaker
So it allowed me the opportunity. Everyone else who was running for a board of directors spot was running for president, or maybe they were running for a director at large. So I just ended up running on a post. And I had no idea until the day that I got up there at conference in Nashville this year, they kind of put you up and you do a little video conference. They're asking you questions. It's almost like a debate.
00:18:22
Speaker
But I got up there and there was just no one else up there. So I said, okay, I guess as long as I don't screw up, I guess the spot's mine. But there was a lot of competition. I think there was four people running for president, which is president elect. And then I guess there was three or four people running for certain director at large positions. But yeah, it's true.
00:18:43
Speaker
Not as not as much competition as you would think on such a national level, but I think that's because sometimes the education of What it all is what the positions are how to get involved is sometimes lost in translation kind of going down to the PA schools Yeah, I mean as a non-traditional student being older with a family I Barely had enough time for PA schools that that makes sense but other people I think don't realize
00:19:12
Speaker
So how much time does this take from your week basically in didactic gear?
Balancing Academics and Leadership
00:19:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's so it's tough. I tried, you know, I have a problem.
00:19:24
Speaker
I won't lie to you, Sebring. I have a problem and I just, I can't say no. I don't know why you asked me to do it. You want, you want me to mow your lawn? Sure. I'll do it. I'll figure it out. Like it's, um, it's, it's definitely a problem, but it's a good problem because it puts me in situations like this. But sometimes during didactic year, I would find myself that a lot of times when you say, okay, let me take a deep breath and you know, for yourself, I'm sure there were a lot of times when you say it's a Monday night. I am exhausted.
00:19:50
Speaker
I'm going to go home, I'm going to have dinner with my family, and that's it. I'm going to bed, I'm waking up the next morning, I'll figure it out. Let me just say, God bless you for being able to do that with a family because we also have a non-traditional learner in our class, in our cohort, and she is absolutely incredible. I think that people like you serve as an inspiration to a lot of PAs across the country.
00:20:13
Speaker
I really think that there should be more non-traditional learners, some of the older population kind of coming in. I say older population, right? It's just because I'm 23 years old. I'm 23. Yeah, you are young. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. But yeah, I would find myself sitting there at 9 p.m. and saying,
00:20:32
Speaker
I got to come up with an agenda for the next meeting. I got to look over these policies. And so maybe I would try to vote four hours a week towards it. And it really isn't much as long as you figure out the time to do it. If it means waking up at 4.30 AM instead of 5.30 AM, then that's what you got to do. If I'm losing an hour and a half of sleep over it, maybe a night or just for a couple of weeks, then I'm OK with that. But it's because it's something I'm really passionate about.
00:21:02
Speaker
and i think that passion is what drives the motivation to do things that you really want to do so i never try to think of it as time lost during my week i just try to think of it as time diverted to something something a little bit different it's just not crazy like 20 hours or anything how often how often are your meetings that you have
00:21:22
Speaker
Yeah. So it'll start out usually pretty monthly. So we'll do like one month for the first couple of months. And then as we start to get closer to, so in the fall, it wasn't too bad. And then I'm not sure about your education, but for hours, fall was the worst. Really? Yes. So thank goodness it wasn't, it wasn't too much in the fall, but then spring rolled around and then we started doing bi-monthly and then maybe we would do three meetings a month.
00:21:48
Speaker
And then kind of based off, I was also involved in the Connecticut API, which is that state society for Connecticut. So I had maybe one or two meetings a month for that. And then I had a meeting for the SRC, which is that Standing Rules Committee. So all of it together, once it started getting down towards a little bit closer to conference, those meetings bumped up. But it was it was never more than, we'll say, you know, eight hours a week between meetings and putting in just work.
00:22:17
Speaker
Okay. And when is the process of voting during the year or is this like big, long, huge thing everyone convenes and they just vote on a bunch of stuff? Yeah. So are you talking about for the positions or are you talking about for the HOD?
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, just for the House of Delicates and everything, when you vote, is that like one big thing you just voted on a bunch? Or is it kind of during the whole year, people just vote as it comes up? I like to say it's the three-day Palooza. So we start usually, I think it was the Thursday before conference or the Wednesday before conference.
00:22:59
Speaker
So that big conference in Nashville this year, the big AAPA conference, every year the HOD will meet usually that Thursday to Saturday or Wednesday to Saturday. I forget the exact days. But it's basically a three-day conference where the first day you're introduced to everything that everyone's proposing for the upcoming year.
