Didactic Year: Semester One

At my school we are on a semester schedule. The first semester was from January-April. They started us off with 11 classes/29 credit hours. Crazy right?!

Well honestly, it's not as bad as it sounds. The schedule is intimidating, but it is possible. I thought I was going to struggle because I haven't been a full-time student since 2012. However, I did really well in all of my classes because I had a genuine interest in learning the material. Being organized also helps because you have to manage school and your personal life. Remember, you are in a graduate program and most programs require students to maintain at least a B average. If you don't put in the necessary work, you will struggle to maintain that minimum average.

First semester coursework included Pharmacology, Anatomy & Physiology, Pathophysiology, Radiology, Clinical Medicine, Physical Diagnosis, Clinical Skills, Lab Diagnostics, Evidence-Based Medicine, Medical Terminology, and PA Professions.

Of these classes, Clinical Medicine, Physical Diagnosis, and Clinical Skills were my favorite.

Clinical Medicine: In this class we are learning the diseases by body system. This is one of my favorites because we are going through the presenting signs/symptoms, physical exam findings, demographics commonly affected, and how to treat it.

Physical Diagnosis: After learning about the diseases in Clinical Medicine, in this class we learned how to perform the physical exam for that particular body system.

Clinical Skills: Here we learned how to perform the procedures that corresponded with the body systems that we were learning during the semester.

For Physical Diagnosis and Clinical Skills we have regular exams, but we also have check-offs where we perform the skills that we learned and perform mock physical exams on each other. The skills from first semester included: Vital Signs/Injections, I&D, NG tube placement, Corneal Abrasion/ Fluorescein Stain/ FB removal, and IV/Phlebotomy. The physical exams were for Dermatology, HEENT, and Abdomen.

After taking 62 exams, I had finally completed and survived my first semester of PA school! Tough, but definitely worth it!

"We don't grow when things are easy, we grow when we face challenges."