For as long as I can remember, medical school was the ultimate dream of mine. When I was in high school I LOVED it when people asked me what my future plans were for after high school. Every opportunity I had, I proudly and confidently would state that I was going to study pre-medicine and would one day go to medical school.
I stuck with that dream until my sophomore year of undergrad at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. I had a supervisor of mine ask me exactly WHY I wanted to go to medical school. What was it about medical school that pulled me in? I, of course, answered quickly with the “ I want to help people” response, followed by “because I want to make a difference” and “it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do”. He wasn’t satisfied with those answers. He must have poked and prodded me about the WHY for at least 30 minutes. At first it was a little agitating, but then it really dawned on me that I didn’t really have a solid reason for my desire to go to medical school. The truth of the matter is, I didn’t really give any other profession a chance in my mind. Some may call that determination, some may call it perseverance, hell, some may even call it a form of passion, but the reality of it is that I was stubborn, closed minded and pretty vain about the whole thing. It’s okay, I can admit it.
So after realizing that I needed to maybe think about WHY it was that I was pursuing this education and putting myself through the agonizing hell also known as organic chemistry, I set aside some time for my thoughts. It was pretty alarming to me to realize how I was just going through the motions of college and had basically settled for my career without even having any particular reasons in mind other than the typical cliché answers you hear. It was not until this point that I had even considered other career options. I knew that I had a calling for medicine, but I didn’t have the slightest clue about what the other areas of medicine had to offer. An entire weekend (and then some) was spent looking into physician assistant programs, physical therapy programs, occupational therapy programs, nurse practitioner programs, nurse anesthetist programs, and probably others that I cannot recall at this time.
Shortly after looking into my options, I had this inclination toward the PA route. I decided to research more into what exactly a PA was, what it took to become a PA, and if I even had a shot at getting into a program. It seemed like the more I looked into it, the more I found myself thinking “wow, why had I never looked into this before”. Over time, I ended up changing my major from biomedical sciences to allied health science with a physician assistant emphasis, per recommendation of my academic advisor. I bought a GRE study book, signed up for a GRE review course that my college offered, started doing more job shadows of PAs and when I went home over the summer I quit my job as a bartender and took my Certified Nursing Assistant course and got a job at a local nursing home. It was time to show the world that although I had changed my mind about medical school, I was willing to put in the time and effort it took to shape myself into physician assistant student applicant.
If I had the opportunity to talk to my supervisor today about my WHYs of choosing PA school I would have these things to say.
- Teamwork makes the dream work. I love the fact that as a PA I will have a supervising physician that I can turn to with questions/concerns that I have and continue to be a lifelong learner with them. The term physician assistant is often misunderstood as working “underneath” a physician but the reality is that the two positions are more collaborative than anything else.
- I don’t have to go to school as long. I learn what they learn in 4+ years of medical school in 27 months. This can be good or bad depending on the person, but to me it was a huge plus! Saved me a lot of student debt too!
- I don’t have to specialize! The beautiful thing about PA school is that you learn a little bit of everything and at the end you don’t have to specialize if you don’t want to. You are not stuck in one area of medicine. You could do cardiology for a few years and then decide that you want to do dermatology for a while and then who knows after a couple of years opt for surgery. The opportunities are endless. That is not typically a luxury for physicians. There are ways to specialize if you choose to do so, but because most programs are designed to teach their students to be in primary care/family medicine and then we can do electives in clinical year to get more experience in a specialty field.
- I can still do all of the “cool medical stuff” that physicians do. I still get to assess, diagnose, and treat patients. I can prescribe medications (within certain parameters) and yes, I even get a white coat too. I still get what I deemed as the “perks” of medical school, but I have an accelerated program (seriously, about 30 credits each semester).
No matter what your path of choice is in the medical field, I encourage you to think about WHY you want to be there. You should want to choose a career path because you can’t imagine doing anything else. You should have a passion in your soul that gives you the drive and motivation to get to your final destination. PA school is incredibly hard (as is medical school, NP school, Nursing school etc.), if that passion/drive/dedication/motivation isn’t there, you will find it very difficult to persevere.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said , “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable…Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals”. Anyone is capable of opening up a book, studying, and passing a test. But only true, passionate individuals who are willing to put in the work are going to wind up doing something that they love so fiercely.
My biggest internal struggle was feeling like I was going to let people down if I ended up not going to medical school, heck, that was all I talked about in high school and my early undergraduate college years. The reality is though, the only person you let down when you continue on a path you may not want to be on, is yourself. Do not settle for a career path because you think that “its too late to change”, or because “my parents/family/friends/coworkers will be disappointed in me” or whatever the reason may be. Do this because you want to. Take the time to ponder your future and take the time to evaluate the amount of time/effort/sacrifices you are willing to make to make your dream a reality. Figure out WHY you want this so bad, and then go for it! You are unstoppable.
So tell me, what is your WHY?
-Paige
Paige the PA 