Graduating PA school is not the finish line. It's the start of a career nobody taught you how to run.

Jordan and Shane wrote The PA Blueprint to cover the parts that fall through the cracks after graduation. Job negotiation, career moves, money, and not burning out before year three.

I keep putting episodes like this on the feed for pre-PAs on purpose. If you know what the job and the career look like on the other side, your reasons for wanting this get sharper, and sharper reasons make better applications and better interviews.

On the money parts, they're sharing their perspective and I'm not a financial advisor. Take it as a starting point for your own research.

What we cover:

• What The PA Blueprint covers and why they wrote it
• The parts of a PA career nobody prepares you for
• Advancing without leaving clinical work
• Protecting your wellbeing early instead of after you crash
• Why new grads should think about this before they sign a contract
• What they'd tell someone still trying to get in

Resources:

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

Free Pre-PA Resume Download: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-resume-download

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

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

Mentioned in this episode:

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Alright.

We talk a lot about what to do before you get to PA school and not quite as much about what to do when you graduate.

So today I have two guests, Jordan and Shane, who are here to talk about a book they put together called the PA Blueprint that talks about all of that stuff.

We're gonna give you the overview.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club podcast.

If you want to learn how to.

Become a physician assistant, you're in right place.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry.

Let's get to it.

Well, hello there.

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween.

I know we did.

I think my 3 year old wore 8 different costumes over the weekend.

So she had the time of her life and it was.

It finally feels like fall in Georgia.

So we are really getting in the mood.

So I don't know if you're with me or if you feel differently, but if you are in that same kind of space, so am I.

Thank you for, for listening to the podcast and for being part of the Pre PA Club, which if you're not part of our Facebook group, we do have an associated Facebook group with podcast.

Make sure you check that out.

It is called the Prepa Club.

For this episode, I'll tell you a little bit about our guest in a minute.

But for this episode, one thing I thought would be helpful is our free resume template that's available on the website.

I think this is on the PA platform, the website and the direct link is in the description or you can just Google the PA platform resume template.

It's free.

Free.

You can download it, you can edit it, make it your own.

But now's a great time kind of moving into November, December, the new year to if you are applying next year, go ahead and start working on some things, thinking about some things to make your life easier when April rolls around.

And if you have not been accepted, still kind of in that waiting limbo phase, you want to be revamping things and looking at how you can improve and taking actions towards making those improvements.

So that link will be in the description and I hope that that is something that is helpful to you and I think so.

Next week we're gonna have a gift guide which I think will be fun and then we have a few really cool things coming up and then I have a career change PA and then I'm gonna do an episode where I talk about the future of the PA profession and what that looks like as well as the future of the PA platform and what you can expect for next year.

Because the website, a lot of areas have gotten a little bit of a facelift and we're continuing to just try to make it a resource that is accessible and easy to use and makes your life easier.

So.

And if you still need a mock interview, go ahead and schedule.

With November and December having lots of holidays, some of our coaches don't have as much availability.

So you want to make sure you go ahead and get on the books and use the code Future PA for a discount there.

Alright.

So a few episodes back we heard from Jordan.

You may remember that we kind of talked about his past of becoming a PA and then kind of why he is passionate about helping PA students and new grads figure out what they need to do.

So he created an ebook called PA Next Steps.

And then this book that we're talking about today was created with one of his professors, Shane, and it's called the PA Blueprint.

Their tagline is your guide to career advancement, getting rich, avoiding burnout and finding your dream job.

What could be better?

Right?

So if you go to the website thepablueprint.com you'll see information about the book and the table of contents and what's included and talking a lot about just the things that they don't teach you in PA school.

And we're going to talk about that in today's interview also.

But they were kind enough, this is an ebook to give you 50% off, which is great.

I get nothing from this.

So, you know, there's nothing, no conflict of interest or whatever.

I just think it's a really great resource to share.

So if you use the code the PA platform 50, you'll get 50, 50% off the PA blueprint book, which I highly recommend.

And then I was looking here.

And.

That would make it only $10, which is great.

So that's something I think would be really helpful and something to look into and then you can just see the other resources on their website as well.

