Am I alone on this?

[donwinder]

So I am graduating in Aug '11 and I honestly still feel like I know nothing. Maybe it is this rotation or maybe the fact that soon I will be a practicing PA. I am just feeling a little like even though I have passed all the tests and tasks up to this point, I still feel overwhelmed about how much I don't have settled in my mind. Am I alone on this?

[Contrarian]

Very common feeling with New Grads...

As long as you USE this as a guard against complacency and cavalier patient care... you WILL be fine.

 

This feeling should start to dissapate after working for about 1.5-2yrs... but should NEVER go away.

 

YMMV

 

Contrarian

[PAdaddy]

I think it shows alot about your character that you are even willing to admit your feelings on this subject. I've been a hospital and clinic administrator for 10 years now and I've seen physicians, nurses and mid-levels that didn't know half of what they pretended to know and I guarantee you they would never admit to feeling humbled by the vastness of the profession as you have. This is the exact reason I have decided to go back to school to be a PA... you can never stop learning and bettering yourself as a care giver.

 

Hang tough my brother! We all believe in you.

 

JD

[donwinder]

Thanks for your encouragement. I just am getting tired of not knowing everything. :-) I usually have one day of strong work, then another day of forgetting a couple easy things so it is a roller coaster for the ego. So just needed to vent. Thanks again.

[Acebecker]

I graduate in 6 weeks... All I can really say is that I don't know everything that I should know. It's frightening at times. I just remind myself that I'm not an imposter and that many successful PAs have come before me and felt the same way when they were new... It'll fade after a while, I hope. Only time will tell.

 

Andrew

[noiseordinance]

It's nice to read this thread. As a pre-PA about to finish my undergrad, I am always at the top of the class. Yet somehow a month after a term ends I'll think, "I don't remember the vast majority of what I learned". Or sometimes I can't see the big picture of something because my brain got caught up on the minor details that a class might emphasize. It's hard to learn something to perfection only to quickly forget it after not using the knowledge for a while. This is something I am coping with on a daily basis, and can only imagine the feeling gets worse in PA school. At any rate, while it's a frightening prospect, it's good to know that others deal with this too.

 

I comfort myself with the fact that I'm humble enough to know when I don't know something. In this way, I may not be the PA with a steel trap for a brain, but I'll still be able to practice good medicine by using good judgement.

[kbarro1]

I will say that this is VERY common for a PA student and I agree with contrarian that you begin to feel more comfortable after about 1.5 years. I am at the 2 year mark and just now feel like I don't have to ask a question about every other patient :) I will tell you what saved me was that my first supervising physician was a supportive man who didn't care how many questions I asked because he would rather me ask a question, even stupid ones, than send a patient home that I wasnt sure about just b/c I was scared to talk to him about something. That was HUGE for me. I worked with him for approx 8 months then he had to leave for personal reasons, but he built my confidence in a way he can never imagine and in my time since I have maintained my attitude about asking questions. So, my advice is to make sure in your first job that you will have physician or skilled PA/NP to support you in you new journey. That is how you continue to learn along with personal study. Good luck!