My very rough 1st draft.

[mtoverman]

23 yr old 1st time applicant with a not so great gpa, but a huge upward swing in grades after 3 years of school.

 

I consider myself a fairly weak writer, so any and all constructive criticism is welcomed.

 

Growing up, I never pictured myself being where I am today. People say life never goes as planned, and I wholeheartedly believe it now. You see, I come from a family line highly involved in the medical field. My paternal grandfather was a physician who routinely made house calls, and even accepted livestock for his services in some cases. My maternal grandmother was a NICU nurse who cared for premature babies in the hospital as if they were her own. Fast forward a generation and you’ll discover my father, a physician, knew from his childhood that he would follow in his father’s footsteps and go to medical school. My mother also knew from an early age that she wanted to be a nurse for pediatric patients. Now, leap forward one more generation and you get me. By the age of 16 I was still left wondering what I would do with my life. Of course, my family history of healthcare always lingered in the back of my mind, but I figured that if I didn’t know for sure that healthcare was for me at this point, then it probably wasnt. It was at that point I decided that I would break the mold of my family’s career choice and chase a different career path. Boy was I mistaken.

 

Two years later, with still no real idea of what I wanted to do with my life, I entered into college with an undeclared major. I’ll be ok I thought, i’ll just take some classes and discover what interests me, like so many of my peers intended to do. To say that went as planned is a far cry from the truth. Two more years flew by and the only thing i’d discovered were the subjects that I didn’t enjoy. Those two years were rough. Emotionally immature, I was making decisions without considering the lasting effects they would have on my future. With no life plan laid out, I transferred schools more than once and earned grades that were far below what one would consider acceptable. It wasn’t until my third year in college that I began rethinking that rash decision I had made years prior to pursue a career outside of the medical field. What changed? I sat in the first class that interested me on an entirely different level I had experienced before. It was during this semester I realized the decision I had made years prior to avoid the healthcare field was hasty, at best. With an entirely different mindset on healthcare, I began looking into the different roles of professionals in the healthcare setting. Under advisement of my father and sister, a PA school applicant at the time, I looked into the role of PAs. After my own research and a sit-down with a practicing PA, it was finally clear to me. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, and it was to become a PA. 

 

My first PA shadowing experience only strengthened this newfound desire to become a PA. Having somewhat of an independent personality myself, I was enthusiastic towards the PA’s ability to express autonomy in treating patients, while also having the ability to rely on his physician counterpart for a second opinion if needed. Unbeknownst to me, physicians rarely viewed their PAs as someone below them, but rather a professional with whom they could work together with to provide the best care possible to their patients. I often observed this while shadowing a Dr. and his Pa in a Rhuematology clinic. They would discuss every patient’s case with each other in deciding the best line of treatment for the patient and no decision was ever made without consulting the other first. Sure, one might find that this is unneeded redundancy, but they felt this process yielded the best healthcare they could offer. They also relied on their nurses to give exceptional care to patients when they had 4 hour long IV infusion appointments. This made me realize that physicians, PAs, nurses and MAs aren’t just single entities in the clinic setting. They are a finely tuned healthcare team, who together, provide better healthcare to patients than they could individually.

 

Working as a medical assistant, i’ve had the opportunity to be part of that healthcare team and experience the rewarding feeling first hand. The skills I have learned would prove very valuable to me as I fulfilled a role as a PA in the healthcare team. Being able to listen to a patient and answer their questions in a way they can understand is vital. In our culture, patients want to do their best to understand their ailments and I feel PAs are a crucial part in making that happen. The complexity of the human body and the puzzling way symptoms can present themselves is often hard to understand, and it is that puzzle that also drives me to this career. The puzzling nature of medical care intrigues me at primitive level, while the rewarding feeling from a healthy patient is worth more than a salary. 

 

So here I am, looking to take on the role as a PA in healthcare. Its something that, as a child, I never pictured myself doing. However, now that I’ve experienced healthcare as a mature adult, I couldn’t be more sure of a decision in my life.