This week I've been scheduled on nights, and it's been a completely different ER experience. While many of the chief complaints are the same as what I've seen during the day in the ER, the pace has been different. There is no doubt that things can get just as hectic at night as they do during the day, but for the most part, things usually tend to ...

Cheesy title, I know, but I thought it was appropriate for the lessons learned last week. I’m still in the orientation phase primarily because I do not have hospital privileges or malpractice insurance. I do have a temporary license!!! Can I get an ''Amen?'' For all the new grads and old grads, you remember the feeling. As soon as you got ...

This week is chock full of final exams and with everyone from my class finally back in the area, there is much to be done. The beginning of the week consists of various lectures meant to comprise part of an all-inclusive review of more or less everything we’ve learned while in PA school. At the end of the week we have a directed practical on ...

As I enter the 3rd week on the job, my nerves are starting to settle, and I'm starting to feel acclimated. Still no temporary license (fingers crossed …hopefully this week!) and thus unable to see patients in the clinic or assist in surgery. I am so grateful that my supervising physician has allowed me to start with the group while waiting ...

It's nearly the end of my final week here on my psychiatry rotation, and as I say my goodbyes to the patients I've grown close to over the last month, I'm feeling much differently than I'm used to. My preceptor made it clear on my first day to give my patients enough notice before my final day. She explained that students frequently come and go, ...

Every year my mom asks me what I want for Christmas. This year, told her I would like an early Christmas gift of a pen tablet to hook up to my MacBook Pro. I’ve been doing research for a few months on pen tablets. My ultimate goal is to use it for teaching my anatomy and physiology classes. Unfortunately, the classrooms I teach in were designed ...

This week I’m learning the value of “being thrown into the fire” so to speak, as we often are as PA students in our second year. The rotation I am on now is notorious for being overwhelming, due not only to the great expectations of the students performance here, but also because of the sometimes 80 hour weeks, and lack of direction in ...

Last week I started my internal medicine subspecialty. One thing you will learn about a rotation schedule is that it is constantly changing. Originally I was supposed to be in pain management, then it switched to renal transplant, and now it is endocrinology. This month I am in a subdivision of endocrinology that specifically sees complex ...

On day 3 of my internal medicine outpatient rotation, I was discussing the results of a preventive cardiac study with a longtime established patient and how the supervising physician values these types of studies. Her response was, “That’s why I go to an internist.” I knew right then that all “internists” were not created equally. This rotation ...

I’m deep in my 3rd week of pediatrics and I am certainly feeling comfortable with my routine at the office. Now that I’ve had time to adapt to what life is like on clinical rotations, I’ve been able to enjoy the feeling of getting back to some sense of normalcy, being out in the working world and away from the classroom. While I still dedicate a ...