Time Saving Tips

[mdm1]

I'm going to be starting PA school next summer, and I'm trying to figure out how to have enough time to be a good student while also trying to keep up with the other necessities of life.  I would appreciate any advice that current/past PA students can give in terms of how to manage the responsibilities of PA school while also trying to find enough time to get enough to eat, get enough sleep, do the dishes and laundry, get the car repaired when it breaks down, and so forth.  What did you cut out to so you would have study time?  Or did you find shortcuts for doing the other things that need to get done?  Or do you just let the housework go and spend your time studying instead?  I would appreciate any advice you all could give.  Thanks.

[greenmood]

Have you ever held a full time job? Yes, there is additional studying involved in PA school, but I doubt you would have gotten through life so far without coming up with your own tactics for time management, study skills, and relaxation.

 

 

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[UGoLong]

I lived away from my wife for my didactic year and went home almost every weekend -- without my books. That was a key element of my staying engaged with my family.  I also rode with my EMS unit twice a month, saw my kids, took a walk after class, had a beer now and then with classmates, and went out to dinner with them. I usually unwound by watching a TV show before I went to bed.

 

The most important thing for me was to know my strengths and weaknesses and to plan for what was coming up in the next week or so. I don't study well late into the night, but I can get up early in the morning and study. I studied after dinner. If we had an hour or two off during the day, I'd go study. Living alone made it possible for me to do whatever I needed to do.

 

PA school is doable. You do need to be focused but you also have an opportunity to stay balanced.

[cinntsp]

It just depends how much time you need to do well in school.  Some people have to stop doing anything but school all day, every day.  Others breeze through it with no real changes to their routine.  

[Jorge]

I didn't get too much sleep the nights before a test during the didactic year, but I always had time to do house stuff and run errands.  And on the weekends I always hung out with friends.  Like wutthechris said it depends person to person and what other responsibilities you may have apart from school (significant other, kids, goldfish, etc)

[generalfluff]

If you can, buy a lot of Tupperware and cook meals for the week on the weekend (or whenever you have time). I like to do it on Sunday myself. You'll find yourself overwhelmed by school sometimes, or just plain tired to cook. Takeout gets expensive fast, and cooking one time for the week saves both time and money, so you can really focus on schoolwork. Disposable dinnerware is your friend.

 

Chores are another thing. When you study, dumping information to your head with straight 5-hour study sessions doesn't always do well for learning. You're bound to get tired and bored for a large part of that session. Study only when you're efficient, which in this case, is only when the information actually sinks in and you're alert and quick on the material. If you get slow and tired after 50 minutes of studying, take a break. Do something else in the meanwhile, whatever that may be. Hang out with your friends. Watch a movie. Do some chores. Hit the books again only when your head is clear and receptive to learning. 

 

This will help you use your time more wisely. 6 hours of efficient study helps you score a lot better than a overnight cram session, or locking yourself in the library/study room while your mind drifts and your eyes get droopy.

[balsam88]

I'm almost done with second semester of the didactic year, and honestly I was able to enjoy my social life and had time for all the daily routine. It'll come to you easily as you progress through the first semester. Didn't get much sleep the nights before an exam, but the rest was just fine. And sometime you'll need to take an hour and just stay away from the books and clear your mind for a bit. I personally managed just fine with it (I even went through a death in the family during the last month of the first semester and was able to maintain my grades).

[generalfluff]

On the issue of sleep and exams, 3 months in and I'm quite sure I've wrecked my normal sleep patterns that I actually cannot sleep normally without taking a sedative. I guess that's what happens when you get caffeine PO 200 mg q 6h. I'm tolerating 36-48 hours awake quite well 2-3 times a week, though I'd say 72 hours is a stretch.

 

Oh well, good practice for rotations.

[SHU-CH]

On the issue of sleep and exams, 3 months in and I'm quite sure I've wrecked my normal sleep patterns that I actually cannot sleep normally without taking a sedative. I guess that's what happens when you get caffeine PO 200 mg q 6h. I'm tolerating 36-48 hours awake quite well 2-3 times a week, though I'd say 72 hours is a stretch.

 

Oh well, good practice for rotations.

