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YESSSS!!!

Real Time with Bill Maher: 6.6.14 — Anthony Weiner, Jim Geraghety, Nicolle Wallace

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Relevant. Clinical rotations are just around the corner for me. Can't wait!

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Put on some gloves. -Me, every time I see this on my dash.

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Excellent advice for PA school hopefuls!

Yesterday, I toured a PA school near me to get a better idea of their program. This particular school is one that I am extremely interested in and had been to before BUT I was there on winter break and didn’t get to speak with students or anything. The experience there was completely...

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I'm going to be a DAD!

  Mrs. Behindthechart and I are expecting a baby girl! I couldn't keep the secret any longer. And I couldn't be happier!

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PAblr MEMBER OF THE MONTH: April 2014

Author: paforfer    Featuring: populationpensive

Hey PAblr – I know you’ve been waiting for this moment - our very first spotlight on a member of the PAblr community. Meet my new friend populationpensive , she came up this this great idea and I volunteered to feature her first… seems fitting right? Next month, she will feature a member of her choice!

I decided to do my meet & greet with PopPen (nickname I gave) as a 14 question interview format but first here is a brief intro to how PopPen describes herself and situation.

Make sure to “READ MORE”

ENJOY!

Currently, I am a CNA in a rehab facility and taking ochem and anatomy. I will be applying to PA school for the 2014-2015 cycle and taking the GRE later this spring.

I live in a corn field in the midwest. :-) I’m 25 and didn’t start my journey into medicine until 2012. Having spent the great majority of my life feeling kind of lost about career choices, it wasn’t until I started teaching that I got perspective on what I wanted to do. I remember doing practicals and student teaching thinking to myself that it all wasn’t for me. My parents, however, encouraged me to stick with it, as having your own classroom is really not the same as anything you do as a student teacher. When I graduated with my French ed degree, I found a job and quickly realized that I was not in the right profession. It wasn’t until my second year of teaching that I decided to start taking pre-reqs (at that time for medical school).  Even though I started out pre-med, I switched to pre-pa this past spring. I had been going back and forth for awhile, but shadowing and volunteering made it clear to me that PA was a much better fit. One of the reasons I feel this way is because of my diverse interests (both in medicine and outside of it) and the openness and approachability of PAs. It’s one of the reasons why I have been so invested in trying to establish a tumblr community! When I was teaching, the #education tag was fundamental in getting me through those years and I think that #PAblr is serving a similar purpose now.

1.  Is your blog only PA journey or is it personal interest blogs and reblogs too? -It’s a mixture of personal and PA. I have a pet guinea pig and I am obsessed with all things small and fluffy, so they make an appearance. Anything funny or thought provoking ends up here. But, that’s why I have a tagging system so that my PA and health content can be easily found. 

Read More

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NIH Gov App: Free Medical Translation

The Canopy Medical Translator has been created with funding from the National Institutes of Health.This free app can be used in situations where an interpreter is not available. It translates medical phrases covering history, physical exam, procedures, and reassessment in Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Bengali, Filipino, Hindi, Korean, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Vietnamese, and more

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therunningpa justanotherwhitecoat jackiekazik

Hey PA people (or anyone)!

Would anyone want to take a look at my resume and edit/provide comments? I’m about to email my former surgery preceptor (who is looking to hire a PA in the near future), and I want to make sure it is perfect and tailored to a surgical job.

Any takers? Send me a message with your email address and I will pop it over to you! 

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DO NOT GIVE OR GET ANY VACCINATIONS FOR YOURSELF OR  YOUR KIDS………..

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hey there! i have a question about reference letters. i think i'm just missing something haha i know there's a spot in the caspa profile for references and i know that as an applicant, you never see the reference letters. i'm just confused as to how i should ask my references to be my references (if that's not confusing enough haha). are they're forms to fill out for caspa, do they need to email they're letters? how does it work and what are your tips? thanks!!

If you already have references picked out, then great! But if you would like some help with that then there are some awesome tips in this post by Paul at MyPAtraining.com. This excerpt from that post is essentially how I asked for my recommendation letters:

“Seek out letters of recommendation from people you are sure support you. It may sound obvious, but many people don’t. Find someone who truly likes you, and who supports your decision to apply for PA training. If you are unsure, ask them: “I am going to be applying to physician assistant schools, and I’m beginning to think about my letters of reference. Would you feel able to support me by writing a letter of reference if I asked you to?” If their response is anything less than an enthusiastic “Yes!” then consider finding someone else.”

