I’ll be posting a few more follow-ups to my recent road trip but for now a break from that and something else: counting down.

One month from today, on May 27th, I’ll be going through orientation for my PA program. I’ve already met a few classmates at the open house a few months ago, but this is the first time all of us will be in the same place at once.

Then the very next day classes start. Or as I like to think of it, I’ll be starting a marathon of sprints. The next two years will be very busy for me.

I think I’ve mentioned before, the first year is all didactic teaching. I’ll be spending a lot of time in the classroom, lab, study areas, and in my apartment, focusing on learning and memorization.

While I took over 40 credits of classes as prereqs in prep for this, that was spread out over the course of about two years and I never took more than 12 credits at a time. And these were undergrad level classes. My first semester I’ll be taking 18 credits. All graduate level. (Ok, I’m not sure I’m too worried about the one credit class, “Professional Practice I” but still that leaves a lot). On the other hand, I won’t be doing any IT consulting or ED teching during this time, so my primary focus will be just that, learning. But I’m still nervous. I want to do as well as possible. I can’t afford to have a repeat of my undergrad experience in terms of grades and study habits.

The second year is my clinical year. This is where I have 10 clinical rotations of 4 weeks each, with testing between them. This I’m not too worried about. For one thing, my hands on experience and observations in the ER should help me a lot here.

In fact I recently spoke to a friend of mine who is currently in a PA program. She’s had years of hands on experience as a paramedic. She mentioned it was striking how uncomfortable some of her fellow students whose medical background was basically that of “scribe” were with the hands on stuff. I mean I get it. For example, sticking a needle to draw blood in a living breathing human being is a bit daunting. For her, that was just another Monday.

In the meantime though, before I can even start classes, I have a number of things to do:

• Put the BMW on the market – it needs work and I don’t have the time for it or need.
• Find an apartment – I’ve got a place picked out, just need to sign the lease. Ideally I’d have a roommate to cut costs, but looks like that’s not happening.
• Come up with a list of items I’m bringing with me for the apartment (clothing, cooking utensils, etc)
• Acquire bigger items (like a bed, possibly a dresser).
• Finish projects around the house
• 4 more scheduled (and I’ll probably pick up 1 or 2 other) ED Tech shifts
• Work to change from a .6 FTE ED Tech to what they call the “school” track where I can work during breaks.
• Get a lot of paperwork done. I’ve already authorized the background checks and other paperwork. I have to start getting my vaccination information together. One they want details on is chickenpox. Well I was born well before the varicella vaccine was even out there. So I don’t have any vaccination records for that. Fortunately they’ll accept a titer for that.
• Mow the lawn!
• Finish up some other projects around the house.
• Attend Rebecca’s Senior Film showing (that I also happened to act in!)
• Attend Rebecca’s graduation!
• Run an Orientation to Cave Rescue class in two weeks
• Give a talk to the local ER docs (and others) about Medicine in Cave Rescue
• Write above talk!
• And much more.

There’s a lot to do, and on one hand a month seems like forever, on the other hand, it seems like it’s not enough time.

I made the decision in December of 2021 to apply for PA School. At the time I had the outrageous idea that I’d be able to apply in 2022 and start in 2023. I realized very quickly that was unrealistic and impractical so I set a new goal of applying in 2023 and starting in 2024. I knew that was an outside shot, something like 70% of first time applicants don’t get in, and I had my very low undergrad GPA hampering me. So, here it is, I did a second round of applications in 2024 and am, starting in 2025. So not too far off my first realistic schedule.

I’m excited. And nervous. But mostly excited.