Dynamo24 Posted May 13, 2013 Share Posted May 13, 2013 Here is my first draft. I wrote this pretty quickly so it may seem disjointed or that I left stuff out/included too much stuff. I have a lot of time to revise, revise, and revise again. I don't plan on applying for about another month so, go ahead and let me know what I need to change. I need to shave off over 1000 characters, so any way to shorten it would be fantastic. As I was sitting in the exam room, the orthopedic surgeon said “You have what we call the terrible triad. This injury combined with breaking the same leg less than 8 months ago, you probably won’t be near the same athlete you were before”. I didn’t know how to respond. Everything I had worked so hard for was slipping out of my hands. Coming from a poor background being raised by a single mother where not one of my family members attended college, football was my way out. It was my path to becoming more than what anyone else in my family had come to be. I never thought of attended college for academics; football was all I ever wanted to do. The physician walked through what to expect, the procedure, and recovery protocol. It didn’t matter at that point what he said, I was too devastated to care. He briefly introduced me to his physician assistant and then left the room. I had no idea what a physician assistant was; I thought he was just there to take notes. The physician assistant stayed behind to give me some further information about pre-rehabilitation and how to prepare best for the surgery so I would have a full recovery. He could see the pain in my face, the tears welling up in my eyes. As impossible as it may have seemed to console a 17 year old kid, he took his best shot. “It’s going to be okay, nothing is ever for sure” is what I remember him saying. At the time it was insignificant to me at best. But it was obvious at the time he was more concerned about my well-being as a person than my knee as a patient. Each subsequent visit was a joy for me. He would talk to me and my mother about how things were going, ask me about my favorite sports teams, and compliment me on the hard work I was putting in at therapy. Impressively enough he remembered nearly everything we talked about during my post-op care. After surgery, I suffered through bouts of depression and anxiety. I isolated myself from everyone and eventually dropped out of high school as I was convinced I didn’t stand a chance in college academically. I relegated myself to working for my step-father mowing lawns and digging holes to lay water pipes. I worked at a pizza shop for nearly four years then switching to installing windows in residential and commercial construction. I thought this is what I was set out to be; uneducated and grinding my way through jobs that didn’t challenge me intellectually. It was an easy way for me to never have to work too hard and always have a paycheck. As I grew more and more tired with this type of work, I researched becoming a personal trainer. I’ve always had a love for fitness and felt it was a great way to challenge myself and have a rewarding career. I earned my certification in about six months and was hired at a small, local gym in Omaha when I was 23. I was finally happy working because I was doing what I loved. I was training motivated and educated people: physicians and highly successful businessmen and women. What I didn’t expect from this job was the questions and challenges I received from my clients such as: Why are you still here? You’re way too smart to be training for the rest of your life, why don’t you go to college to become a doctor or something? I took all of this in stride as people just being nice to a young half-black kid who came from nothing. These questions became more prevalent as they could see I was growing bored with training. They could see I was hungry for more than just training, that I needed more growth personally and intellectually. The one who saw this the most was, at the time, my fiancé. She could see my lack of motivation to go to work due to boredom and lack of being challenged. She knew my personality type and how it was affected me. One day she sat me down and said “I want you to be the best you can. I know you are smart enough to do whatever you want and I support you in everything you do but I think you need to go to college and find what you love”. This was a huge sacrifice for us being that we would be heading into marriage with one less income for many years to come. But we decided as a couple to move forward, leave my training job and enroll in classes. I had no idea what I wanted to be, but I had an interest in medicine because I am fascinated by the miracle that is the human body. As I considered nursing school or medical school, a close friend of mine who is a physical therapist suggested physician assistant school. Once again, I had no idea what a PA was. He did his best to explain it, and I was immediately interested. I went home and researched all I could on the profession and the scope of practice. I loved the autonomy, working with a team of healthcare professionals, the graduate school length, and the opportunity to work in nearly any area of medicine. I saw many schools required or heavily considered students with healthcare experience. With the various opportunities out there, I knew that becoming an EMT would be the best for me. I enjoy thinking on my feet, making quick but informed decisions, and the scope of practice of an EMT. As an EMT, the amount of patient contact I have is high and diverse. Some calls are routine while some are complicated and hectic. Even though my knee injury was over 12 years ago, every day I go to work and see patients I remember how I was treated by that physician assistant. I put every effort in to treat my patients with same compassion, care, and respect as I was treated. I am lucky to be involved with many physician assistants in my line of work and every one I have come in contact with has been patient, informative, and very personable. The relationships I have built through working as an EMT with physician assistants has further entrenched my desire to become a physician assistant. I believe my life and work experience plus my relationships with PAs has not only exposed me to the physician assistant profession but has greatly prepared me for the challenge of becoming and practicing as a physician assistant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waitingblessing Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 OK so please please don't take this the wrong way but I'm concerned with your timeline you say u were 17 in Omaha? Pa wasn't really that prevalent then so they might think you are making paragraph 1 details up. I don't know I'm no committee person just a commenter! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waitingblessing Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 O but EMT is good I hear that field gets accepted a lot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dynamo24 Posted May 14, 2013 Author Share Posted May 14, 2013 There have been PA's in Omaha for 20+ years in nearly all specialties not to mention the program at Nebraska has been around since the 70's. I'm not sure where you heard different... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dynamo24 Posted May 14, 2013 Author Share Posted May 14, 2013 Any other suggestions from anyone would greatly help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timon Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 Did you submit this yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cherity Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 Your narrative kept me interested from intro all the way through. But the conclusion could be stronger. :;-D: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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