 

Be careful - you can do this for short spurts, but you will not be able to sustain an effort like this for the long haul and you certainly can't function at the top of your game.

 

Time management skills are a big part of both PA school and a medical career. A good book to look at might be Study Without Stress by Kelman and Straker. Students are sometimes surprised to find out how much time they waste if they are not organized in their approach to making a schedule.

[greenmood]

Yah also... You don't need to "practice" staying up for three days as prep for clinicals. Don't fool yourself.

 

 

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[generalfluff]

I meant that remark in jest.

 

Between my job and PA school, I need to get time out from somewhere. I've found it helpful to use medicine so I can fall asleep when I need to (say 4pm) and be awake for whatever time my irregular schedule demands (wake up to study at 10pm, work from 12-6, school at 9am). If it does get to be too much, I will quit my job in a heartbeat and focus purely on school. My point remains that I'm not really depriving myself of sleep entirely. I'm just altering the schedule, and I never do it for the whole week.

[SHU-CH]

I don't know any of the details of your situation but I will take the risk of making a sweeping generalization: students who use the wonders of pharmacology (prescription or otherwise) to alter their alertness/sleep/wake cycles are in a potentially dangerous place.

 

Please consult with someone from your program that knows you well and let them know what is going on.

[cinntsp]

Deleted

[patachok]

On the issue of sleep and exams, 3 months in and I'm quite sure I've wrecked my normal sleep patterns that I actually cannot sleep normally without taking a sedative. I guess that's what happens when you get caffeine PO 200 mg q 6h. I'm tolerating 36-48 hours awake quite well 2-3 times a week, though I'd say 72 hours is a stretch.

 

Oh well, good practice for rotations.

I have never slept less than 4-5 hours at any point, and i am finishing up second quarter of didactic year. Your schedule seems crazy, i would never be able to sustain m existence like this.

And like somebody said, pills are great until they are not. Especially sedatives. But I am no one to teach you.

[SHU-CH]

 But I am no one to teach you.

 

I beg you to reconsider this impression. As PAs, we are a small community. We need to look out for our own.

 

If we are creating a culture where PA students and practicing PAs cannot reach out to each other when they are having a hard time, how are we ever supposed to take care of people? How can we hope to provide good care to strangers if we turn a blind eye to those around us?

 

If you are a PA student or a practicing PA and you are having problems - personal problems, substance abuse, depression, burnout, whatever - and you do not feel comfortable to reach out to another PA to talk about it, what does that say about us as a caring profession? If one of your peers needs help and you are afraid to bring it up, where does that leave us?

 

In the grand scheme of healthcare, we are a very small group. As professionals we have the responsibility to police each other. We also have an obligation to look out for each other.

[patachok]

You are correct! I just do not want to give off an impression of a mom reading lecture to her teenage kid... :)

[Just Steve]

Class would get out between 4-5 pm.  I'd goof off until 8 or so. Study until 10-11 pm.  Bed until 7-8 am, lather, rinse, repeat. Home every weekend without my books through my didactic year (I attended about 3 hours away from my kids).  I would return early afternoon on Sundays as they loved giving tests on Mondays. Bit of a refresh of material Sunday afternoon/evening. Stayed on the Deans list through the program. 

 

That's a benefit of having significant previous health care experience.  It allowed me to absorb relevant information so much easier.  

 

My point is the fear of drowning is over exaggeration if you have followed the classic PA model... building upon previous HCE.  Walking into class with no clue of what medicine is or how it's applied would a nightmare. 

 

Good luck

 

[generalfluff]

Steve, I hope you'd stop that overgeneralization.

 

Everyone performs differently at PA school. Having previous HCE does not always make the ride that much easier. One of my classmates has been a critical care nurse for the last 18 years, and he's struggling a lot with classes. Like you, he first thought everything would be a simple rehash of what he already knew. He even worked Saturday night shifts at the start of classes. He ended up quitting that gig the 2nd month in, and has been having a struggle for classes like Pharm, Physical Diagnosis, Clinical Medicine, and Anatomy. Just this week, we had a Musculoskeletal practical that he didn't get to practice because he fell asleep the night before. Long story short, he learned how to do what hopefully accounts for 85% of it in 1 hour of practice with me.

