I went part-time. Here's why.

Going back to derm after maternity leave was harder than I expected, and not in a way I could push through by being more organized. I wanted more time with my family, and I was in a profession that actually lets you do something about that. So I did.

That flexibility is one of the genuinely great things about being a PA, and I don't think students hear it enough. Full-time, part-time, per diem, switching specialties - those doors stay open. Your first job is not a life sentence.

I also answer a listener question about doing a dual PA and public health degree, and whether the extra time and money is worth it.

What I cover:

• Why I moved to part-time in dermatology
• Going back to work after maternity leave
• How much flexibility the PA profession actually offers
• Figuring out your own priorities instead of copying someone else's
• Dual PA and MPH degrees: who they make sense for
• Thinking about work-life balance before you're burned out

Resources:

PA Program Map: https://www.thepaplatform.com/pa-platform-map

Pre-PA counseling: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-counseling

Free application timeline: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-application-timeline

Free resume download: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-resume-download

Mentioned in this episode:

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Welcome to the Prepa Club Podcast.

Today I'm talking about some personal decisions that I made regarding work and also should you go to a program that has an MPH option and what does that look like?

Welcome to the Prepa Club Podcast.

If you want to learn how to become a physician assistant, you're in the right place.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry.

Let's get to it.

Hey guys, thanks so much for tuning in to today's podcast.

I am going to share with you a video that I actually posted on Instagram TV about my decision to go part time at work and how I made that decision, why I made that decision, what it looks like and how I've been transitioning this week into that new role and actually new job altogether.

So I ended up going to a completely different practice.

Practice still doing dermatology, haven't left the field.

But I do want to share with you guys kind of what's behind that decision.

So we'll share that in a second.

But before I do that, I want to give a shout out to our sponsors, MyPA Resource, which is an essay editing service specifically for PA personal statements.

And you can use the code futurepa for a discount there if you're interested in getting your personal statement edited.

And as well as paschoolprep.com which is an online course that prepares you for PA school with a refresher on anatomy, physiology and medical terminology specific for PA school and what you'll need to know on a grad school level.

Again, you can use the code futurepa there and as always, you can use that code on anything@the PA platform or prepacourses.com and you know, we have pre PA assessments where we look at your whole application or GPA and kind of help you estimate that and push you in the right direction and come up with a plan.

Together we have our mock interviews with all of our amazing coaches.

We also have the PA School Interview Guidebook and the PA School Interview course which go together and help to prepare you for interviews.

So if you need help with any of that, please check out the website.

There are also a lot of just free, really great resources on there as far as downloads and worksheets and videos.

So we're just trying to help you out, get as much information out there as we can and if there's something you want to see, please, please, please let us know.

So first let's listen to this audio of the video that I did talking about why I am now working part time.

Hey guys, I really haven't Done too much on IGTV before, but I decided to give it a try for this one.

And if we haven't met before, I'm Savannah Perry.

I am still a dermatology PA and I've been doing this for five years now.

But I wanted to talk a little bit about my decision to go part time.

And that is a decision that I've been thinking about for a long time.

And just through kind of a turn of events, it kind of happened sooner than I was expecting.

So I'll kind of tell y' all how I got to that decision, why and what that looked like, so.

So I went straight into work.

After graduating PA school, I went straight into working in dermatology.

My husband was in medical school, so he didn't get any time off.

I couldn't go take a vacation or anything.

I kind of just had to get out there and start making money, honestly.

So I went straight into my derm job.

Loved it.

Got adjusted.

When I first started, I was working four days a week, Monday through Thursday, which was awesome.

Pretty good schedule.

Usually leaving or home by five a few months.

And they asked me to add Friday morning.

So I did, because kind of my theory was if I wasn't working and making money, I was probably out spending it.

And at that point, you know, my husband was in med school still.

He was really busy, not home a lot.

So if I was off on Fridays, I was kind of just sitting at home by myself.

So I started working Friday mornings, and it was great.

So I did that for a while.

And, you know, derm is a very busy specialty.

So a lot of times I'd be seeing 30, 35 patients kind of just going at it all day long, which I was fine with.

I like working hard.

I like staying busy.

I'd rather be busy than bored.

So all of this kind of changed once I had my daughter last year.

So I've always been the type of person who, if you ask me, you know, well, even when I got pregnant, you know, people would say, are you gonna cut back your hours?

Are you gonna, like, not work anymore?

And I was very quick to say, no, I'm still working.

You guys are crazy.

I've worked so hard for this.

There's no way that I'm not working, which, I mean, I have friends who are PAs who work, and I have friends who work in other jobs, and then I have friends who stay home.