So we'll get into our interview and then all of their information and links and social media is linked in the description so you can find that there.

All right, let's get to it.

All right, well, thanks Savannah for having us on.

I'm Shane Foley.

I am a PA. No surprises there.

I've been a PA for about nine years.

I Actually was a professor there for a bit and had the pleasure of being teaching Jordan some of my skills while he was there and then becoming friends afterwards.

So bit about my PA career.

I'm in family medicine now.

Previously I was in urgent care and then internal medicine outpatient.

So a lot of all strictly outpatient practices, some primary care and then some urgent care in there in addition to being a page, write books and a blog, which is what we'll probably be talking about a little bit today anyway, and then do some precepting and also some adjunct faculty work at University of New England.

So I'm involved with PAS all the way through.

Maybe not pre PA as much, but for the most part, once you get into school, that's kind of my jam and where I really like to meet students and work with them.

So that's me in a nutshell, I guess.

Just quick background.

I currently live in Vermont, which is just a great place to be and have a lovely wife and a dog and used to do exercise science.

I come from a personal training and strength conditioning background, which I think a Fair amount of PAs probably do as.

Well as seen by your huge traps.

Yes.

I'm not intentionally shrugging.

Those are real.

Yeah,.

You kept that up good.

No, I think you're right.

I think a lot.

There are a good bit that come from like an athletic training athletic or even just like a pre PT background.

And then switch over to PA and then I'll put a link in the description to Jordan's episode.

So if y' all want like the full Jordan show, y' all can go listen to that one.

But give us.

Give us your intro to Jordan and tell us a little bit about you.

Yeah, I mean, it was a great show, but we'll keep it real this time.

So I'm Jordan.

I've been a PA for about four years.

I also went to the University of New England, which is again where I met Shane.

And luckily early in my career I realized the importance of networking and certainly Shane and I are very similar, made it easy and we kept in contact here and there.

But things really kind of ticked up this past year where we decided to write a book together after I put out my first one.

And here we are.

Currently I am practicing in urgent care and as talked about in that previous episode, I've bounced around a fair bit and still open to try new things.

And that's again, the beauty of the PA career is you can try one thing and keep on moving.

So currently I'm settled in urgent care and Trying to do as many fun things outside of work as I can, including writing this book with Shane.

Yeah, writing is fun.

I feel like, I don't know, a lot of science minded people maybe don't enjoy that as much, but that to me, that's kind of why I started my blog was just as a creative outlet, I guess, to write.

And then I found that I really, really enjoyed that.

So what.

So the book we're talking about is called the PA Blueprint, which y' all did together, correct?

That's right.

What inspired y' all to do this book?

So I'm going to read the byline, which is your guide to career advancement, getting rich, beating burnout, and finding your dream job.

Basically living the dream life.

Right.

As a pa.

But yeah, so what, what led y' all to say, like, this is something we need to create for PAs.

Jordan, you want to start?

Yeah.

So a lot of it is like we see or yeah, both of us saw and kind of independently noticed and then came together.

The fact that there's a ton of people, however, really unmatched by yourself and this pre PA space and there's so much to offer and I really enjoyed a lot of that content going into PA school.

And then there was.

You get through school, you pass your pants.

And then it was kind of everything drops off and both of us realize, well, what.

What else is there?

I mean, where do you go after this?

And that's what inspired me to write my first book, PA Next Steps, which was like your guide right after you graduate.

But then that still fell short in that that gets you going in your PA career.

But what about the career itself?

There's not a lot of content out there, unfortunately, which is interesting because there's so many smart PAs out there.

And kind of like you said, it was an outlet of me and Shane seeing what they're.

What we've learned in our PA Careers &.

And then trying to put that to paper so we can share that information with others.

Yeah, I mean, everything that Jordan said there for the most part, but Savannah, you know, check.

That was something for me that I was thinking about was creative outlet because I feel like at work it's can be kind of algorithmic and it, you know, just works one side of my brain and I was needing something to sort of work the other.

So having a creative outlet was one thing I was looking for.

On top of that, you know, sort of serendipitous.