00:23:17
Speaker
Okay. And then the second day is usually, do you like it? Do you not like it? Let's kind of send it out to some reference committees who will give us their opinion and then we'll debate it. And then the last day is the actual voting where you say, I like this. I don't like this. And then you have, then you have all your policy. So we're in there for 12 hours. We were in there for eight hours, 10 hours. Yeah. So it's a cheap duck. Do you serve as like a whip to like get people to vote a certain way?
00:23:48
Speaker
You know, I, it's funny. So I try not to. I know that our past chief delegate, she was really good at saying,
00:23:59
Speaker
Here's the facts. This is what this is proposing. Here are my opinions and here are some other opinions. And that's what I like. I'm just going to present everything to our delegation and say, this is why I think it would be good for us. This is why I don't think it would be great for us. And maybe here's a way that we can change it. And really seeing all those voices come together, because as you know, 30 voices are better than one.
00:24:26
Speaker
And someone is going to be able to find something else that I definitely missed or maybe that our advisor missed or that someone else missed. And they're going to be able to provide that perspective to it. So I more serve as kind of a lead point in saying, this is what this does on the surface level. This is what this does maybe a little bit deeper.
00:24:46
Speaker
And hopefully providing some context to it so that everyone's able to create an opinion and and usually the student delegation will all vote pretty similarly Kind of as one mind. Okay, so it's probably good that we don't model the u.s. Political process because you know, there's issues there Okay, it's really cool. They kind of understand the process and the nitty-gritty
Understanding the PA House of Delegates
00:25:12
Speaker
It's not as scary as as mysterious as most of us think it is. It's not this big thing where you have to sit where you have to sit down for, you know, 14 hours and you're listening to just the lectures all day. It's fun. It's interactive. You're learning a lot. It's cool. Yeah. Well, it seems like there's a bit of trauma there. 14 hour, 14 hour lectures. As I can imagine that, you know, too. Yes. Okay. We're going to switch gears a little bit. So how your perspective of
00:25:41
Speaker
of this program where you are immediately accepted to P school. Do you have a gap year or the next year is PA school for you? We had a gap week. It was. Oh yeah. And I got lucky. I got very lucky. I would think I was the very first cohort to have that gap week. It's normally, we graduate on Saturday and PA school starts on Monday.
00:26:04
Speaker
That's crazy. I think I feel like you at least have a summer off or something that start that forest. That's weird. Yeah. So what made you even want to become a PA? So.
00:26:18
Speaker
I would love to get your perspective on this, but at 18 years old, I barely knew anything. I was like, this is medicine and I think this is what doctors do, right? I didn't know a lot. And to have to commit to this program at 18 was really tough for me.
00:26:35
Speaker
So, I had done a lot of shadowing with PAs. I actually had gone into neurosurgery. And I think one of the coolest things for me was seeing that the PA was standing right at the table with the doctor on the other side. They were first assessed. And that never really processed for me. And I think at the time, too,
00:26:54
Speaker
because this would have been back in 2018. The PA profession wasn't as taken off as it is now, and there was a lot of adults that I had talked to that didn't quite understand everything that a PA could do on the healthcare team.
00:27:09
Speaker
And then so, obviously, like any young kid who's interested in anatomy, interested in sciences, math, right? I was big into medicine. I wanted to help people. I just didn't quite know what I wanted to do, maybe doctor, but something that my advisor in undergrad, Professor Seager at our school, she always said was,
00:27:32
Speaker
make sure that this is what you want to do. Just because you have a seat doesn't mean it's what you have to do. And I found that so empowering because she would always check in with me, you know, make sure you don't want to be a doctor. Are you sure that this is exactly what you want to do?
00:27:47
Speaker
And so she was great at that. And we found that over the time, you take classes kind of throughout your undergrad experience, like a PA seminar. And you learn what a PA is. You learn your spot on the health care team. But more importantly, you learn about all the other positions on the health care team.
00:28:04
Speaker
And so for me, I wanted to be able to spend time with patients. That's my thing. I'm a huge people person. I love to talk. As I'm sure you can see, I could talk to a wall for 40 minutes if you wanted me to. But I want to help people directly. And I want to be able to kind of talk patients through the process. And I think that a lot of people that you talk to, especially now, say, I feel kind of a bigger connection with my NP, with my PA. And so that's definitely something that drew me to profession as well.