And I've kind of seen all sides of that.

And, you know, some of my, like, stay at home mom friends, I would always Be like, oh, like, y' all have it so easy.

Or like, I could never do that.

I could never stay home all day.

And so that was kind of my mindset just while I was working and before I had Sam.

So once I.

Even while I was pregnant, you know, people would say, like, what are you gonna do as far as work?

And I still would say, I'm going back to work.

But then I had her.

And I mean, I just.

I can't explain to you, I guess, unless you have had a child, how much that changes things.

And I know everyone says it and it's so cliche, but it's so true.

And So I took 11 weeks of maternity leave, which I would recommend taking as long as you possibly can, which was great for me because I had some postpartum complications, had to go back in the hospital for a week.

So by the time I kind of got over all that, I really only had like nine weeks with her.

And so by the time it was time for me to go back, I felt like we were just kind of getting our groove, you know, I was breastfeeding, and that's not easy.

No one teaches you how to do that.

And so that was hard.

And then trying to figure out, we just figured this out.

Now I've got to go pump at work.

Sorry.

That might be tmi, but it was just a lot of transitions all at once.

At this point.

My husband's in residency, so his schedule's.

All over the place.

I did ask to go back to four days a week while I was pregnant.

And we kind of came up with a compromise of I would work one Friday a month, which then that made things complicated with childcare, which is a whole nother thing.

I mean, it's very difficult to find someone to trust with your child if you've never done that before.

And so luckily I had my mother in law helping.

We found a great nanny who was with her two days a week as well.

But when it came time for me to go back to work, I was a mess.

I was crying, I was losing my mind.

The day that I was supposed to go back, I just remember I stood at the door just sobbing and begged my husband not to make me go.

I said, please don't make me go.

Please don't make me leave her.

And that's so strange to me because that is not who I thought I would be.

I totally thought I was the one who after like four weeks, would say, get me back to work.

I'm bored.

I don't want to sit around this house.

But no, I literally wanted to sit on the couch with my baby on me.

So I went back to work.

And you know, everyone says you're gonna adjust, you'll get used to it, and you do.

But for about those first six months, when I'm balancing, you know, working full time, trying to figure out this mom thing, sometimes kind of being a single parent with my husband in residency, still doing PA platform stuff, which I love and didn't want to give up, we had a lot of conversations, usually with me crying about just how overwhelmed I was.

I read a bunch of books.

There's a really great one called Stretch Too Thin that was helpful.

And I talked to, you know, my working mom friends who have had kids and my stay at home mom friends and, and my family.

And we all kind of.

They knew that I was struggling with just balance, which you talk about balance a lot, I hear a lot, you know, the flexibility of the PA profession, which we'll get to, and just work life balance.

But what I've learned is that there is no balance.

There's no.

You're never going to have everything equal if it's kind of you're trying to equalize it.

There's always going to be something that is pulling more of your energy or attention and then you have to decide whether that thing is your priority or not.

So it became going to work and coming home.

I was exhausted and so then I didn't have the energy and attention to give to my family that I needed.

Also, if you've ever had a baby, there's something called the witching hour that happens right about 5 o'.

Clock.

So I also just wasn't getting the best time with my baby.

So in the morning, it was like a mad dash to get out the door.

I would get up, get her ready, get her food going, all that, and then leave, come home, she is exhausted and tired and angry and crying, which makes me want to cry.

And it just wasn't a good system that we had.

And it got better.

So about six months in, I was no longer having these like weekly anxiety driven crying fits where my husband is like, I don't know how else to help you, but it sounds like something has to change.

And so we started talking about, could we make it work If I went part time, which that was a long discussion.

That wasn't something that happened immediately.

It was looking at finances, it was looking at time, childcare, his schedule, my schedule, what would that actually look like?

Sanity?

Like, would I be okay if I was home more but ultimately what it came down to is, and this is what I told them eventually when I went to them at work, you know, I don't have a lot of hobbies besides the PA platform and shopping, but I don't have a lot of hobbies.

And the time that I find the most joy and happiness is when I'm hanging out with my family, whether that's my husband or my baby or preferably both.

That's when I'm happiest.

And I could not when I kind of got to the point of actually making this decision.

In no way could I ever see myself regretting spending more time with them.

I could see myself regretting working more if I didn't have to and if it was just exhausting me to the point where I would get home on Thursdays, couldn't get off the couch.

Fridays was a day to just recover.

Saturday I'm actually trying to get stuff done and by Sunday it's time to start over.

