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Stethoscope Review

I have so much to be thankful for this year!  What I am most grateful for this year is the health of my loved ones and the privilege to practice medicine! And alsooooo my new Erka sensitive stethoscope from Medelita! They were so kind as to gift me this new medical accessory! You may be thinking “You work in dermatology! You never use a stethoscope” and you would be right, 98% of the time. In dermatology, we do use stethoscopes to take blood pressure from putting patients on spironolactone, a potassium sparing diuretic which also decreases testosterone and therefore helps acne! Some side effects can include increased urination and therefore dizziness and hypotension so for patients with a history of low blood pressure, we check their BP in office before sending off a script.  I was worried that I would miss having a bell with this stethoscope, but to be honest, I’m loving how sleek it is! It fits perfectly into a carrying case that virtually takes up no space in my bag! The dar
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Study Tips

My top 5 tips for studying in PA school Hi pals! It's been a while since I've written on here. My winter term started the end of November, which was also when we  started Clin Med and boy has it been a whirlwind. Now since I've gotten 7 months of PA school under my belt, I thought I would share some of my biggest study tips. This term, we're taking Clin Med, Pharm, Path, EBM, and Medical Law/Ethics. These tips apply mostly to Clin Med, but if you guys want study tips on pharm or path, comment below! Disclaimer: These are just some study methods that work for me. Everyone studies differently so other methods not listed on this blog post might work better for you! 1. Optimize your time in class Personally, I like to study off of printed notes because my eyes hurt if I stare at my computer for too long. Ideally, before each lecture I outline the powerpoint and put it into a word doc so that as the professor is giving the lecture, I'm adding in notes into

A review of my first term of PA school

Hi everyone! It seems like only yesterday I was applying to CASPA and waiting for an interview; I can hardly believe I'm writing this post right now! This past Monday I took my last final and officially finished my first term of PA school! I always wondered what it was like to be a PA student so hopefully this post will give you some insight! For our first term of didactic year, we take physiology lecture, anatomy lecture, anatomy lab, and a medical terminology self-taught course (which was part of our physiology grade). I think we were definitely eased into PA school, which is something I really liked about my program. For those of us who had just finished undergrad, we were able to have more of a summer and for those who had been out of school for a while, had a chance to ease back into study mode. We were also able to really focus on anatomy, something I found to be very important since I know many of my future classes will build on the information I learned in this course

Guest Post by Shelby: A Non-Traditional Applicant

Hi everyone! Hope you all enjoyed your July 4th weekend (I had an exam July 5th @ 7:30 am so I had to study for part of it).  I am super thrilled to be sharing a guest post today from one of my friends, Shelby! Shelby took a few years off between undergrad and starting PA school. So, she has all the amazing advice about how to get amazing  DPC  hours and how she was able to improve her application! She would be an amazing resource if you're considering getting a masters, doing a post  bacc  before starting PA school, or gaining tons of  DPC  hours in short period of time! Everyone’s journey towards Physician Assistant (PA) school is unique. I am definitely a non-traditional student. It has taken me longer than I expected to get to where I wanted to be when I first started my path. Although, I would like to share with you how I never gave up. I only applied once and will be starting PA school January 2018. I hope this gives you hope towards achieving your goals. One of my favori

Review of my first week of PA school

I officially survived week one of pa school!! As a pre-pa student and a pa applicant, I was always curious to see what PA school was like and I hope that over the next year, I can provide prospective students with an idea of what is it like! To do this, I'm going to review weeks of school that I found to be important.  Orientation Week Our orientation seemed a lot less intense than other programs. We started orientation at 12:45 where we first picked up our student IDs! We were offered some cookies and other refreshments before sitting in the auditorium where we will have all our summer lectures. Each faculty introduced themselves along with other members of the student resources team.  The following day, the director of the program introduced herself (she was at the other campus on the first day of orientation) and went over the student handbook with us. Then we met with our advisors and the other advisees in our group. My advisor was actually one of the women I interv