00:28:33
Speaker
Okay, so it's not like you have to go and fill the seat in PA school if you don't want to. It's not like contracted. Is there any penalties for not, you know, do you like have to pay something back or anything like that? Honestly, honestly, I'm not sure.
Choosing the PA Profession: Alec's Story
00:28:51
Speaker
I'm sure that it affects the admissions for the PA graduate students that they do kind of a little bit later on. But as far as as far as I know,
00:29:01
Speaker
There wasn't anything for me that said, you know, if you don't do this, you're kicked out of the school immediately forever. It's not like that. In fact, there was a couple of students who I know never matriculated into the PA graduate program, even after graduating with that bachelor's in health sciences under that PA track. They had gone into whether it be like a medical device sales or something along those lines.
00:29:27
Speaker
So not that I know of penalty wise, but I'm sure that it affects admissions a little bit later on. Okay. And how's the interview process? Was it, do you feel like you're interviewing for just college or college and the PA program at the same time?
00:29:42
Speaker
Definitely. Yeah, definitely the PA program at the same time because they ask you because they want to make sure when you're an 18 year old, of course, you understand that you have no idea if this is really what you want to do, but they want to make sure that you at least know what the PA profession is. So something big for them is looking at have they volunteered in a hospital? Do they have shadowing experience? Have they at least made an effort to understand the roles of healthcare workers in their own profession?
00:30:09
Speaker
And so I did. They had asked me a few times, do you know what a PA is? And I said, of course, you know, it's basically a general doctor. And that was pretty much my understanding. And I knew that I had wanted to do that as opposed to being a doctor because I remember one of my good friends, Isaiah, in like fifth grade or something like that, he came up to me, he's like, I'm gonna be a doctor, Alec. I'm like, that's cool. Me too, let's do it, man. And he said, orthopedics, I wanna be in foot and I wanna do surgery.
00:30:39
Speaker
And I looked at him, I'm going, the only word I understood there was foot. I don't know what you're talking about dude. So I really liked that generalist training. I liked the fact that we can go back and forth kind of between professions and that was pretty much my extent of knowledge of what I knew. So when they would ask that PA question in the interview and say,
00:31:02
Speaker
What is a PA? And that was kind of my answer. That's as much as I knew, but that's really all you need to know. You just need to know that you're interested in it and that you think that it's something that you would really want to consider moving forward. They try to take people that are committed to the profession, of course, but at 18, you really don't know.
00:31:23
Speaker
I did it until I was like 25 maybe. Yeah. But do you take as you're going through undergrad, do you take classes with the students? Yes, that was that was something that I really liked was how close we get as a class.
00:31:39
Speaker
because there's 30, 35 of us and I think Quinnipiac in total is 10,000 kids, 7,500 undergrad, something like that. That's a big school coming into as a freshman from little small town Syracuse, New York.
00:31:54
Speaker
So having that nice cohort of everyone going through the same things, you're in a lot of the same classes together, whether it be anatomy 101 up to organic chemistry. And then each year you would have these PA seminars, which is whether it be researching one of the positions on the healthcare team and what they do, and then kind of giving an oral presentation on it. We actually had
00:32:19
Speaker
pre-clinicals in our sophomore year of college. So I was with now one of our faculty, Professor Brennan Bauchner. I was over at Yale General Surgery. So every Friday morning, I would usually get there around 8 to 11.
00:32:37
Speaker
And I would just kind of follow around. It was more shadowing to make sure that this is something that interests you. But you also get exposure to a very real life situation of a PA who's there to teach you, kind of there to mentor you, to guide you. So that was our sophomore year of undergrad.
00:32:53
Speaker
And then in senior year of undergrad you're supposed to go ahead and do another clinical rotation where you're not really taking history and physicals but you can at least be there and kind of aid the PA in doing history or using some of the soft skills that you've learned with interviewing.
00:33:13
Speaker
Unfortunately, COVID took that away from us. We didn't get to do that.
Clinical Experiences and the Impact of COVID-19
00:33:16
Speaker
I don't know too much about those experiences, but that's the nice thing about being an undergrad is that you get experience to those little things that definitely aid you in PA school just a little bit earlier and build that foundation early. You don't have a clinical hour requirement with your program, correct?
