The waitlist is not a rejection. Dr. Thibodeau wants you to hear that.

He's the Director of Admissions for the PA program at Eastern Virginia Medical School, and his take is that a waitlist spot means you're qualified and you're close. Sitting on one is miserable, but it's information, not a no.

On numbers: he says competitive applicants there generally have somewhere around 1,000 to 1,500 hours of healthcare experience plus a solid GPA. Check with the program for their current expectations, since these shift.

But what he keeps coming back to isn't numbers at all. Integrity. Drive. Actually wanting this profession rather than wanting a fallback. Those come through in an interview whether you mean them to or not.

He also walks through what EVMS offers - full cadaver dissection lab, heavy simulation, standardized patients, and a Doctor of Medical Science track for people thinking about leadership down the road.

What we cover:

• What admissions weighs beyond GPA and hours
• The hours range that makes an applicant competitive there
• Why the waitlist is a good sign
• Cadaver lab, simulation, and standardized patient training
• The Doctor of Medical Science track and where it leads
• Traits that make someone succeed once they're in the program

Resources:

Free PA School Application Timeline: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-application-timeline

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

PA School Interview Guide: https://www.thepaplatform.com/physician-assistant-school-interview-guide

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

Mentioned in this episode:

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We love getting the inside scoop from programs.

So today we are hearing from Dr. Daniel Thibodeau, who is the Director of Admissions at the Eastern Virginia Medical School's PA program.

Welcome to the Pre PA 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.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club podcast.

I am so glad you've decided to join us for this episode because it is a good one.

I was connected with Dr. Thibodeau and he agreed to come on and talk about their program and lots of stuff.

I mean, we get into all kinds of things.

One of the cool things about Eastern Virginia medical school or EVMs, and they have a program where you can get your doctorate as a pa.

So we talked about that a little bit and we just really get into a lot of great stuff.

So if you are currently applying, I think this will be a very helpful episode just to get that insider's look at what programs are looking for as a disclaimer.

And Dr. Thibodeau says this as well.

You know, this is one program's opinion and part of this process is just that there is a lot of variation between programs.

But I think the more information you have, the more prepared you can be as a student going into PA school and going into these applications.

So I hope you enjoy this.

We'll put information about EVMs in the description so you can go check out that program if it's one that you're looking at.

And we are just very excited and very thankful that Dr. Thibodeau was willing to give his time to share on the podcast.

If there's a program that you would like to hear about or us to try to get in touch with, let me know.

Give me a message on Instagram or shoot me an email.

We have some other faculty and directors coming up who will be great advice givers as well.

But this was a really fun interview and I definitely want to do more of these.

As always, you can find more information about PA programs on our PA program map on the PA platform.

So if you are kind of looking into where you're trying to apply, that's a good place to get started.

If you're looking based on location to see what programs are out there.

And then we have lots of ways to help you out through this process.

And you can use the code Future pa.

If you need help with essay editing or your mock interviews, there are schools interviewing now and we would love to help you out.

So all that information is on the website.

And let's jump into our interview.

I went to Northeastern University in Boston.

But I'm originally a native of Virginian.

And when I got out of college my first time, I graduated actually with a physical education sports medicine degree that initially I wasn't sure I was going to use.

Went back to school for a while and then a couple of my other lifelong friends, we were kind of in the same boat.

It, you know, early 90s, weren't sure, you know, if this, you know, what our careers, what our lives would be.

I actually moved back down to Norfolk, Virginia and I went to Oldman University.

It took some extra classes because I was just not sure what I was, what I was going to do.

And at the time I worked in cardiac surgery as a cardiovascular technician at Norfolk General Hospital.

And that's when I met pas.

Pas worked in surgery, they did some incredible things and it was really then when I got exposed to the paper only to find out that a year prior when I was back home in my parents house, I had gotten sick and I went to a clinic.

I was seen by a person who saw me, examined me, wrote for my labs and interpreted all of them, wrote me prescriptions and that guy was a PA and I had no idea.

So I, I had exposure to a PA when I didn't even know it and, and then later as I started working in cardiac surgery, I met a lot of PAs.

Really appealed to me.

This is early 90s, so during that time there were only 64 accredited programs in the country, there were zero in Virginia.

So that's what, yeah, that's why Northeastern called my name and why I applied to those types of programs.

