When I started a blog about the clinical year of PA school, I envisioned that I would be posting every week about all my new experiences. As it turns out, I needed a little time away to gain the necessary perspective on the clinical phase of PA school. I'll start with a common question I receive from 1st year PA students: Is the clinical year easier than the didactic year?
The better question is why are we so curious about the “easy” part? Think back to your PA school interview when you were arguably the most ambitious about the challenging, complicated, and intellectually stimulating aspects of medicine. There is no arguing that the didactic year is mentally and emotionally exhausting but through all this hard work we sometimes lose sight of why we wanted to be physician assistants in the first place. It wasn’t for the least challenging path.
The clinical year is so different than the didactic year that a comparison is not warranted. With the right mental approach, the clinical year is very rewarding. All the studying, classes, and clinical skills labs are put to work. It’s a taste of the career that you have ahead of you. Enjoying the satisfaction of completing your first twelve hour shift, realizing that proper documentation helps you remember the 8am patient when the clock strikes 6pm, getting frustrated that you still have to calculate the pediatric dose for ibuprofen with a calculator while your preceptor just knows it. And by the time you get your sea legs, it is time to move on to ski legs… if you catch my drift. Embrace the challenge of the clinical year. Make the most of working extra hours instead of complaining about it. Instead of getting frustrated when a preceptor practices differently than how you were taught, question it, research it, and move on.
The practicing world of medicine works a lot differently than multiple choice exams. There is often more than one answer to a clinical problem. This can be frustrating for students at first but just be patient with the process. And to answer the question posed by many PA students about the clinical year...
Try your hardest to avoid the easy way out.
