First draft, please tear it apart

[cop to pa]

Here's my first draft.  Please do NOT be kind.  Thank you for taking the time.

 

After earning an Associate’s degree with a lack-luster GPA back when Braveheart won the Oscar for Best Picture, I enlisted in the US Navy as a Hospital Corpsman.  After nine months of training, I reported to my first duty station. As a Hospital Corpsman assigned to provide medical care to a platoon of thirty-some US Marines, I was unpacking my meager belongings on Friday afternoon (about four hours after graduation) when there was a knock on my door.

 

A Marine I had never met before asked if I was his “doc”.  He then told me how his knee had been hurting him for months and he had been putting off seeking treatment.  Never having been so nervous, I fumbled through an exam, then put him off till Monday morning, as I had no idea what to do.  Over the next two days I unpacked, got settled in… and read every bit of orthopedic medicine I could get my hands on that talked about the knee in a pre-internet world.

 

I quickly learned that I understood about 15% of what I read and that my months of training got me ready for about 20% of my job.  Come Monday, I spoke with my newly assigned mentor, re-did my knee exam under supervision and helped devise a treatment plan that eventually worked.

 

Over the eight years I was in the Navy, I did many things.  Some highlights for me were: helping deliver a baby one week and treating anaphylaxis during a typhoon on a hillside the next week; rappelling down a cliff to get to a Marine with a broken ankle; treating burns and hypothermia at over 9,000 feet on a snow covered mountain in northern California and being the sole medical provider for a flotilla of six boats and over 100 Sailors for two weeks up and down the Atlantic seaboard, where I “threw” over 50 total sutures into head lacerations from unsure sea legs.

 

It was during my tenure in the Navy that I was first introduced to the world of the Physician Assistant while I was stationed at the US Naval Academy.  Working in a military outpatient clinic that was staffed by three Doctors, one Nurse Practitioner and two Physician Assistants, I saw the Physician Assistants as full members of the healthcare team, with their own patient load and always willing to teach us.

 

It was during my time working with these Physician Assistants that I longed to become one and become a healthcare provider in my own right.  Then, I was transferred to a training position, where I taught Basic Life Support (BLS), Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS), Pre-Hospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS), and started a National Registry Emergency Medical Technician course.  I let me desire to become a Physician Assistant slide to the back burner.

 

My enlistment in the Navy was at an end and I chose to re-enter civilian life.  Taking a job as a Certified Nurse Assistant (CNA) in the Adult Emergency Department at Johns Hopkins, my eyes were opened in ways I hadn’t thought of.  My previous patient population of roughly 18-40 year old healthy persons with no extensive medical histories paled when compared to my new population containing asthma, diabetes, multiple cardiac issues, polypharmacy and drug abuse.  I soon learned, as I did my first day after completing training in the Navy, that I didn’t know how much I didn’t know.

 

I soon grew disenfranchised as a CNA. The scope of practice was so much narrower than I was used to that I became frustrated.  I looked into going to school to become a Physician Assistant on the Montgomery GI Bill, but soon learned that the cost, even with the GI Bill was prohibitively high to me.  So, after three years as a CNA, I left healthcare to become a Deputy Sheriff.

 

I enjoyed my time working in Law Enforcement, but missed healthcare.  Many times, arriving at a scene before emergency medical personnel, I would provide first aid to the best of my abilities until EMS arrived.  My pull back to healthcare was ever present and, after learning of the (then) newly revised GI Bill, I took a third look at becoming a Physician Assistant.  With my wife and son on board and fully supportive, I have chosen a path without much of a safety net.  Working in law enforcement, the schedule would not have allowed me to take the requisite courses I would need.  So, I resigned from my position as a Deputy Sheriff and enrolled full time as an undergraduate college student.

The courses I’ve been taking have served to educate me in the underlying processes that have guided the medicine I had been a part of in the Navy and in the ED.  My desire to become a Physician Assistant, a medical provider, has never been stronger.  Yet, even while going “whole hog” towards this goal of becoming a Physician Assistant, it is tempered by the knowledge that I have a lot to learn.  It’s a lesson I’ve tried to remember since I got that knock on my door for a painful knee so many years ago.

[arosswoods]

Two paragraphs start the same way. You might so well to go through and simplify each sentence as much as makes since. It can make it more readable.

[cop to pa]

I didn't even catch that repeating start.  I'll work on simplifying the sentences to make it more readable.  Thank you.

[Blue Goose]

It's a good start. It seemed excessively wordy in places-consider simplifying a lot of the descriptions. Talk more about why you want to be a PA, and how you will benefit your patients. Also, combine your paragraphs together (2/3 sentences is too short).

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Corpsman2PA]

Chesty approves. When were you at the Naval academy? I was there back in 04 for a month in optometry waiting on orders to Lejeune.

 

Agree with prior feedback. I thought your statement was well written and to the point. If I had to add a recommendation, it would be to include character traits/ representative traits that you'll bring to the table. For example, something like: "As a former hospital corpsman, I hope to continue the tradition of the earliest PAs by being a representative of the profession with the utmost character, compassion, etc"

 

Give them something that shows the Marine Doc/Sheriff hard-knock has a compassionate side.

 

Remember-Ability can be taught. But some highly valued intrinsic character traits can't.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LESH]

Nice