Best experience I ever had.

And when I came back, I came back and worked for the same cardiac surgeons in an apprenticeship for a year just to get my feet wet because there weren't a lot of PAs in Virginia at the time and, and then I switched to emergency medicine.

And that's the beautiful thing about being a PA is that you have that career flexibility.

Yeah.

So I worked in emergency medicine for about 13 years and during my time working in emergency medicine I developed relationships with a lot of cardiologists, you know, just from doing consults and working in the same hospital system and you know, growing up, having kids together, that sort of thing.

So I started taking call for a cardiology group during the same time I was working in emergency medicine.

You, you're always good at teaching and precepting students.

Why don't you consider teaching full time?

And so that was my exposure into academics.

So I transitioned out of the er, continued working in cardiology, and I took a full time academic job at EVMS Eastern Virginia Medical School, which is based in Norfolk.

And so for the last 17 years, going on 18, I've worked sort of with two hats.

I, I practice in cardiology and I teach here.

I'm a full professor now and I have duties both in.

I wear three hats here.

I'm, I'm a professor at the physician assistant program.

I'm a professor for the Doctor of Medical Science program and I'm also the director of admissions for the PA program.

So, yeah, you're juggling.

Yeah, a little bit.

But, but I have, I can honestly say this.

I've never looked back.

I have never regretted this career choice and I'm right where I want to be.

And I think that's a sentiment that most PAs share.

We, we talk about that at my job a lot.

Me and the other PAs and talking to the physicians and other people.

We have a lot of pre PA students who work with us.

Right.

Going to PA school and.

Yeah, I, yeah, I have the same, same feeling like I, I'm nine years in and I have no regrets whatsoever.

That's great.

Yeah, it's just, it's a great, great profession.

So that's really cool to hear.

Kind of your path and I think shows a lot of the opportunity that PAs have of, like you said, kind of being able to do the lateral mobility, switching specialties, but also doing multiple things at once.

That's right.

Which is really cool.

And something that I think is just unique to the PA profession and not something that other jobs and careers necessarily have, even as an option.

And then you can get into academics and do even more.

Right now I feel like so many, with telehealth and even gaining pharmaceuticals and leadership and administration, there's so many options for PAs and it's really cool to see that.

Well, and I think that's where the Doctor of Medical Science programs and EVMS has one.

I think that's the value of those programs.

It's not necessarily to call yourself doctor in a clinical setting.

It's giving that added level of education that affords you the ability to use what you learned in PA school, use what you've learned in clinical medicine and now approach the healthcare system at a much different level from an administrative viewpoint, from a pharmaceutical or business or industry.

You know, all of those types of opportunities are out there for PAs and I think those are going to just be continuing to grow as time goes on.

I agree.

And I think that's where, I mean, how you may know, I don't know how many doctorate programs for PAs are there?

There aren't a ton.

I've seen more, but there aren't that many.

Right.

So that's a moving target because more and more are opening up each year.

Right.

I would say that there's probably maybe 25 at the most.

I could be stretching that a little bit, but there are some new programs that just recently opened up in the last year and so that number might be growing.

Interesting.

Different levels of what the expectations are, of course, and there's different ways that they approach the curriculum.

But I think for us at evms, we look at it, we have a two year program, so our program's a little longer, but we do it in a very methodical way to where we really try to emphasize the idea of really preparing you to that next level of taking on an administrative position, leadership and, and really making use of the education.

Okay.

Is it an in person program or is it online or.

A little.

Our program is online.

Okay.

And it's a. Yeah, so it's a.

It's a 24 month didactic online course and it's set up in two tracks.

Right now we have an advanced clinical track.

And just to give you perspective on that, we start with our first summer term which just started this week.

So we do scholarly writing, we do a quality improvement in healthcare course.

And that course which I teach, we try to help bring it into the entire longitudinal part of the curriculum because we, because really think that the quality improvement side of healthcare is where you're going to start seeing a lot of leadership opportunities where PAs can really take a use of their past experience and really work with it.

And then they get into courses like Policy and Politics of Healthcare, Research Methods, Program evaluation.

We have a three semester capstone which is a quality improvement project for most of them.

We teach about financial management, leadership and professionalism and that's all for the advanced clinical track.