00:33:36
Speaker
We did. Yeah, we did. We had a thousand hours is what we need. To get into the pro or do you have to do it before you get to. Just to maintain. Yeah. So we had to do that. Bye.
00:33:48
Speaker
I want to say December break of senior year, you had to have 1000 hours by that point. So she was like, you know, you come in, you're like, this is impossible. There's no way between that 50 hours of community service, 10 hours of leadership and all of the other things. But everyone does it. And it's really, it's really good because I think now they require
00:34:09
Speaker
2,000, 2,500 for the big programs. If you're, obviously, if you're a traditional PA student coming into the graduate program, so you only have to do 1,000, it was definitely nice as well. Yeah, well, I mean, I've mixed feelings about our requirement. 1,000 is a lot if you've been full-time for a few years.
00:34:29
Speaker
But I don't even know if it's if this is necessary for the health of our profession because I mean some is probably good because medical school requires some but not so many and our profession is leaning more towards a
00:34:46
Speaker
just right out of high school, college thing, track rather than a, it was a, it was a career changing move for lots of profession, anciently in the profession, which isn't the case anymore. Like it doesn't need to be that way anymore. So I think that our requirement is, I don't know how I feel about that. I mean, I guess it's helped students that have accrued a lot of hours that make them really competitive.
00:35:10
Speaker
but it hurts the students that are newer, which I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that. I mean, you're a really mature 23 year old, which hopefully PA programs are
00:35:22
Speaker
are accepting really mature 23 year olds or 21 year olds or whatever. But I don't know, it's interesting conversation to have, whether to get rid of that or not. Well, I was gonna say because I think originally, if we're going back to the roots of the profession, we're talking Duke's very first program, there was, you know, it just came from the shortage of positions, kind of during one of the wars, people were going off to war and they needed
00:35:51
Speaker
quick fill-in physicians. And so they took first, second year medical students and was like, okay, we're going to accelerate you real quick. You got to get out there. We need you. And so I understand definitely that point of we want medical experience because this is an extremely intensive school and we want you to have some type of soft skill built up already. It'll help you. But I also agree in that
00:36:17
Speaker
there's a lot of people who came out that were PTA's and then a thousand hours of physical therapy aiding, which is definitely its own niche field, especially if you want to get involved in orthopedics, if you like kinesiology, maybe geriatrics. But how is that necessarily going to help you if you want to do, we'll say general surgery or internal medicine, right? Maybe limited, kind of limited transitional knowledge. But
00:36:46
Speaker
I like it because it opens the door to so many different professions coming in. We have an SLP, we had someone who was a healthcare administrator forever, who now has, you know, he has a wife and he's going through PA school. So I like those all walks of life from the medical profession coming in and kind of making the PA as diverse as the profession is.
00:37:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point to make sure it allows more diversity in professions changing to become a PA. That's a good point. How many seats are in your PA program? We have 50.
00:37:27
Speaker
two seats a portion. I forget the exact number. It's 50 something. And how many matriculated from the undergrad class? Roughly 35. Our class was big. There had been something with admissions that year. So normally it's about 25, I want to say. So effectively, if you're a traditional
00:37:50
Speaker
PA student applying there, it's only really 20 seats you're applying for, right? Exactly. Yeah. It's usually a 25 seat program. Yep. That's interesting. I mean, I have opinions about this, but I mean, it'd be great if you knew you want to become a PA right away. If you had a really good shadowing experience, because if you don't, there's really no, there's really no
00:38:18
Speaker
Or if you worked with PAs, there's really no exposure to the PA program, but yeah, that's interesting. It's, it's really, you have to know right at 18, you have to know in high school. You
Advantages of Early Commitment to a PA Program
00:38:32
Speaker
do. You do. Or at least have an idea. Right. Um, so playing devil's advocate to it is I'm going to be able to be 24 coming out in the PA profession and.
