This one is a pep talk, and I think a lot of you need it right now.

This process asks for a lot. Years of prereqs. Thousands of hours at jobs that don't pay well. Application fees, travel costs, and time you don't get back. And if you've applied more than once, you've done all of that and then been told no.

So I want to remind you why you started. Not the version you wrote in your personal statement - the real one.

I also want you to keep something in your life that isn't this. Hobbies, friends, exercise, whatever it is. People who give up everything else in service of getting in tend to arrive burned out, and burnout doesn't magically resolve on the first day of orientation.

What I cover:

• The real cost of this process and why it wears people down
• Reapplying after rejection without losing yourself
• Recognizing burnout before it flattens you
• Keeping things in your life that aren't PA-related
• Reconnecting with why you wanted this
• Pacing yourself for a long process

Resources:

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

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

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

Free personal statement worksheet: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-personal-statement-worksheet-download

Mentioned in this episode:

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Hey guys.

Welcome to episode 93.

In today's episode, I thought we could all use a little bit of encouragement and a reminder about why we're doing this and about the things we love.

So it'll be a little different, but hopefully this is exactly what you need to hear today.

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.

Happy Friday, everyone.

I am hopeful that everyone had a great fourth of July, a safe fourth of July.

I feel like this is the holiday that number one, you don't want to be working in the emergency room.

And that if you are on social media, you hear about all of these terrible accidents that happen involving fireworks and boats and alcohol.

So anyway, I hope everyone had a great safe fourth.

Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode.

And I realized I haven't really done an intro in a while, so.

Or a full intro.

So if you're new here, I'm Savannah Perry.

I am a dermatology PA in Georgia.

I've been a PA now for five years.

And I've been at my same job that I started at, same specialty, same since I graduated.

I knew I was interested in derm.

I know a lot of people are interested in derm and I had done a good bit of shadowing in it and so that's kind of how I ended up there.

I also really loved surgery.

I actually loved all of my rotations but it just kind of perfect timing where a job opened up and I was able to move into that role and I love it.

So I work full time, which is now Monday through Thursday and an occasional Friday morning.

I have a one year old daughter.

I'm married to a physician.

He's a hospitalist and we have been together since high school.

So way before he was a doctor.

But that's a little bit about me.

And so if you're new here, thank you so much for tuning in.

In my college days, I always loved helping people make their schedules and plan their futures.

I'm a very futuristic, planny type person.

I love to have a plan.

Stresses me out if I don't have one.

And I kind of always secretly wanted to be a college advisor because I loved that so much.

So when I started the PA platform, it was my roundabout way of getting to continue to help people reach their goals and kind of plan out their future when that can be a very intense and confusing thing to do.

So I started the PA Platform almost four years ago now.

Yeah, a little over four years ago, actually, which is just a website that helps prepa students with figuring out their goals.

And it started as a blog and has kind of developed into a community, which I really love.

So if you're not part of our Facebook group, look up the Pre PA Club on Facebook and that link is in the description and we would love to have you.

I love seeing everyone in there asking questions, answering questions.

It's just really fun to see you guys helping each other and kind of seeing where you end up, which has been great over these last few years.

The acceptance emails are absolutely my favorite and the messages that we get kind of all the time.

So thank you for following.

And that's evolved into the pre PA club podcast and some videos on YouTube.

There's not one this week.

And then also the PA school interview guide, which was the book that I wrote and came out with last March, that was a labor of love that took about three years of just everything that I've learned about the interview process and pouring that into a book and getting it out there on Amazon and through our website.

So that's there.

And then I've been able to meet so many great PAs.

So I've partnered with a lot of people on social media and grown our team to be great group of PAs.

And then I also work with Brian Palm from my PA Resource and I talk about them on the podcast because while we focus a lot on interviews and then kind of some supplemental review and assessments and kind of the planning part, my PA Resource focuses only on the personal statement, and so I edit for them because I really do love reading essays and kind of honestly tearing them apart.

I'm really good at that and I really like it, but it's been a great partnership that we've been able to kind of join with the AAPA and do some cool stuff.

So we have a discount code set up for podcast listeners.

So pre PA club that works at MyPA resource and the PA platform.com and then it also [email protected] so if you are kind of past the pre PA stage and moving on to you've been accepted, congrats.

Or you're starting school or have recently Started PA School prep is something that focuses more on getting you ready for PA school when it comes to anatomy, physiology and med terms portion.

So that code also works there if you feel like that's something you need.

It's an online course, so all of that's linked in the description.

But I really just want you to know what resources are available and if you ever have questions about any of that, feel free to reach out to.

Send me an email, a message on Instagram, post in the pre PA Club, Facebook group, whatever, and we'll try to get back to you.

Fortunately, you can't send messages through podcasts.

That doesn't quite work yet.

So if you ever do have a question and want to leave it in a review, go for it.

And if you've never left a review for the podcast, or if you've read the PA School interview, never the PA School Interview guide, and never left a review on Amazon, I would truly appreciate that because that helps other people to find the resources that hopefully have helped you.

That's the goal.

But I would love for your to hear your feedback and to be able to connect with you.