We also recognize though, and this is a real opportunity for the PA profession as a whole, there's been an explosion of PA programs and because of the popularity of the profession, we, we actually don't have enough faculty to teach our PA students.

So part of the other track is the education track.

And this really prepares someone who wants to think about using their PA skills still, but they also want to be able to teach in the future.

And so courses like Scholarly writing, again, Diversity in higher Education, socio cultural context of teaching and learning.

So the idea behind teaching educational scholarship methods, kids designing educational curriculum, the whole process of accreditation and leadership in the PA profession and the in education, they do a capstone as well, three semesters.

But then they also do learning assessment and evaluations as well as leadership and professionalism.

And so that's, that is also a three, excuse me, a two year, 24amonth type of curriculum as well.

Interesting.

This is, this is not good for me.

I'm a lifelong, like, would love to go back to school.

Like told my husband, like, I need to go get my MBA.

And he was like, just watch YouTube.

No, don't.

No, no, no.

This is not good for me because I'm like, oh yeah, that sounds, that sounds awesome.

Let's do it.

But no, I think, I think for PAs, especially PAs interested in those other niches, even if they want to still work clinically.

Right.

That additional education is going to be very important.

And I, I see it coming up a lot in conversations like when I meet up with PAs at conferences and stuff.

There's a lot of talk about these programs and, and all the stuff you just explained, like, what's the value in that?

Why would I do that?

I think there are Also tons of PAs who are happy just working clinically and doing their thing and.

That's Right.

But there are opportunities to.

For PAs in a lot of other areas.

Yeah, there's a fit for everybody.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's, I find PAs are just so interesting because we all come from such different backgrounds and have such different interests and I think sometimes as a student you feel like, oh, if I become a PA or if I do this like, that I can't have an interest in this other area.

Right.

And that's just not true.

Like you can find those things and it just makes healthc care better.

That's right.

We all do that.

So yeah, I, you know, it's so like I, this is my 17th year going on 18 years full time faculty and I precepted before and it's always amazing to see the variety of students that come through the program and their past life experiences.

Norfolk, Virginia is obviously on the coastal side of Virginia down in the southeast part.

So we are a heavy military area.

So we have a lot of veterans that come through our program.

Former Navy SEALs are the wives of Navy SEALs.

We have a lot of those that come through and it's.

And a lot of other great experiences.

A lot of pilots that have gone into the PA profession, and it's just, It's.

It's just so wonderful to hear about their life experiences and how they utilize that life experience in a new career.

Yeah.

And that's the beauty of my class was getting to learn from other people and their backgrounds, and they're just insight into different things because of their life experience.

Right.

And it was, it was great.

I mean, I think we had a really well rounded, like, comprehensive class.

Yeah.

Where did you go to PA school, by the way?

From my meeting Augusta University, so.

Old Medical College of Georgia.

Mcg.

Yeah.

So great experience.

And that's what I'm.

It's very impressive that you've been with the program so long.

I feel like a lot of programs have a lot of turnover with faculty just with people going to different programs and building programs and, you know, moving and going to different opportunities.

So that must, Must mean you really love it.

Right.

Well.

And my colleague who asked me to consider coming here, he's.

He's right next door.

Yeah.

Three of his classmates teach here, and they.

So we have a lot of loyal faculty here.

And I think it's, It's.

It's a testament to the culture here at our school and the commitment we all have to providing a quality education.

And I. I think we have a very solid PA program.

And that's one thing that I wanted to kind of just talk about the program.

I feel like I say this on the podcast all the time, but when you start to look at program websites, it can all kind of run together or.

I think it's sometimes hard for pre PA students to maybe understand parts of what is listed.

I know, right?

I try to reiterate the.

How important, like, the standards are and how y' all are held to this very high standard of everything that the program has to do.

And so that goes into curriculum and things.

Like, I've had students who come to me and say, well, I want to go to XYZ program because they teach ophthalmology, but this other program doesn't.

I'm like, what?

Yes, they do.

It's just not listed, you know, the way that you would expect on their website.

So what kind of stuff do the students just love about your program?

Like, what do you feel like is.

Are the things that make people really excited about their, their time there.

So let me first segue into something at a 30,000 foot level nationally.

I think the value and just off the record, I was a former chair of the board for the American Academy of pas.