Serendipitously reconnecting with Jordan when we have some similar ideas and he had just written PA Next Steps, and I reviewed that.

I was pretty stoked about it.

So we decided to collaborate on that.

And for the most part, I mean, I was feeling pretty passionately that not everyone should make as many mistakes as probably I have along the way.

You know, nine years in, you know, I've definitely made my share, but those have been awesome lessons.

And, you know, I've really got myself on a wonderful track now and extremely happy with my career.

So I just wish I would have known a few more things after graduation to sort of help me along and get me on the right path from the start versus having to sort of trip along the way and figure it out.

But.

So we just thought that we would try to contribute to the profession, really, and we thought we had some good information to offer.

And that's what I think Jordan and I touched last time on how that type of information is not something you get in PA school.

Maybe there are some PA schools who do a great job, but the majority of students I hear from is, you know, we teach you how to be a PA and how to do medicine, and they kind of drop you off on the doorstep and push you out the nest, like, go find a job.

And so there isn't.

There isn't much conversation around the financial side of things, actually what needs to be involved in finding a job and negotiating and then, you know, burnout.

Maintaining yourself in medicine's hard.

I mean, it's stressful.

It's.

There's a lot going on.

You're interacting with a lot of different people, and there's just a lot of factors there that you don't know until I think you're really in it.

Right.

And by the time.

I'll touch on a lot of that.

Yeah.

And by the time you're in it, you know, that first year, two, three, whatever it is, is different for everyone.

But, I mean, you're so focused on, you know, doing no harm and learning the job and, you know, just solidifying what you learned in school that to take that extra bandwidth, if it even exists, and put it towards learning about finances, which isn't always such a stimulating topic for certain people, but it's just not there, or the time, the energy, whatever, you're just so focused, and before you know it, five or ten years go by and, you know, you still haven't probably put yourself on the best track forward.

So, again, we're sort of hoping that our book and our just sort of business in general is able to help people to get on that track from Day one or even really when they're handed their diplomas and said good luck.

I mean we're all learners, right?

I mean we don't make it this far if we're not thirsty for information all the time and always trying to become better.

I mean that's one of the beauties of the PA profession.

But if you're not lucky enough to get somebody that's mentoring you from day one, again, you're just surviving.

And how helpful would it be to just have, here's a book of mistakes other people have made.

What can I learn from that?

And so again, we wish we had that.

So we just tried to create it.

Yeah, I love it.

It actually reminds me when I have a three year old now, but when I had her, one of my mom friends recommended a book called Moms on Call.

And it's just basics and it's probably things that I feel like I should know after going to PA school about kids and things.

But just having that guide was so helpful to me as a resource to refer to.

And that's what looking at the table of contents and going through the PA blueprint, I'm like, oh yeah, this is you.

Something that you just refer back to like looking for jobs and negotiating as basically I think of it kind of like a manual that it's stuff that I think we're expected to know but nobody teaches you.

So then you don't really know it until you experience it.

Well, there's so much to know and your brain's only so limited.

So at one point we all had some information that left and it's like, oh duh, you should know that.

And it was in there at some point.

So you just need something to bring it back really quick.

Right?

Okay, so I'm going to read off kind of the table of contents since most people, they're going to be listening, they can't see it or I guess they could go to the website and see it, but.

So the table of contents, the sections in the book are compensation, loan repayment, retirement accounts, continuing medical education, which is CME burnout, and then navigating your work environment.

I was thinking we could kind of go through these and give like your top tip or kind of why you think this is important for PAs to know.

That would be kind of fun since this comes from Yalls experience.

And then happy to add my 2 cents also.

But as far as compensation, the byline here is how to be the best paid PA in your practice.

What would be kind of your like this is your Takeaway what you need to know about this, then clearly the books can go into more detail, but we'll do some superficial details about it.

Shane, that one's yours.

So you take it all right.

Accordingly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So compensation, I would say pay attention.

That sounds very basic, but pay attention to your contract and what it says.

What are the details?

Because there are actually probably some things in there you can take advantage of or ways that are outlined that you could probably earn more pay from or greater compensation.