 

The difficulty of PA school is not so much in the depth of the material, but the sheer quantity. 3-4 exams a week is not very easy to manage, moreso when you haven't been to school in a while, and/or have been sleeping normally for the past few years. It's even harder when you have a family. Some people manage it better than others. I can say easily though that no HCE covers almost everything to make PA school a cakewalk. Some experience makes some of the classes easier, or some rotations in the clinical year easier. Even FMGs will have their struggles, such as with the language, or difference in material covered in a US school. Believe it or not, it's actually study skills and time management that make the difference, not so much just previous knowledge.

 

Everyone in your PA class has some material they know better than others, and it's meant to be that way so people share what they know and help everyone else in the process. Programs are mostly all Master's degrees now, and what you have to learn at PA school gets added on by a lot, even in just 5 or 10 years (unless you somehow think that all the medicine you know from school is all you'll ever need).

[SHU-CH]

Everyone performs differently at PA school.

 

 

That pretty much sums it up. I have found that in terms of hands-on skills, people with experience are usually much more comfortable initially. In terms of didactic performance (PACKRAT scores, outcomes, PANCE scores, etc.) pretty much everyone winds up in pretty much the same place at graduation.

 

It makes intuitive sense that people with a lot of HCE should do much better in PA school. But it also makes intuitive sense that physicians should provide much better care than PAs since they have more training, doesn't it? I would argue that both of these are inaccurate, sweeping generalizations.Until someone does a study correlating some outcome measure with  healthcare experience, it is all just speculation. To the greatest extent possible, healthcare runs on evidence, not speculation.

 

Your experience in PA school will be uniquely yours alone. Don't let other people talk you into thinking that you will struggle with something. Based upon your background (of which experience is a small part, along with other things like your leanring style, outside commitments, etc.) you will find some things difficult and some things will come easy. Find a classmate with a complementary skill set, sit down and work it out!

[generalfluff]

On the topic of physicians providing better care, it might be more accurate to say that there things the physician knows by training that the PA does not, and it is this scenario that the PA consults with the SP. Otherwise, what either of these people do will be roughly the same.

 

There is no magical cure or technique that only a physician can give, or when the SP does it instead of the PA, it is immediately five times more effective (assuming similar knowledge of the disease of course). In essence, no one ever bills for PA services, but instead physician services provided by a physician assistant. The evidence shows that outcomes are similar. When someone comes with a MRSA infection, we both have the same batch of antibiotics to pick from, and the same question of where was this acquired. 

 

If I am wrong however, is it magical physician pixie dust, courtesy of the AMA, that makes the difference? How does the potency of physician assistant fairy dust compare? Is it 15% less effective? Does the same thing apply to people with years of HCE, who by sheer virtue of their experience have gained mystical super HCE clinical skills, which those who lack can never ever hope to learn from work experience, or school?

 

It must be incomprehensible after all that anyone ever learns anything at PA school.

[Just Steve]

Looks like I touched a sore spot.  I share my experience and opinion and it's labeled overgeneralization.  I call it anecdotal.  

 

It's not all doom and gloom.  It's not all backbreaking work. It's not total immersion. It's not that difficult if you come into the program with a solid understanding of what you're getting into. It's just like any other project in life.  Previous experience will aid in future endeavors.  It allows your brain to sort through "I have seen this, it's already filed, move on" and "This is new, pay attention, dedicate some time to this".  If it's all new, you will be overwhelmed. The more direct and diverse  your previous experience is, the more room your brain has to sort the new stuff, thus not feeling overwhelmed and overloaded. 

 

I have digressed and made a fool of myself enough for today. I will agree to disagree about the current path of PA education and it's efficacy. 

 

Have a wonderful day.

[greenmood]

It's just as much a generalization to claim that it's the quantity of work that makes it hard for everyone. That's simply not true; you'll never find one thing about PA school that everyone finds equally troublesome. There is too much variety in each class.

 

 

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[db_pavnp]

I am sure this information is buried elsewhere and I have searched for and found some, but since this thread in part is about time management and how previous experience may assist students, I will ask here:

 

What would you learn from what sources to improve performance in a PA program?