Oh cool.

So I've had some leadership ship experience.

So I think I can speak to this from a fairly high level political side of things.

But that's off the record.

Off the record.

So for the record, one of the unique things about the PA profession is that we are run by organizations of one.

So we have one national organization that represents all PAs, and that's the American Academy of Physician Assistants.

We have one national organization that represents all the physician assistant programs, the Physician Assistant Education Association.

We have one certifying body that certifies every PA that practices in the Americas, the National Commission on Certification of pas, nccpa.

And then we have one accrediting body, the Accreditation review commission for PAs that accreditates every PA program.

That's a really important quality standard because every program has to meet the minimum standard that is set forth within the profession.

So we all have to meet the minimum standards.

With that said, I think EVMs Eastern Virginia Medical School has a very unique setting in which we are able to provide a high quality of education.

And so let me try to explain on why I believe that first of all, we're one of just a handful of schools that actually sits on a campus of a medical school.

So we're part of a medical school.

And what that affords us is things like resources that are available at a medical school, like an extensive library that the students have access to.

We have a full dissection cadaver lab.

Now lately, because of COVID Covid cadavers.

The donations for cadavers went way down nationally because of COVID So organizations couldn't take cadavers for that reason.

It's starting to go up.

But we, we have a full cadaver dissection and pro section lab that our students use each year.

It's not just looking at something, it's actually sinking your, you know, scalpel into it, dissecting down and really understanding planes and, and, and structure and function with a hands on approach.

And I think that's incredibly valuable.

We have probably one of the most progressive standardized patient programs in the country.

Cool.

We have over just below our, our floor in our building, we have a full simulation center of 32 exam rooms, all digitally recorded, digitally audio recorded.

And we have about 100 standardized patients that are on the payroll that not only teach Our students, they teach many other programs around the country, medical schools, nursing programs, and these are really highly educated, trained actors and standardized patients.

Some are in films that you have seen before, they're in big time movies.

And they do a great job in creating a shame free environment, a shameless environment that a student can learn, get feedback on.

So when they do touch patients and they do go to clinical rotations, they really feel comfortable in their own shoes and how they perform histories and physicals, that's really cool.

The other thing that we have that I think is really a nice, wonderful asset is that we have our own ultrasound lab.

And some schools will expose the student to ultrasound in one or two classes.

We do a full year with three semesters of ultrasound curriculum.

We test out for it, we do all kinds of exams that we want to make sure that by the time the student gets out that they have a skill set that is usable, that we know PAs use in everyday medicine, central lines, fast exams, trauma fast exams, all kinds of other access ultrasound exams, looking for fluid and all kinds of other reasons for joints and what have you.

So we go through an extensive part of our curriculum where we add ultrasound to it all but two, I believe, of our faculty still clinically practice.

And so that's an important aspect to it as well.

So we keep it very anecdotal from things that we've seen in clinic within the last week or so.

And I think that keeps things fresh and the students really appreciate the interaction that we have related to it.

And so we have a lot of really nice resources available to us, not including the, the, the wonderful faculty we have here that we really try to nurture our students and really provide them with the best education possible.

No, that's awesome.

And that was a benefit, I think, of also going to a school that was attached to a medical school and had, you know, state funding.

Right.

We similarly had a very nice simulation lab, a very nice like fake or suite surgical suite in the PA program that they were able to get through a great full cadaver lab.

And you know.

Right.

It was com.

Compared to some of the other programs that I looked at.

There was one in particular that was a private program that was more expensive and didn't have some of those resources.

Sure.

And we put, we put our students just when it comes to simulation and standardized patients within the first 16 months of their didactic phase, they probably have at least At a minimum 40 different standardized patient encounters.

So we use, we use the facility a lot for many different things and especially with hands on Things, doing procedures, suturing, central lines, chest tubes, all kinds of other procedures that we're also able to simulate.

So we use it extensively.

That's awesome.

Thinking about all of the PA students you've seen over the years and also your involvement with admissions and being the director there, what do you feel like?

Is there anything that you can pinpoint that you feel like makes a student more successful in PA school or that you kind of look for that gives you a good indication that someone is going to do well in your program?

Yeah, that's a great question.

I, I would say that there, there's not just one thing that is the key to a successful PA student.

There are a variety of factors that play into it.