So you could look to see if you know how weighted your personal compensation is with RVUs and figure out how do you increase your RVUs?

What is that based on?

Do a little learning about that.

Or performance reviews for your from your patients.

I mean, is your compensation based on that at all?

If it is, have you looked at the form that they fill out?

Is that something you are familiar with?

Because maybe it's looking for something very specific, something you can work on.

Paying attention to your contracts and what that involves also will tell you partly what you can fix, what you can do better in order to set yourself apart from the.

From the rest of the pack.

So one example we give in the book is like creating above and beyond list.

So going above what your job requirements are and keeping track of that, because that's okay.

You do it out of genuine wanting to help.

But write it down.

Keep it with you.

So something to show your employers that you are literally going above and beyond what is required of you and you're separating yourself, rising to the top here, and you should be compensated accordingly.

So if you pay attention, if you pay attention, you understand that stuff you can find where the places are where you can get the raise.

Super brief.

After my first year, I was loaded with information about how many patients I was seeing.

So I just had data galore and performance reviews and I had written my own review from my colleagues in my office and other offices.

And so I just presented that to my CEO at small place I was working at and asked for a raise and got everything I asked for because I could show them.

Because I knew what they were looking for, I could show them that I was performing higher than my colleagues.

So they compensated me accordingly just after one year.

So again, just paying attention to what is already laid out there for you don't need to reinvent the wheel.

It's probably already.

Already there.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Do you have anything to add to that, Jordan, from your experience?

Well, like Shane said, it's so much of understanding your contract.

But then we all switch jobs at some point, or most of us will.

So it's arming yourself for the future, too.

It's like, here's the understanding of all this because there's so many different nuances to a contract and how many.

So many different ways you can get paid.

And so you can use that both in improving your current contract, but also if you move to a different job in the future.

It's being armed with that information to say, here's why I'm worth more, and that's how you become the top paid pa.

It's not by accepting what's given to you, it's asking for more, but making sure you have proven or will prove more, why you deserve that.

Yes, that's a great way to put it.

And I think mine is just asked.

Like, you just never know until you ask.

I see so many PAs who want to be paid more or want a different schedule or whatever, and they just, you know, that may take some pushing a little bit, but if you have the proof like y' all are talking about of how valuable you are, I mean, you just never know.

So, yeah, it's uncomfortable, you know, I mean, it's hard to be in that situation.

And this, like, having this again, the objective data takes it off of you.

You don't have to be a great negotiator.

You can just say, here, look at this.

This is why I'm awesome.

And that.

That's a way easier argument to make.

Yeah, just.

Just slide it across the table.

Just, you know, this is me, right?

Right.

Drop the mic and you're good.

Yeah.

All right, let's talk and we'll combine these a little bit.

Loan repayment and retirement accounts, which nobody talks about.

Yeah, yeah, There are resources, but even there, I feel like even the resources are confusing.

Like having to look up definitions of everything.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it.

Brutal, right?

I mean, this took me a long time to learn.

And sometimes, like you said, it's like, oh, I should know this.

Simple definitions, right.

And sometimes I still have to go look up stuff.

But it's just trying to give this guy as quick as possible to just get somebody to understand that.

If you make.

If you understand this stuff at the early part of your career, you're going to save hundreds of thousands of dollars more over the course of your career.

And that's in the form of understanding your loans, understanding the importance of paying them off, lowering your interest rates, finding programs off out there to scrape off some.

I'm currently in my fourth year and still applying to the National Health Service Corps and hopefully going to get some money there.

So it's never too late for this.

But the earlier you learn it, the better and the more it's going to save you over time.

And never has it been more apparent from when we started this and Shane and I talking and making the changes to his personal stuff that's going to save him hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You want to talk about that, Shane?

Like a sleazy TV person right now, but it's really important.

Yeah, it is.

Like these are the most boring million dollar topics ever.

I mean, you just gloss over and I would do that as of like a year and a half ago.

You talk about interest, talk about expense ratios.

I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about and I don't care.

Right.

And so you put up that shield right away.

Right.

I signed up for my 403B.

I'm getting the math.

I think I'm good, right?

I'm good.