00:38:43
Speaker
playing devil's advocate to it, you allow yourself as a university, as a program, to know the exact student that you were coming into PA school. You know, you say, I want them to know this, I want them to have this many hours of this, I want them to have an understanding of this, of history taking, of physical exam taking, of
00:39:02
Speaker
just detail-oriented medicine, evidence-based medicine. So you're able to really kind of push the curriculum and push your students as undergrads to meet that criteria, which then by the time that we're 23, 24 years old graduating, we're able to know exactly what our program wanted from us, from a competency standpoint, from a medical knowledge standpoint. We might not have
00:39:30
Speaker
the real world experience but that's what I love about everyone who comes in because we had we had non-traditional learners we had 20 we had 25 year olds who maybe had a year of experience come in and no matter who you are
00:39:44
Speaker
If you take a year off of education and you try to come back and you take that first test, it is awful. As I'm sure you remember, trying to figure out how to study again, trying to get the gears going, be able to sit down in the class, listen to a lecture, take it all in, remember how to do notes. So that's what we provided. We said, okay, we're able to help you guys out with this, but when it comes time for clinicals,
00:40:09
Speaker
What am I wearing the first day? How do I make a good impression? How do I be, you know, a competent member of the team? How do I show respect while still asking a lot of questions, but knowing my role? Um, so it's, it's really nice to have balance that we get between each other. Um, and I know that just as much as we help them kind of in that summer and fall semester, they're now helping us out as a PAS too. Okay. So you start in four days. Do you know what rotation you're doing first?
00:40:36
Speaker
surgery, general surgery. Ooh, where at? New Britain. So it's the THOCC, the Central Connecticut Hospital. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. I'm excited. As a first rotation, a little nervous. A little nervous. Yeah. It really depends whether or not you have residents.
00:40:57
Speaker
because that really impacts your education or with or if you're with P.A.'s. Personally, I like being with P.A.'s because they get you, they understand P.A. school. It's more fun with residents. I think they really transfer a lot of their other stuff on you, a lot of the hours and high standards and stuff like that. But it should be fun. I'm actually going to come out with a
00:41:25
Speaker
in the future, near future, how to succeed in surgery because I'm an orthopedic surgery and I feel like this is a very, I don't know.
00:41:36
Speaker
intimidating field to go into. But it's so there's so many opportunities in surgery for PAs. So I'm going to be coming up with that soon. So hopefully that will help really, if not you, someone coming after you. Absolutely. It will definitely help me. I'm excited to hear that. That'd be great. Do you know what, as right now, I know it's early, I didn't really know until I was almost out of peace. Do you know what you want to get into as your first job?
Interest in Surgical Fields: Alec's Aspirations
00:42:03
Speaker
So far, and I say this before I start my surgery rotation, but so far, I really like surgery. I did a preclinical there last year as a PAS1. And actually, that was an orthopedic surgery. I love surgery. I love cardiothoracic surgery, and then orthopedics is kind of my second love just because
00:42:23
Speaker
i was i was a big sports guy i love sports medicine i played basketball kind of all my life and pretty much any injury that a young athlete can get you know this guy got so a lot of exposure to it there but right now liking surgery but whatever rotation i'm on
00:42:40
Speaker
That's going to be what I want to go into. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's fair. Yeah. Well, I second that surgery. I feel very at home in the OR. So I totally get that. It's not for jerk, jerk offs that like.
00:42:58
Speaker
power trip in the OR. It's, it's actually a really good environment when you have a good team and people that respect you, especially as a student, um, orthopedic surgery. It's fine. I was joking with somebody because I really wanted to go into orthopedic surgery and I am not, I'm not a jock.
Sebring's Passion for Orthopedic Surgery
00:43:15
Speaker
I'm not, I'm nothing physical at all. I just really loved the surgeries and the fields. It was like the jock going into orthopedic surgery or like the nerd, the ortho nerd.
00:43:26
Speaker
I was the latter. Hey, you got the best of both worlds on the team. Yeah, that's true. That's very true. I got a new I was hired right before this other new hire where I work. And she comes from physical, athletic training. So she has a way different perspective than me. And she's like works with one of the sports medicine docs. But it is it is interesting coming from a different those different perspectives. So
00:43:55
Speaker
Yeah. So what made you, what made you want to get involved in orthopedics then? Cause I know a lot of the times people just say they're going to spoil or big and all that. Well, it was my orthopedic rotation at Sacred Heart. We have a dedicated orthopedic rotation, which I conspiracy theorists. It's because we, we feed so many ortho practices. I worked for ONS and Greenwich and like now there's like five of us that went to like went to Sacred Heart. And there's so many ortho places here, like
00:44:25
Speaker
they were smart into providing PAs that have some more experience than maybe other programs in orthopedic. So they fill their staff with PAs that, you know, have a little more experience. They said, let's be your pipeline program. Yes. Yes. We definitely, I feel like we are. So that was a big thing. My first ortho rotation is with a team of PAs and they let me do so much in surgery.