So it's just this constant grind, which I know everyone does, and I admire everyone who does all this because it is not easy and I've learned that.

But then.

In June, my nanny quit.

She ended up getting a full time job somewhere else, which I totally understand, benefits and all that, so.

So she told us she was only going to be there for a month more.

And then my husband finished residency, which his schedule as a hospitalist is seven on, seven off.

So when you look at that on a calendar with my schedule, if I'm working five days a week and he's not getting home till late and all this, we really would only have like two to three days together every other week.

And that's not what I signed up for.

That's not for my life.

What works for me when it comes to marriage.

I want to see my husband and spend time with him.

So we looked at that as well.

So I went to them at work, which was not an easy conversation.

I think leaving a job is kind of like a divorce.

And my situation was a little different because this was my only job I'd ever had.

I'd been there for five years and it wasn't.

There wasn't anything wrong really.

And so it's different.

I think it would be a different situation if, you know, you're feeling like you've been abused or used by a job and you're ready to leave.

This wasn't that.

This was, I wanted to stay.

I wanted any way possible for me to stay there.

But we, we kind of looked at things, went back and forth and ultimately the job that they needed for a PA was a full time job and we tried to talk through some compromises but it just wasn't working.

So ultimately I had to put in my resignation letter and that was really hard.

I was really emot emotional about it, even leaving just because I had a great relationship with my supervising physician.

She was an amazing teacher.

We had great communication, a great flow and to leave, that is hard.

But like I said, I can never see myself regretting being home more with my baby.

And another thing that I kind of told them is, you know, I could see the difference in her when I was with her more if I had a longer break of four or five days.

We had like me and my baby had a much better relationship than when I was, you know, running out the door and running in the door to do bath time and dinner.

She is a very strong willed one year old and likes to kind of push back and bump heads with me and she does it the most with me instead of anyone else.

So not as much with my husband or other family members.

And so when we actually have more quality time, she tends to be a lot more sweet towards me and we, we can kind of make that work a little bit more.

So I felt like it was important for me to be there and I don't want to miss anything in her life, I don't want to miss her events, I don't want to miss.

I just, as much as I can be there, I want to be there.

So again, this is not who I thought I would be, but here we are.

And I had working parents growing up.

My parents were teachers and I think they were great examples for me.

And so I don't ever see myself not working completely.

Like I will always be a PA and I think I'll always practice clinically.

But what ended up happening was I turned in my resignation.

Word gets out very quickly.

So before I had even turned it in, they had four resumes when we were still just talking, not even people I knew.

I don't know how the word got out, but they had some resumes for PAs at my old job and I started playing out some feelers with some drug or reps and other PAs about jobs.

And within 24 hours I had a new job in Durham with the opportunity to make my own schedule, however I want it.

So that does show you the flexibility and the.

What's the right word?

The desirability of being a pa, especially with experience.

And I think being in dermatology to have an experience during PA looking for a new job is not very common.

And so I'm very, very, very excited about my new job.

I started this week, I've only been one day, but next week I get to start seeing patients.

And it's different, they do things different, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

And I think getting to see different ways of how offices work will just make me a better provider overall.

So I'm very excited about it.

Stay tuned for how that's going.

But I guess today's technically my second day of being a part time mom or part time work pa, full time mom.

I don't know.

But it's been, it's been fun so far.

So I'm gonna go have lunch with Taylor, who I missed.

And then it all worked out because she got into PA school and I was so sad about leaving her, but she's leaving too.

And that's my medical assistant at my old job who's one of my best friends.

So, yeah, it's been a good transition.

We'll see how it goes.

And I would just encourage you if you think you might want to be part time or work less, at least explore it.

I mean, put numbers down on paper, look at it, go to your work, see what their thoughts are on you going part time.

Also, always be looking for jobs.

And that's something that I heard once at a conference.

I think it's great advice, like never stop looking for jobs because you don't know what's out there.

And so I think it's definitely doable.

And another thing is I was very surprised by how supportive my patients were.

They were all very excited for me, even though I was leaving and I wasn't, couldn't tell them where I was going, but I mean, I would tell them, you know, next time you're going to see the doctor, I'm going somewhere else, I'm going to be part time, stay home with my baby more.

And I mean, they were all, you know, that's so great for you, we're so excited for you.

They were all very, very supportive.

And so that was really sweet because I did feel, you know, that I'm abandoning them to some degree.

But they all were very understanding of why I was making the.

And very supportive of that.

So if anyone has questions or you're thinking about whether you should go part time or what that looks like, feel free to send them my way because it was not an easy couple months going through that transition, but I am very, very glad that I made that decision.