But I realized quickly that I thought I was in a good situation and turns out I was in an okay situation at best.

I mean, these folks were charging me a 1% fee, assets under management, and I just was paying attention.

And that was the key.

Like I didn't know anything.

I just knew that my account's doing this and not this.

So what's the deal?

And just learning a little bit and so I could ask good questions and they didn't have good answers.

And so anyway, around that time, reconnected with Jordan and realized like, oh, there's another way.

Let me read some books.

So hit the library, got some free books and read up.

And before I knew it, I mean, we're saving, I think it was over 250,000 over the next 20 years by just changing what we were doing, just going from the path we were on, which is okay, to this really excellent path that we're on now.

So again, mistakes.

Learned a lot.

Wish I would have known this, graduating at 30.

I might even be retired by now.

But that's like it's hours of time to make these changes.

It's not like going back and getting a financial degree.

It's like you read a few books and then the changes themselves are pretty straightforward.

You just need somebody in your court, which Shane was the same way he needed me in his court.

Just cheering them on, saying, yep, this makes sense, this is legit and that's all it takes.

But it's really easy to sit comfortably and be like, well, I'm not a financial person, I'll have somebody manage this for me and this, that, and the other.

And you really don't need that.

Those guys and gals are not making you a ton of money.

They're keeping you pretty flat.

Well, and it also takes some transparency and having those people.

And I think that's where, like, the people I've graduated with, that there's still three girls I'm super close with.

And we can be each other's kind of cheerleaders and coaches and kind of compare because we're.

We're around the same.

You know, we're around the same age.

We all have similar family structure.

We live in both.

All of.

In the Southeast.

We have similar jobs.

So we can say, like, hey, like, even to one of our friends, last week, we were like, listen, you really aren't being compensated correctly, like you.

And encouraging her to look at that.

And then when it comes to these things, like saving and all that, we're able to just kind of discuss with each other.

And I think those are the friendships and relationships, like y' all did that you form in PA school that are so valuable moving forward.

So I think.

I think the book does a great job of really going over the basics for people and giving them the start to that.

And there are some really good.

Now, I've seen a couple like pas who focus on financial stuff on social media, which is cool because it's not just all, like, doctors anymore, so there's, you know, different methods and all that that you can learn about.

But just talking about it, like, you're saying is so valuable, and talking about money with your friends builds a relationship a lot and your partner the same way, but it's hard to do.

It's uncomfortable.

Yeah.

It's, like, taboo.

And I don't know why it should be.

It's actually.

And I don't know, I've heard this maybe y' all know, I've heard that it's illegal for an employer to tell you can't share your salary.

I believe that's true.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which I think some people feel like they cannot disclose their salary.

But I believe, and I read about this one time, that it's actually, you know, they cannot ask you not to do that.

So I think they don't want to.

Yeah.

Because when you do, sometimes you expose huge discrepancies or, you know, sort of.

Sort of backdoor deals or whatever, and you're wondering how you're sitting next to someone who's doing the same job as you and getting paid 20 to $30,000 more.

I mean, I've been in that situation.

Like, what is.

What is the difference?

Right?

What is the difference between you and I?

Really, I couldn't tell you.

Yeah, but, Savannah, you hit on a good thing, too.

Just about having those friendships and having a peer group.

And that was part of the reason why, at least for me, that I wanted to learn some of this stuff or felt forced to learn some of this stuff on my own.

Because I looked around and I said, what are you guys doing for your retirement plans?

And I literally had one person tell me, dead serious face, deadpan, I'm just going to work till I die.

That's it.

Like, okay, well, next person, let me ask you, what are you doing with your 401k?

And so a lot of people, a lot of our peers just don't have a good plan, frankly.

And so you can't just look around and learn probably how to do it optimally.

You have to sort of learn from a resource that you trust.

I think we do a good job in the book covering the basics, like you said, not, you know, getting a master's degree in finance.

Yeah, that's very involved.

All right, next section, which is I love cme, Continuing Medical education, or cme.

And this is a man.

I think a lot of.

I get questions from, like, pre PAs, a lot about what the requirements are for PAs, which can always change.