But I wanted to take a second today.

You know, this was just something that I've been getting a lot of messages about seeing on the boards and just talking to people kind of at different levels about the PA journey and just how exhausting it can be.

And I think sometimes it's useful for us to just be really honest about where we're at with things and take a step back and try to realize and remember why you're doing this and why it's important to you.

So there's kind of different levels of this journey.

Let's start from the beginning.

So as kind of an undergrad student or someone who's decided to pursue the PA profession and going back to take courses, you know, it takes a level of sacrifice at any stage if you want to become a pa. And that can be all different types of sacrifices.

You know, some people, it's money.

If money's a struggle financially, you know, you may feel like you can't invest in the resources you need.

It may be time.

For me, I think it was time.

When I look back on college, I knew that I wanted to become a pain.

And so I spent a lot of time studying.

I had some extracurriculars, but to be honest, my focus was on school.

And I was at a big university in big classes.

Some of those were difficult for me.

Hello, Organic chemistry.

But ultimately I just felt like I couldn't always do the fun things I wanted, if I still wanted to become a pa and now looking back as a pa, I don't believe that.

And I think I could have certainly made more time for the things that I enjoyed.

But I just.

If you're at that stage, I do want to encourage you to still do fun things and the things that you enjoy and don't feel like you constantly have to be focused on PA things only all the time.

It's okay to take a break and you'll still reach those goals.

I think it's even a little bit more difficult if you're maybe someone doing this as a second career.

If you maybe have to give up a good paying job or hours at your job to try to go back and take classes or retake classes.

There are a lot of burdens that come with the PA school process because it's so involved and there are so many requirements.

It really needs to be something that you are passionate about and know that it's something you want to do forever because it's going to be your career.

And so I think just if you can take a step back and think about those things.

What I've kind of found Is, especially with RE applicants, people who have applied 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 times, you can get a little bit jaded by the process.

And so sometimes when we're doing mock interviews, I can tell that they're just over it.

They don't want to answer another mock energy question.

They don't want to say why they want to be a PA again because they feel like they've done it so many times and that may be you.

I mean, you may be feeling like that.

And I totally get it.

I mean, it's an exhausting process.

You've put time, money, effort, heart and soul hours, I mean, everything into this.

And to not be getting the answer you want or seeing that return is tough.

So if you can just kind of revisit that passion and figure out what it's going to take to really get you to that next level.

And that may take some honest soul searching and an honest look at your application and what you've done.

It can be easy to get in a groove where you maybe focus on what you're good at or what's easy to obtain.

So maybe you have a lot of healthcare experience and patient care hours and you're in a great job so you can kind of keep getting more.

But schools want you to take certain classes or do better on the GRE or get experience in a different area.

It can Be difficult to take that step back and look at what you need to do and, and make the decision to make a big life change, to move forward towards what you want to happen in the future.

So think about those things, talk to your friends, talk to your family, pray about it.

Figure out where you're at and what you need to do to get to that next level if that's an area where you are struggling.

So that's kind of for my pre PA people.

I mean, it is a journey.

It is a marathon, not a sprint.

I get messages constantly, you know, okay, I've decided I want to be pa, but I'm so overwhelmed, I don't even know where to start.

And that's common because there are so many requirements.

You've just got to take it one step at a time, one thing at a time, figure out what you can work on right now, make that your priority, and then start slowly work towards fulfilling the other requirements or needs that you need to work on to be able to check all the boxes and get your application in.

And eventually you have to just apply.

You know, you can improve your application forever and ever.

But in my mind, if you can check the boxes and say that I have all these requirements, you are fine to go ahead and apply to PA school.

If you meet the minimums, your application will be considered.

And then if you have a strong personal statement, that's what's going to get you the interview.

The interview is what's going to get you accepted.

The whole process is so competitive now, and there are so many great qualified applicants that you can't really go on experience alone, but you really have to also go on kind of what you bring to the table in your life experience and what makes you unique or what makes you confident in your decision and in your story.

It doesn't have to be dramatic or anything, but schools want to see mature candidates who are really ready to take on PA school.

So then once you're in PA school, sorry to break it to you, but this doesn't slow down or stop it, really.

I think PA school is designed to make you question your abilities.

If you follow people on social media who go from pre PA to PA student, a lot of times they struggle and I love seeing how honest they are about those struggles.

George, who's been on the podcast, was recently posting that he's so overwhelmed, which he got accepted to seven schools.

I mean, obviously he's well prepared, but you just don't know what it's like until you get there.

And the common metaphor Is that it's like drinking out of a fire hydrant.

Because it's not that the information is that difficult at times.

It's more that they're throwing so much at you so quickly with such high expectations for learning it, applying it, and remembering it, that it just gets so overwhelming.

So it's tough.

We started with anatomy over the summer and that was really our main class.

So we would go to lecture for a couple hours in the morning and then go to lab two days a week, cadaver lab to do a full dissection and then I would just study.

But that first test I got a C, which rocked my world.

And I realized I had to figure something out.

Like, what was I not understanding?

I think it was just the application.

I was so used to trying to memor things instead of learning them.