You know, the person themselves, someone who has high integrity, who is professional, who has drive, grit, who really understands, hey, I'm not just looking for a career.

This, this is the career that I want to do.

And I have no doubt in my mind I'm going to do whatever I need to do to make this happen.

Those are the types of things that we look for in a student when, when we're just looking at the application, you don't see that.

So academic success obviously is always important.

We need to have individuals that achieve very well on our prerequisites.

We do.

We're a little bit different in that we have what we call a replacement GPA for our prerequisites.

Yeah.

So, you know, every now and then someone's going to say, you know what?

I didn't do so hot in organic chemistry.

You know, I got a C the first time I took it.

We'll let you, if you take it again, we will use that as a replacement grade.

And so we, we understand that there's, you know, no such thing as a perfect person.

And so we, we use a replacement GPA for mostly prerequisites, you know, and, and we, we give some latitude on that.

And we do recognize that there are some individuals that are looking for a second, sometimes even a third career.

And so healthcare experience to us is very important as well.

We, our, our average looks really high because we have some individuals that have been nurses for a decade.

So they, they skew the statistics.

But, but really it's, it's, it's the bigger picture of the whole person.

We, we are a community oriented medical school.

We were built by our community, for the community.

So giving back to the community is Also important to us.

So not only do we look for healthcare experience, we look for volunteer experience.

We look for an individual who's going to give back.

They don't.

Sometimes I think it gets missed that there's a real opportunity as a professional to give back to your community as a professional.

And I think that's a really important aspect.

So we look at all of those types of things when, when we're considering candidates, we bring in our, our class size is 80 students, so we're a larger class.

We bring in about 160 for interviews and out of those we'll select our class.

So we really look to interview those 160 and really try to dive into the, you know, not necessarily the grades they got, it's more about the person they are.

Because by the time you get up for an interview we think that you're qualified to go to school.

Then it's just the little things of.

Tell me a little bit about you.

What tells me that you're going to be successful, that we're going to be looking at someone who's going to be the next PA out of our program.

I love that.

And that's really cool that you all are willing to look beyond just the application and really look for those people that are going to be the best.

I noticed that you all don't really have many testing requirements compared to some programs.

Programs that are requiring this year, the PA Cat, the GRE and Casper, all of them.

Is there a reason behind that or just kind of, how do you go about deciding what you want to require for a program?

Right, so that's a great question.

So let me start with the gre.

So all three of those tests you mentioned, we have talked about it.

We actually took the Casper.

We had used the Casper in past years.

We, we've actually opted out on that.

But when it came to the G. GRE we do, we didn't feel like it perfectly aligned with what a PA curriculum is looking for.

And so we just didn't feel like that would be, that would have been a fair assessment of an individual who's a candidate to say, well, if you did well on a GRE that equates to success in PA schools.

So we couldn't correlate it as well.

And so we just said, you know, that's probably not a priority for us.

Second were the, you know, the PA Cat we're watching it.

We're trying to determine if that has long term value and a predictor of success for PA school.

And while there's Some early data out that suggest it may.

We just haven't pulled the trigger on that.

So we're not.

The.

The verdict is still out on that for us.

When it came to Casper, we used it, but we used it towards the back end.

So we never, we never used it as an.

An individual who was make or break.

How well did you do on the Casper if you didn't do very well at all?

In the beginning there were some exclusions, but usually those were the outliers that, that we would.

We would just say we regret and you know, we're not going to process your application or deny admissions.

Few and far between on that, but we just didn't feel like there is one part of that that we were like, oh, this is definitely telling us a lot about our students.

So we kind of held off at this point.

We're going to.

We're going to just not do any of those tests right now and really go on our.

On our current process, which seems to actually work quite well for us.

And so.

Yeah, but the verdict is still out on the PA cad.

We're not ruling it out, but we haven't quite gotten to the point where we're going to require it.

Okay.

Now that insight is extremely helpful and I think for students to hear as well.

So I think they see requirements and they think, oh this, you know, they what, this school just wants this test for nothing or whatever.

So hearing kind of that explanation of why.

Right.

And then those are things that you all have to talk about and figure out.

Can you speak from the position that you're in as somebody.

As a director of admissions about wait list?

I feel like wait list cause so much anxiety where to me like that's a good.