Like how it says, learn how to take a free vacation every year, which.

I cannot wait for CME trips to.

Come back because they are my favorite thing ever.

Yes, absolutely.

Agreed.

I love cme.

I feel like it's just a pot of gold that's handed to us every year.

And you can spend your time, your money, whatever you get from your employer, and if you know where and how to spend it, it can be just absolute glorious.

It can be, like we said, a free vacation, which, of course, yeah, you have to go do some learning while you're there.

But it's.

I'd rather go to, you know, Banff national park and learn about, you know, hematology.

Then, you know, stay home, you know.

Sounds like a good one.

Yes.

Yeah, actually, I did go to that one.

It was good.

Okay.

Yeah, but it's good, you know, it's a.

It's a really great resource.

But again, I feel like a lot of people, our peer group, you look around, people are leaving it on the table.

They're not spending their CME money, and they don't know what to spend it on.

Again, going back to paying attention, for instance, the laptop I'm currently working on was paid by my employer through CME Money, because we can do that.

And I think Jordan's the same situation with his laptop.

So knowing those things is important as well.

Yeah.

It's asking the questions to your employer and understanding how can I use this?

And it's easy to just buy some online course, especially now during COVID which I'm definitely.

I've done that.

Right.

Because you want to spend your money on something, but you can really go extravagant with this stuff, pending your company allows you to.

But the whole industry itself recognizes that and has tried to create vacations for providers just for that reason.

So take advantage.

That's why I think so, like, I would just tell y', all, Durham conferences are literally the best.

The last one I went to in Florida before things shut down, they rented out Harry Potter World at Universal for us.

I'm dead serious.

We had.

We went there one night.

All you can eat, all you can drink, butterbeer.

It was amazing.

So if you ever want a good one, go to a Durham conference.

That's legit.

We have snack hours every all day.

We have a lounge.

It's great.

That is.

That.

That's pretty amazing.

Dorm conferences are the place to be, but it is, and I've even seen some that the lectures will like stop at 12 or 1.

So you can bring your family and still have family time.

Yeah, that's pretty common because again, they try to turn it into the whole family.

Right.

Because you can charge the room to your cme, so why not bring your family along?

And the rates are usually really good for wherever it is, so they'll get really good rates that are way less than normal.

Right.

And you know, we're talking about going on vacation, that kind of double win where you get to go on a trip with your family or by yourself or wherever.

But you know, you can also get huge gift cards like Beautiful during a pandemic where you can't really travel much.

Right.

I mean, you can still get your cme, get educated, spend that money down.

It's yours, it's in your contract.

I mean, it's ridiculous.

It's.

Why not?

I don't know why not.

All right, so this next one I think is so common.

Burnout.

And my question about this is, at what point in your career did you feel like you first kind of experienced burnout?

Jordan, you want to take it?

So for me personally, it was.

I wasn't burnout.

My first job, I was just scared I was losing all my skills starting off in a specialty.

After about a year in the er, I was getting pretty burnout.

And that I was certainly compounded by the fact that that's like near the time the pandemic started.

So if you learn about it early in your career, you can hopefully prevent it or recognize it very early on because plenty of people, I mean, it's all the rage right now, luckily, but it used to be just like money, very taboo.

It was kind of like suck it up, especially for physicians because they have put so much time and effort to get there.

And you hear the stories of physicians burnout before they even start, but they're stuck.

And so we just wanted to bring attention to that, that, hey, you may be a brand new pa, that's fine.

But this is still something on the horizon because you work in medicine.

And Shane knows the stats more off the top of his head.

But I mean, it's a massive portion of people in the health field that experience burnout at some point in their career, over 50%.

Do you remember what it is, Shane?

Yeah, it's right around 50 for PA specifically, or at least that's the data we found when we wrote the book was about 50% or so.

So, I mean, there are three of us, you know, talking right now, so probably at least, you know, two, you know, at least one.

But probably all three of us at some point have experienced burnout.

And, you know, I think a lot of people, if you're in PA school, you are probably going to experience burnout.

You know, they say it's a.

Well, it's defined as an occupational phenomenon.