And also, anatomy at a graduate school level is so completely different than undergrad.

Like, if you're learning structures and then the structures on those structures, those have structures, like it never ends and everything has a function and everything connects.

So you just have to know so much.

So that was tough.

The next test, I changed what I was doing as far as studying, got a B.

The third test, I got an A.

And so it took some kind of tweaking.

But then we come to Clin Med and I get well, I technically fail my first pharmacology test because passing was 75 or higher.

And I got a 73.

And, you know, it was tough.

I didn't really mesh with how the teacher was teaching us.

And I had to adjust my learning style to the teaching style and figure out what resources to use.

So I went to my advisor.

I asked for help.

I asked my friend friends for help.

I was not shy about kind of saying like, oh, man, I did really bad on this test.

That's not okay.

What can we do differently?

Because to me, I'd worked so hard to get there that it wasn't worth my pride of not wanting to admit that I did poorly to continue to do poorly.

It was more important for me to admit that and ask for help and move forward to make sure I was able to do well in PA school.

And I didn't fail a test after that.

I did just fine.

But it was a wake up call.

And, you know, one thing I regret from PA school, if you're in this place now, is I lost sight of.

I don't want to say who I am, but, you know, I didn't do anything, any of my hobbies.

You know, I love reading books.

I'm a huge book nerd.

I'm in a book club that meets monthly, and it's one of my favorite things.

I've read all the Harry Potter books because they're my absolute favorite.

I get really obsessed with certain authors.

But anyway, that's beside the point.

And I didn't ever read a book for fun in PA school.

Like, never.

Not the entire two years or 27 months.

I would come home, study, eat dinner, go sit in bed with a textbook and read it until I fell asleep.

And looking back, that is so silly to me because reading is a way that I deal with stress.

And so instead of kind of letting my mind unravel and go somewhere else, I just focused on school constantly.

And I don't think that helped me.

I think if anything, it just made it more stressful and harder.

So I don't want you to lose sight of your hobbies, whether that's working out or hiking or spending time with family and friends cooking.

You have to eat.

You need to take care of yourself during PA school.

If you've got to give up something, give up something dumb like social media.

That isn't helping you, and it's probably just making you compare yourself to other people who are not going through this stressful time you're going through.

Give up something that isn't helping you or isn't healthy for you if you are struggling in those areas.

But hold on to the things that you love and the things that you want to continue loving after PA school.

And that may sound silly, but I think it's just easy to get caught up in everything that is PA school and all the stress that's involved.

And then even when you're a pa, you know, you should have interest outside of medicine and you should have interest with your family and spouse and friends that you're able to do so.

For example, I.

Well, first of all, I love reading, so I still read a lot and I still do my book club.

And I've found that I love blogging and writing.

Maybe I'm not the greatest at it, and I'm certainly not the most technologically savvy, but I do my best and I like to learn about it.

So that's an outlet I found with the PA platform.

I'm also obsessed with baby clothes, specifically baby girl clothes.

That's kind of an addiction, which is not a good thing, but can't help it.

So then, you know, I get to do fun things with my Husband.

And with my baby, we go swimming and go to the park and go to swim lessons.

And I'm about to go to San Diego Comic Con in a couple weeks, which I'm really excited about, because that's something that we find really fun.

So it may be super nerdy, too, but it's gonna be really cool and traveling, you know?

So these are things that you can incorporate into your life and things that are going to help prevent burnout, which is such a hot topic right now, and help you continue to love what you do, but also enjoy your life.

Because your job should not be your life.

Your job should not be your identity.

You need things outside of that, too.

So sorry if this is a little bit of a sappy episode.

I don't know.

But I hope that it was just encouraging to you to hear from someone else who's maybe been in your shoes and is still in your shoes.

You know, I get burnout as a pa.

There are days I come home and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm not going back to work ever again.

That's a little dramatic.

But we all have those days that are just a lot to handle, and we get over it and move forward.

And then we have great days that kind of remind us why we're doing this.

And so, like today when a patient hugged me because she loved what I had done.

That just makes you feel great.

So I hope that's helpful to hear, and I would love to hear your thoughts either on Instagram or in the Facebook group.

And I look forward to talking to you guys again next week.

Oh, and if you hung in with me this far, I did want to mention Medalita is having a huge sale right now.

And so that's another thing.

As a pa, like, you could totally have a business or a side hustle outside of being a pa.

So Medalita was started by a pa, Laura Francisco, and she is amazing and started this scrub and white coat company.

And so I love her scrub jackets, but they're having a huge sale.

You can use the code PA Platform20 for a discount there or use the link in the description to go get.

I think some things are like 35 off, and then some things are up to 50% off.

So that's cool.

But yeah, there are tons of PAs who do such cool things.

I know PAs who have started their own practices.

Andrea Benedict from Life as a pa, she has a medware company, like T shirts that are really funny called Med Thusias.

I mean, so many cool things that you can do and just if there's something you want to do, like, just do it.

Let's all be crazy pas who do such cool stuff.

All right, I think I'm done rambling, and I will see you guys next week.

Thank you so much for tuning in.