Hello future P.A.s! It's been about a month now since I have started this program at West Virginia University, and my life has changed completely. Now that I have been here for a good amount of time and things have settled in, I can now talk about what it is actually like to be a student in this program. There is a lot to it. Life is busier than I could have imagined. Luckily, the material is all interesting and most of it is relevant to what we are actually going to be doing for the rest of our lives. That's the difference between grad school and undergrad. In undergrad I always thought, "Calculus 2? When will I ever use calc 2?? Or theater class...How will this help me in sectioning a cancerous skin section?" Well, in this program, you are going to use almost everything you are taught. I have learned so much in the month that I've been here, I don't even know where to start. So what better place to start, than the beginning.
Orientation. You wake up bright (dark at this time of year) and extra early, because you don't want to be late for your first day. These next two days, you will be getting to know your 14-15 other classmates, your professors, receiving your shiny new Macbook, and lots and lots of paperwork. You will get lost wandering the health science center and hospital about 8-10 times. You will also be getting your semester's schedule. This semester looks like this:
Anatomical Techniques (AT): Monday and Thursday 9-11 am.
This class is specialized in that it is basically job training for becoming a P.A. Everything you do in class revolves around what you do in the lab. We talk about grossing techniques, measuring objects, how to dictate something, etc. I really enjoy this class because it teaches us real-life, palpable things. I look forward to this class the most. Unfortunately, it turns out that this is going to be one of the most difficult classes. The exam is very tricky and you really need to know the details of everything. Not many of us did well on the first exam, especially yours truly. I really need to work on this one extra hard.
Introduction to Disease Mechanisms: Monday and Thursday 12-2 pm.
This class, I thought was going to the most difficult for me coming in. It combines all of your fun microbiology, biochemistry, and biologic concepts together to talk about pathogenicity of diseases. I did better than I thought I would on the first exam so far, so I've got to keep up the hard work. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but if anything lower than an 85% is a C, and that is lower than you can get in this program. Your grade is never safe.
Human Anatomy: Tuesday and Friday 9 am-1 pm; Anatomy Lab: Wednesday 1-5 pm.
Wow, what can I say about this 6 credit course. It's basically 3 classes put into one. You have a microscopic anatomy part. We have a scope room in the science center where there are about 20 microscopes hooked up together. In the morning we go there and look at slides under the microscope and learn about the micro anatomy of body components. Then there is the anatomy lecture part. For this, you will have to study and memorize diagrams of of the body. For example, the muscles, arteries and nerves of the arm. There are about 10-14 of these diagrams that have about 25 parts to label on them. Each exam. Lastly, there is the cadaver lab. This could be one of the most exciting things you do at school. Each group of 4 people get a cadaver to work on for the semester. Everyone participates in dissecting and studying the body. So exams are split up amongst 200 points. 50 for the lecture, 50 on labeling the diagrams, and 100 on the cadavers. Then you will have separate micro anatomy exams. To say there is a lot to study, is an understatement. Luckily, a lot of it is memorizing. It just takes a lot of time. Your grade in this class will directly correlate to how much time you put into studying.
Histology: Tuesday 1-3 pm
This course is a simplified version of the undergrad course and it is designed to teach us P.A.s just what we need to know. You learn about staining slides, decalcifying bones, fixing tissues, etc. The class time is used only to ask questions. It's up to you to learn the material. The professor gives you an abundant amount of resources to study from and it is pretty straight-forward. There is an exam in this class every other week, so it's important not to fall behind.
Educational Methodologies: online
This one credit course teaches you how to teach a class. It is done totally on your time and it involves a powerpoint project. (With classes being pretty overwhelming, I'm saving most of this project for spring break, so I can't say much about it yet).
Those are your main courses. On top of that, 1-3 times a week you have conferences at 8am (sorry if you aren't a morning person). These are conducted with residents in the hospital and at first, you will have no idea what they are talking about. But from what I have been told, we will start to be able to answer some questions as the years go on. You also have extra training sessions such as learning about EMs, embedding, and microtomy. Most importantly, you have gross room rotations. These are 3-3.5 hour sessions where you work on actual specimens in the gross room in the hospital. I had my first session last week and it was incredible. They throw you right in with a P.A. watching over your shoulder once in a while and you gross human tissue from the hospital. It's such an amazing feeling to be able to step right in and work in the hospital. My first time, I grossed things like GI biopsies, skin excisions, and even a cancer case. I am looking forward to doing this whenever it is my time, even if it is nerve-racking. I can't wait for my next one.
It's been almost a month since we've been in school now, and I have learned so much. It takes so much time, studying, and skill to becoming a P.A. I know that each one of my classmates and I will be able to undertake this challenge and come out on top. Each one of us brings our own skills and background with us and we are able to help each other get through any challenge. We started a group chat at the orientation and it has helped everyone get to know each other, help us all study and communicate about class, and enjoy each other's company even. After our first round of exams, we all went out for food and drinks to celebrate. We sure need to take a load off. Here's to the next time we finish our next round of exams and so on.