If you're a student as your occupation, you can still experience burnout.

And so a lot of, I mean, that's when I probably was first ever really, really crispy, really burned out was in PA school and then probably within my first year where I just sort of went head down all in.

Everything was about work and learning the job and just so focused on it that I didn't really have a good life work balance at all.

So I sort of neglected certain things about exercise and social time and instead just went all in and realized I needed to come up for air at some point.

But now, I mean, being nine years in, it's so much easier to recognize.

Like just when my toe starts getting in that burnout water, I feel like, oh, boy, all right, so what do I got to do to get myself back?

Because I don't want to go down that route.

I Don't want to be stuck there for, you know, a week, a month, a career.

I feel like some people are kind of just.

They live there.

Well, that's the important thing, too.

It's reversible.

Right?

You recognize, make the changes, and you fix it.

You may experience it early on, you may experience it multiple times, but with.

With effort, you can fix it.

Yeah.

Right.

I completely agree.

And I think myself and a lot of my friends I went to PA school with, I would say around year three to five is when a lot of us kind of really started to feel that and a little bit of it, like, just uneasiness, restlessness in our jobs, not coming home as happy.

And I think I kind of, like you said, lived in that for about a year before I made a change and went to part time, just because having a baby and with my husband's schedule and everything, it was just what made sense for me at the time.

And it's crazy because then people see a change, because I remember my family, my parents and my husband both commenting like, you seem happier.

You aren't complaining.

You're not, like, freaking out all the time.

And so, you know, I think when it starts to affect those around you, too, it's especially important to make a change.

But y' all are talking about it, and in general, everyone is talking about a little bit more these days.

Yeah.

Which is great.

I feel like, though, unfortunately, it still kind of has a little bit of a stigma and is a bit of a buzzkill topic.

Right.

I mean, PAs are known to be hard workers, but there's.

There's a fine line between being a hard worker and being abused or, you know, miserable.

Right.

So, yeah, absolutely.

All right, Our last one is navigating your work environment and how.

What are.

What are y' all's thoughts on that?

Just being a good.

Good colleague and good coworker.

Yeah.

I mean, again, PA School is all about medicine.

Understandably so.

But we're humans, and you're having to work with a lot of humans, and I didn't understand that.

I mean, you learn during your rotations pretty quick, but it's easy.

It's a different outlook as a student.

Like, your.

Your job for however long your rotations are is just like.

For me, it was like, my job is like, all right, get everyone to like me, try my best.

Granted, I still kind of try to do that in my real work life, but it's.

It's.

Holy cow.

There's so much to learn in terms of patient interactions, in terms of employee or Colleague interactions in terms of interactions with your superiors.

So we just try to bring light to that because it's in early in your career you're like ah, I mean you're drinking from a fire hose, right?

There's only so many things you can focus on.

But this is one more thing we wanted to bring to attention of here's how to be the best pa, here's how to handle difficult patients, difficult patient situations to just obviously you're going to learn that through your career but this is like a heads up, a crash course chapter for people to hopefully be ahead of the game as they start.

Right?

Just some practical tips, pragmatic stuff for people.

I mean I just add to that consistency I think is the key, you know, being obviously you want to be consistently good, consistently nice, consistently efficient, whatever, all those, you know, good traits but just being consistent on a positive side.

I mean I've worked with plenty of people where unfortunately they're consistently late to work 15, 20 minutes every single day or consistently leaving before the day is even done because they're done with their patients or whatever it is just or consistently angry, you know, whatever.

We've all worked with those people and just being consistently friendly, being reliable, trustworthy, having some empathy just consistently as well will go a long way.

Yes, great tips.

Well, everybody can find the book on the website, correct?

Is that the best place to go?

Yep, yep.

Thepablueprint.com.

Yeah, please check it out.

We're always adding things.

We have a lot of resources on there for pas, pre.

Pas everything.

So yeah, check it out.

And we also have Shane's blog on there that we are going to continue to add on to.

So check it out.

Perfect.

Awesome.

Thanks so much guys for sharing and we'll direct everybody to your book and website.

Yeah, thanks Savannah.

It's great to chat with you.

It.