00:44:52
Speaker
they let me tie suture a little bit way better than my general surgery rotation at sansford where i was with residents and they let me do a little bit but mostly the student stuff you know cut
00:45:08
Speaker
stand in the corner, you know, pimp you a little bit. And I really didn't get pimped hardly at all on all my rotations. I did a total of four surgical rotations, hardly pimped on any of them, which I think led to my loving of the OR more. It took away all of the stress and really let me enjoy the experience of being in the OR. And that really, yeah, I didn't really have many of those, just a couple of them.
00:45:37
Speaker
I really found a lot of with that PA team that we do so much and like, oh, I could really appreciate the surgeries and the surgeries were interesting. There's a lot of hardware. There's a lot of power tools. There's a lot of things to do, especially the joints. I personally like joints. Sports medicine as a PA is actually pretty interesting, but it's a second assist.
00:46:01
Speaker
they're so boring. As a student, you're a second or third assist. And a lot of these things, all these surgeries that are actually really interesting are very boring. You don't really do much as a student. So I didn't really do any of those. But as a PA, like, oh, you know, ACL repairs are really interesting because the PA goes in after they harvest the graft from the hamstring or wherever the PA prepares it by stitching it and prepares it. And like, that's super interesting. And it makes
00:46:29
Speaker
you as a PA very more remarkable with a very, you know, important skill in sports medicine. So it's a lot of cool things. And I love in a lot of the docs are so chill. In my where I work, there's a couple orthobrogue docs, which I relate to. I don't know. I just find it really easy being that in that environment. We also got the old wise docs that are just very knowledgeable, but very, very awesome and cool.
00:46:56
Speaker
And yeah, it's just a great field. If you want to go into surgery, you don't want to go into general surgery because a lot of general surgery is in the OR or in the hospital. I don't think you can really do general surgery outpatient. I thought I was wanting to do orthopedics inpatient because that's all I knew. I wasn't sure about the outpatient, but I really fell in love with outpatient ortho surgery. The hours are amazing. I get weekends and holidays.
00:47:24
Speaker
My benefits are pretty good. So I really, I really dig that aspect of it. So yeah, that's great. That's great. If anyone thinking about ortho, do it, especially if you're in Connecticut, there's so many jobs available as a new grad. Oh, absolutely. So I think, I think Connecticut's really special in that aspect, just kind of across all the fields in medicine. We have so many opportunities, especially down there in that kind of Southern Connecticut, right along the border. Um, and obviously with New York being right there, with Boston being right there.
00:47:55
Speaker
I love that. That's what I love about Connecticut and I think it's really special to be a part of a PA program here in Connecticut because there's just so many resources and opportunities, you know? Any last words of wisdom before we head out?
00:48:09
Speaker
No, just the only thing that I do want to say is, you know, if you're a PA student out there, just always make sure that you're making time for your passion, whatever that be. For me, it was always advocacy. It was leading the PA profession, kind of taking a hold of the future of your profession and saying that this is something that I can really make a change of.
00:48:33
Speaker
And whatever it may be in your life that you find to be your passion, really, really try to excel with that. Because after PA school, we're finally going to have some time back on our hands. And you can do so many things at PA past just the clinical side of medicine. So whether it be in the hospital and management, whether it be in research, whether it be in publishing, anything that it may be, really make sure that you market yourself as a PA and follow what you love.
00:49:02
Speaker
Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Alec, for coming on here. This was a really interesting conversation and a great perspective that you have. I was surprised. I was like, when Ashton told me about it, you're like, okay, well, another student, you know, just like my other interviews. But no, this was really enlightening for me. So hopefully the students listening or the PAs listening to this, they will get inspired and maybe
00:49:27
Speaker
Maybe apply. Who knows? That would be awesome. That would be awesome. I appreciate it. I think that what you're doing here with this podcast, I think it really is. It really is cool. And I think that's going to be applicable to a lot, a lot of students and a lot of PAs out there. So I appreciate you bringing me on. Yeah. Spread the word. I mean, my goal is that this becomes
00:49:49
Speaker
a go to like everyone as a PA still recommends like you got to listen to the podcast to get the ins and out of PA school and the PA profession. So tell everyone and like and subscribe the podcast. I never forget. I always forget to ask people that and I don't even know if people listen to this part of the podcast, but you know, subscribe to the podcast. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks so much for coming on, Alec.