 

I've read the thread which largely suggests reading medical ethics and what not.  I understand the sentiment.  However, repetition is a powerful tool.  If one's performance in PA school can make the difference between a good and great PA, I feel preliminary exposure to material is valuable.

 

I have bumped into suggestions to review renal (patho)physiology and learn EKGs (ie Dubin, although I am in the hemiblock section and I feel his publisher told him to cut it short).

 

I am considering picking up an accelerated BSN to test my mettle eight years out of school or doing a slow, cheap RN seven minutes from my house.

 

I am starting to watch Youtube channels dedicated to medical education.  (ie http://www.onlinemeded.org/ ).

 

Made Simple books - the pathophysiology one at the moment.

 

This sounds like a lot, but I work in a clinical lab and there is time to read this stuff.

[generalfluff]

Learning Pathophysiology is great, since that forms the backbone of everything else you need to learn for your other classes. Complement this with Anatomy, focusing mostly on clinical correlates. This will tie in nicely with the tests you use for Physical Diagnosis. Complete the triad by learning Pharmacology. Focus on Pathophysiology if you don't have that much time to devote, but if you can go the distance, start making a Most Commons list as you study. Note down the presenting symptoms and/or tests you can use to confirm or rule it out, the most likely differentials, treatment (name only, ignore dosage, routes, and alternatives), labs, and sequelae (if any).

 

For example,

 

Common cause of genital herpes - HHV 2

DDx - HHV 1, syphilis, HHV 3

Symptom/s - Vesicles on an erythematous base/prodome malaise, itching, or burning sensation before an outbreak

Treatment - Acyclovir (antiviral), consider adding Prednisone (anti inflammatory)

Labs - CBC showing leukocytosis/neutropenia w/ bandemia, direct serological testing

Sequelae - Encephalitis (most common), Facial nerve palsy (basically any nerve the virus is latent at) 

 

EKGs are a good start to learning, and you will gradually move on to 12-leads with some practice. EKGs Made Easy is what I personally used. PA school however can easily teach this to you, so take out of that what you will. It may be a far better use of your time if you learned Medical Terminology, so you can learn the 'lingo' and simplify most of your reading.

 

On the choice of doing an RN/BSN, check your GPA. Is it over 3.5? How many years/hours of HCE do you have? How does it compare to the previous accepted classes of your preferred PA programs? If your GPA isn't very competitive, then doing an RN/BSN, or a Master's degree may be useful to show your capacity for academic rigors of PA school. If you don't have much HCE, consider getting more. Having been a lab worker before, I can say knowledge of basic science actually goes far. Just make sure that your program counts it as valid experience for the hours.

 

Other than improving your chances in these brutal PA school admissions, I wouldn't really consider doing an RN/BSN. It takes precious time and money, that could have been better devoted to practicing as a PA (assuming you get in of course). Much as previous exposure to the material may be valuable, there is no experience that perfectly exposes you to everything PA school expects you to learn.

 

PA school is designed to make sure you can pass the boards, and have the rudimentary knowledge necessary to continue learning on the job. It never really ends. Your performance in PA school is only part of what makes the difference. As you already know, how well you do depends on what you're willing to put into it. You know yourself, at least better than anyone else does at the moment.

[db_pavnp]

Thanks for the detailed post.

 

What pharmacology text do you recommend?  I think the Made Ridiculously Simple series has one.  Also an A&P.  I have a ~2007 DiPiro, but the text is 3k pages and pretty serious business.  I am close to just buying up the MRS series at this point.

 

Making most commons is problematic for me as it is tricky from the outside to determine what exactly should be included and excluded (what is far too simple and what is far too complicated).  I would need a source to provide the backbone for this.  I have thought that a PANCE review text might fit the bill, but Amazon reviews of different texts seem extremely sketchy or negative at times.

 

I might pickup a backup EKG book.  Dubin kinda falls apart with its lack of basic definitions and practice tracings.  I'm probably looking for a few hundred tracings to fool around with (hopefully including explanations of the correct interpretation).

 

The RN/BSN path is to provide an alternate mode of career advancement.  I will not move for a PA program, so my odds of acceptance to the one local program are simply not very good (I assume, despite a solid GPA).  As much as I like the PA education model, if I fail a couple three times, I will add the local NP programs to my yearly applications.