I'm like, oh, that's great.

You like you.

You're still in it.

Like that's not, that's not a no.

Yeah.

And.

And kind of what.

What that means because I think it can be very disheartening and make them feel like they weren't good enough, they weren't enough for the program.

But I mean you all have to make so many decisions with choosing a comprehensive class.

Right.

Everybody in.

So what.

What are your thoughts on wait lists and how a student should feel if they end up in that position?

So first of all, I, I can only speak for EVMs, but I would.

I, if I thought about it, I would say I could probably guess that it's a parallel to.

With other schools, but I don't want to speak for other schools.

They have other methods on what they, what they do with their wait list or their wait pool or applicant pool.

For us, when we put a collection of students on the wait list or the wait pool, what we are saying is, hey, you're qualified.

We had such an exceptional group of individuals that you may have just missed the threshold for our class.

Now, one of the, one of the things that I think needs to be said is our accreditation, and every program's accreditation only allows you for a certain number of seats.

So you have a little bit of a buffer there on, on, on what you can take.

But you, you are capped out a certain number of seats that you can take collectively as a, as a program and per class.

And so it's not that, you know, we're only taking 80, but we could take 120.

None of them, none of us can do that.

And so when you get put on the wait list, you should feel pretty good about that, about the fact that you were placed so high.

And if for some reason you don't get in that year, you should absolutely try again the next year at that same school, because chances are they're going to remember who you were and they're going to say, you know what, we passed on you this year, but we're going to take a chance and, and we're going to let you in this year.

You still want to improve yourself during that time, you know, and get some more healthcare hours and, and do things to, you know, make your application stronger if needed.

But when you're on a wait list, for us, it is a very thin line.

And what we do is we give our individuals that we call and say, hey, we want to welcome to the class and we want to offer you a chair.

We give them a couple of weeks to decide if they choose to not enter into the program.

We go down into the wait list and we'll pull an individual up.

There are times, and I will admit there, there are times when we've had students for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes they're social or family reasons or illnesses where students call at the last minute and say, hey, there's no way I can, I can make it.

You know, my dad got sick or something happened and they'll want a deferment for a year.

And then we go right into that wait list and we say, hey, we just got an opening.

I, I made several calls this year for that very thing.

So getting on the wait list is not a bad thing.

It's, it's telling you you did really well, and I think you have to put it in perspective, I, I'll only speak up for our program, our, Our entire collective process.

We get about 2, 300 applications, and then it gets narrowed down as the process goes on.

But out of those 23, we only select 80.

And so if you're on a wait list of a chunk of individuals that could have gotten into the school, you should feel very, very strong and good about that, about that notion.

Yes.

You want to be in the program and you want to, you want to go to that next step, but it just means you're close and you should just keep trying.

That's so encouraging, and I think exactly what a lot of people need to hear.

But from you.

They hear it from me, but they don't believe me.

No, that's.

I think this whole honestly interview has been extremely.

Just encouraging.

Yeah.

I think it's a good reminder to students that programs and the people involved with programs are on their side, and that's.

Right.

Not against them, not trying to make this harder for them.

Right.

But really, like, you guys want, you want them, like, you want these people to become PAs and, and be the best they can be, which is.

It's really cool.

I feel like the PA cycle and the community is so small.

Like, you really get to know a lot of your colleagues and cross paths with a lot of people.

That's right.

In this process.

So it's a really fun part of being a pa. Well, the one, the.

Other thing that I, you know, you have to mention about this profession and the, and the education side is that we're all pas on the faculty side.

And so the important question we have and, and, and the important part of this is that one day we don't look at you as a student.

For the rest, we will look at you as a colleague.

You'll, you'll.

I. I still work in cardiology, and I work for Sentara Cardiology, which is a big health care system in the area, Sentara Health.

And I'm proud to say that the division of cardiology has about, I'm going to guess about 30 apps.

About 25 of them are PAs, and I think about 23.

I taught from our school, so I work with 23 of my colleagues who I taught in the past, and it's great.

And, and I'm so proud of all of them for, you know, everything they've accomplished.

Yeah.

And that, that's the cool part.

And I'm in a smaller community, so I also cross paths with a lot of faculty and they refer patients to me.

So that's right.

Yeah, nice to, you know, have those connections.

Sa.