Yesterday, for my school email, I updated my signature line to from PA-S1 to PA-S2. That means I’ve made the transition from PA-Student, 1st year, to PA-Student, 2nd Year.

Yesterday was our comprehensive exam. This was a 150 question exam broken into two 90 minute blocks of 75 questions each. Basically anything covered in the previous 11 months across our three semesters was valid. Let me tell you, that’s a lot of material.

I know my classmates and I all expected it to be hard, but I will say that I felt like half of it was stuff I hadn’t reviewed and half the stuff I reviewed wasn’t on it. I walked out of both blocks feeling a bit defeated and doubtful. But, making a long story short, I found out later that afternoon that I had passed. This was a huge relief.

It’s been quite a year. I’m still struggling to put all my feelings into words.

For one, the year has been a bit of a roller-coaster of a ride. I started off excited. My lowest point was December last year after failing an exam. Waiting yesterday to learn my grade was probably the most stressful. Had I failed it, I had an opportunity I would have had a chance at a retake, but I didn’t want to do that.

When I read the email saying I had passed, well that was probably the high point of my PA schooling so far.

This means I’m officially a PA-S2. This means the next step is starting my clinical rotations. I know what four of them are. I have ten rotations. Seven are required for all PA students and three are electives. Each is four weeks long. Every every two or three rotations we go back to campus for what are called EORs (End Of Rotation) exams and OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Assessments). Then when I’m all done, I have to take five 1-hour exams for an End of Clinical exam. Then when I want to schedule it, I take the certifying exam: the PANCE. If I thought my comprehensive was hard, the PANCE will be even harder. But if I pass that, I can then change PA-S2 to PA-C (PA-Certified).

But in the meantime, I have to get through my clinical rotations. My first one will be Surgery, at St. Joseph’s University Medical Center in Paterson, NJ. This is honestly, probably one of the hardest rotations. For one, it’s going to 12 hour days at a minimum with very high expectations. So I’ll be diving into the deep end.

My second rotation will a rehab rotation back in Wilmington, Delaware. This is one of my electives. We were asked to rank a list of objectives by what we wanted. This officially wasn’t on my list, but looks interesting and I look forward to it. Among the populations I’ll be working with are trauma patients going through rehab. This should be interesting and I expect to learn a lot.

My third rotation is back in Paterson and is Women’s Health. This will be, as I understand it, almost all in-patient and I expect it to me more interesting and an outpatient setting would be.

The fourth rotation I know of is my international rotation to South Africa. I don’t know when exactly it will be other than sometime next year. This is a lot of hands on procedures, so I’m very much looking forward to it.

While I won’t have 2-3 written and graded exams or quizzes every week for the coming year, I will still be evaluated by my preceptors who will write letters of recommendation for me. And of course the EORs and OSCEs I mentioned. So I’m hoping a little less testing anxiety.

But I’m looking forward to it. One year down, one more to go. Bring it on.

Just over a year ago I took a road trip before beginning a much longer journey. That longer journey is about to hit a major milestone: the transition from PA-S1 (Physician Assistant-Student 1st year) to PA-S2. The only thing standing in the way is a comprehensive exam this coming Wednesday.

I’m sitting here in my pajamas and in the middle of mixed emotions.

I’m excited to be almost done with my first year. I’m thrilled I did as well as I did. I’ve mentioned in the past that my undergrad GPA wasn’t very good. I’ve said that I’m proof that one could graduate in the bottom 10% of ones class and still be successful. And I like to think I’ve been successful in IT for the past 3 decades. And yet, I’ve still felt a bit of shame over that GPA. And I had been convinced for decades that it meant I’d never be able to get a Master’s degree. Even after getting into PA school, I had some doubts. I still feel that while undergraduate GPA can often be a predictor of ones success in grad school immediately after getting an undergraduate degree, I was pretty confident that it didn’t fully define me 3 decades later. However, convincing most schools of that is impossible. I’ve mentioned in the past that the vast majority of PA schools have an absolute cut-off at 3.0. This ruled out a number of schools for me. So I was grateful when Arcadia took a chance on me. So I’ve spent much of the past year proving to myself I was better than my undergrad days and showing Arcadia, that they had made the right choice.

And now my GPA (I’m still waiting for a few minor adjustments) shows I was right in thinking I could do better and proves they were right to give me a chance an

But I also feel a bit lost right now. While I need to and will study for that comprehensive, the pressure is mostly off. Today feels a bit weird. For the first time in about a year, I’m not worried about my next grade.

And I’m aquiver with anticipation. I start my first clinical rotation in about a month. That’s a whole new thing. I’m feeling pretty confident about it, but it will be a very different experience with different grading criteria.

I’m also feeling a bit bittersweet. Because my first rotation will be remote, I will be leaving my apartment for possibly the last time on Wednesday. It seems weird to have basically setup a home here for nearly a year. It’s not much and not a place I’d want to live forever, but it’s still been a home to me. So there’s that.

So here I am. Year One of PA school basically over and my emotions are all over the place.

But I’m sitting here with a smile. I’ve made it this far. I’m one step closer to becoming a PA.

Today was my last in-person lecture of my didactic year.

There’s a couple of key qualifying words there.

In-person: I still have a few recorded lectures I have to work through

I also have one more live, but Zoomed lecture to attend.

And we have a few on-campus items like Clinical skills I have to attend, but those are skills sessions, not lectures.

I have as of writing this, four exams (well they call one a quiz, but it’s basically an exam) for four classes and then a comprehensive exam that covers everything I was supposed to learn in the last year.

That’s my long, complicated way of saying I’m extremely close to being done with my didactic year!

My biggest risk right now is “short-timer’s” disease and getting sloppy.

So back to the books for me!