So its pretty cool how CASPA actually gets your references, here is a breakdown on the process:

Your Responsibility

Adding the references’ information:

You’ll simly add their first name, last name and email address. Make sure they meet the requirements your potential programs have about their roles/relationships to you first! 

Once you save their info in CASPA, an email is immediately sent to your references at the email address you provided.The email will be from “CASPA Messenger” and will be titled “CASPA reference request”. Advise your references to be on the lookout for this email because sometimes it can get automatically filtered to a spam folder. At this point it is simply up to your references to complete their end of the bargain.

References Responsibility

The email from CASPA to your references will contain a link to the reference website plus a username and password that they can use to log in and complete an online reference form on your behalf. The form consists of a ratings portion where they will be asked to evaluate you on a 1-5 scale in regards to several different criteria. I do not know the exact criteria but it should be along the lines of professionalism, motivation, etc. They then come to a comments box where they may either type their letter of recommendation or copy and paste it into the box. Once they finish and submit the recommendation it will show up as “completed” on your application status.

The waiting

So you have entered your references information and you are waiting for them to be completed!

Here are the different statuses you may see in the reference section, and what they mean:

New – You’ve entered your person of reference into the system but no information has been entered or saved by them

In progress – Almost there! Your person of reference has entered and saved information but has not completed their evaluation.

Completed – Congratulations! Your person of reference has completed their recommendation and it has been submitted to CASPA. Their recommendation is now permanently bound to your application for this cycle.

It is recommended that your references be listed as “completed” at least four weeks prior to your earliest application deadline.

Best of luck! 

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Awesome post! paforfer is right about being careful with generalizations. They are useful for didactic year/testing but you'll realize in clinicals that individual patient presentations are highly variable. Thank you for making the distinction!

behindthechart posted pro tips based on their experience in PA school thus far. I tried over 20 times to reblog and add to that post (even after delete/adding the tumblr app and restarting phone).. but all failed. So im attempting a new post. But check out behindthechart for the original post...

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PA School ProTips

I am currently in the 3rd semester of the 1st year of PA School and I just now feel like I really know how to study for this program. So I decided to try to share a few tips that would have helped me if I had known them from the beginning. 

If the words "Most common" precede anything in a lecture, you need to know it. 

Any disease that is named after another individual is basically a guaranteed test question. 

If a disease has a "triad of clinical symptoms" then knowing those = easy points. 

Pick out key words for pertinent history questions, physical exam findings and diagnostic evaluations that are specific to certain conditions, they can be life saving on exam day. 

Put all of your high yield information at the beginning of your notes so that if you pass out studying you have already covered the important stuff. 

Pharmacology professors seemingly love overly complex flowcharts and tables. Spend time on those and trim them down to what really matters. 

Fellow PAblrs, add your tips and help other current and future students!

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I'm not a big fan of mnemonics, but these are some of the coolest I've seen.

As a Harry Potter fanatic, I am proud to present you with the Harry Potter Cranial Nerve Mnemonic!

Before I introduce you to the mnemonic, let me briefly talk about cranial nerves.

Few things you need to know about cranial nerves:

1) They emerge from the brain (duh - cranial = brain)

2) There…

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NO. No they fucking don't. How is this even a question?

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The blog of the week project is under way! PAforFer and I have been trying to organize the project and we think we’ve come up with the most flexible plan!

Prepare for an EPIC game of PAblr tag! Here’s how it works:

PAforFer will write the first feature about me.

I will contact a blog I...

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hi! i am currently in the process of finishing some classes and getting my patient care hours before applying to pa schools. i live in ohio, so i want to apply to some state schools but i'm not sure if i want to live/work here the rest of my life. is becoming a pa a country wide certification or does it vary state by state? will my future depend on where i end up going to school?thank you so much!

This is such a great question! One of the most exciting things about being a PA is career flexibility. Once you graduate PA school you will pass an exam called the PANCE which makes you a nationally certified PA (PA-C). Then you need to gain licensure in the state where you find employment. Licensure requirements/fees vary slightly state to state and links to all of the state medical boards can be found here. In short, PAs are nationally certified and licensed by the states in which they practice. You have complete freedom to find employment and practice wherever you would like. I do not believe your future will depend on where you go to school but keep in mind that you may develop some great local contacts while in school. Thank you for the question and best of luck! 

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Adding to the list: 6. Simple things are simple. (What??) 7. Just know everything, but don't get caught up in the minutiae.

Top 5 phrases you get tired of hearing in PA school

1. “The quick and dirty version…”   2. “The take home point is…” 3. “We’ll get to that down the road.” 4. “We have a lot of material to cover in a short amount of time.” 5. “Be flexible”

I am sure there are more than this, feel free to add to the list!