Alright, so I don't think I said it in the video actually, but I'm working two or two and a half days every week, just depending.

But I have a really great supportive practice who is very supportive of, you know, being family oriented.

So I'm really, really excited about that opportunity.

But now we have a listener question, so I'll play it for you guys and then give you my thoughts.

And if you didn't know, you can always leave a voicemail for the [email protected] thepaplatform or that link is in the description too.

If you want to leave your question and get it answered on the podcast.

Hi Savannah, my name's Amy.

I recently found your podcast and I've been listening to all of your episodes.

So first I just want to say thank you so much for making all of this content for everyone.

I have a quick question about something that I feel like is new.

So I've recently discovered a few colleges and universities have a dual degree program now where you can become a physician assistant while also getting your master's in public health.

So these are two degrees that I'm personally interested in obtaining.

But as I've kind of searched, I've realized that it is a newer thing and there's not a lot of information out there right now about PAs that have both degrees.

So I just wondered what your opinion is of pursuing both degrees as a working pa, do you feel like a background in public health would be beneficial to you?

And ultimately, you know, do you think it's worth it, the extra time and the extra money to have both degrees?

Thank you so much for your time.

I really appreciate it.

Thanks, Amy, for your question.

And I don't know that I've actually talked about the PAMPH programs, but that's the most common joint degree program you're going to see.

When it comes to PA school, there are a few that have a joint bachelor's and PA program, but that's a little bit different.

So these PA and PH programs, there are a few out there, not really that many.

They offer two degrees, so you end up with a Master's in PA studies or whatever they call it.

Every school is a little different and a Master's of Public health.

Now I think these programs are great if you have an interest in public health already, or that's something you've thought about pursuing?

Do I think it's 100% necessary for being a PA or getting a job?

Not really.

And I don't know that it would make you that much more marketable unless you are working in something like research or academics, where that public health background would be beneficial to your employer.

That doesn't mean that it won't make you a better pa, because you will have kind of a different outlook and more knowledge when it comes to the public health aspect, which is definitely conjoined with just working in medicine and kind of understanding why certain patient populations do things they do or struggle with getting care.

There's a lot that goes into that.

So.

But when it comes to looking for a job, really what they want to know is that you are trained, that you pass boards, and that you're licensed by the state.

Anything else doesn't really tend to matter.

And would it affect pay?

Again, most likely not going to play a role in increasing salary or anything like that.

So with these programs, a lot of times they are longer.

So most of the MPH PA programs I've seen are three years instead of two.

They push it out about a year so that you can get that MPH portion done.

And I think the benefit here might be, and I can't say this with certainty, but from what I've seen with people applying a lot of times, because people do want to finish sooner, there may be less competition for those programs.

And there are programs that offer both a regular PA program and the mph.

So if you go that MPH option, they may be more likely to interview you or accept you, knowing that you will stick around and do both degrees instead of just the PA degree.

So it is something a little bit different, a little bit smaller pool of applicants who want to do that.

So that can be beneficial.

If you are working on getting accepted and feeling like maybe you aren't getting the results you want.

Potentially looking at these programs could open some doors as long as you still meet their requirements.

And again, you don't want to do it just for that reason.

If you can really show that you have a strong interest in public health, that's what's really going to be beneficial in your acceptance in one of these programs.

But I think it's a cool option, especially maybe if you graduate younger too, and you feel like you want to get more education before you actually start working, that's another great option.

So if anyone is in one of those programs and wants to hop on the podcast Shoot me an email.

Savannah with no h@the pa platform.com and I would love to talk to you about your experience and kind of why you chose that and see if you think it's been beneficial.

One of our coaches, Non, who's been on the podcast, she did a public health degree before going to PA school and feels like that was helpful both in getting her accepted to PA school and in her job now so you could go back and listen to her episode.

But yeah, there are definitely people out there pursuing that path as well.

So thank you for your question, Amy.

And again, if anyone else has questions, feel free to send them our way and we'll get them on the podcast.

But I hope everyone has a great week and we will, you see.

See you guys next week.

Oh, I also wanted to mention Medalita recently came out with a student coat, which I think is so cool.

So if you're in PA school or going to PA school and need a short student coat, make sure you check out the new Metalita ones because they are such great quality.

So much buying those flimsy ones that come from the bookstore so you can always use the code PA Platform20 for a 20% discount at [email protected] and they have the best, best scrub jackets ever.

So I definitely recommend them.

That's what I wear all the time.

All right, see you guys next week.

Thank you so much for tuning in and listening.

Bye.