First in her family to go to college. A mom. A respiratory therapist. And now a PA student.

Jessi did this the hard way, and she's honest about it. No one in her family had been through college, so there was no roadmap and no one to ask. She was working as an RT and raising kids while taking prereqs. The doubt was constant.

What I love about this conversation is that she doesn't pretend it was smooth. She talks about the moments she thought about quitting and what actually kept her going. If you're doing this while working full time, parenting, or figuring it out with no one in your corner who's been there, listen to this one.

RT is also a great PCE job, and we get into how that experience shaped her application.

What we cover:

• Being a first-generation college student with no roadmap for this
• What respiratory therapy taught her that shows up in PA school
• How she handled prereqs while working and parenting
• The self-doubt, and what she did with it
• How she talked about her nontraditional path in her application
• What she'd tell someone starting from zero

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

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

Pre-PA Academy: https://prepaclub.thepaplatform.com/landing/academy

Mentioned in this episode:

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Today you're gonna hear Jessi's story and she's so cool.

She's a respiratory therapist, first generation college student, a mom, and a soon to be PA student.

This is a really good one.

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.

I want to thank mypa Resource and PA School Prep for sponsoring the Prepa Club Podcast.

So my PA Resource is a personal statement editing service that edits only PA school essays, only edited by PAs and most of us have admissions experience, so I am one of the editors.

Definitely check them out if you need help with your content, grammar, flow, making sure that you are on track for for turning in your application and you can use the Code Future PA for a discount on any of their service options.

Hey guys, thanks for tuning into the podcast.

I hope everyone is staying warm with the crazy weather we've been having.

But today's episode and interview I think is a really great one.

Jesse reached out.

I'm so excited for you to hear from her.

This is just one of those stories that as a Pre PA or PA school applicant should give you hope because her story is really cool, her experience is great and just kind of how she came to her decision to pursue the PA profession.

And I really appreciate how she is honest about the doubts she had along the way, which I think most of us have.

So I'm excited for you to hear from her.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, my video recording is nowhere to be found.

So this one is podcast.

Excuse me exclusive, but we did post a new YouTube video this week with the top three interview questions you need to know.

So make sure to check that out on YouTube.

If you look up the PA platform,.

It is on there.

And I appreciate everyone listening to the podcast subscribing on YouTube.

Please, if there's ever a way we can do better or serve you better or answer questions questions for you, I am all ears and ready to listen.

So all right, we will get into our interview with Jesse and the only thing I wanted to mention is coming up be paying attention to social media.

Our next webinar, which will be focused on CASPA, will be on March 16th.

Back in January when we did the pre PA conference, we got a record amount of questions during Erin's CASPA presentation.

So I know that y' all have lots of questions about how to make sure you're ready for that.

So I want to make sure that we are Getting prepared ahead of time.

So when it's time for you to apply, it's less stressful, and you can feel a little more confident in the process.

But we will jump into hearing from Jessie, and I will see you guys later.

Okay.

I'm Jessie.

I am a mom of several children.

Three of them.

I have two little toddlers.

I think one of them's probably about the same age as your daughter.

Yeah, she's two.

Mine's two right now, so she just turned two.

October.

That's fun.

Yeah.

I'm married.

I'm going to school right now for respiratory therapy.

Just finishing my degree this semester, and then I'll start.

Start at the University of Utah PA program in May.

Okay, cool.

I definitely want to hear more about, like, respiratory therapy.

So you haven't even finished your respiratory therapy program, so kind of.

Okay.

The way that it initially works is you have to have an associate's degree to work as a respiratory therapist.

So I initially got my associate's degree at a school that wasn't even accredited for, like, university standards.

And so they let me take my boards, and I'm a registered respiratory therapist, and I've been working for the past six years.

But now I.

Because I wanted to go to PA school, I had to go to a regionally accredited school and not nationally accredited.

So there's a huge difference there.

They essentially had to start all over.

But what they've done is they took my RRT credentials, basically a test out of all of the respiratory classes.

I just had to get all of my generals, which is really much easier.

Interesting.

Okay.

That you actually bring up something that I don't think we've ever talked about on the podcast before, which is accreditation of your undergraduate work, which I think people sometimes don't understand.

And I think when people usually run into issues, it's with online programs a lot where they aren't, like you said, regionally accredited, but they're nationally accredited.

And that's really confusing and sometimes hard to find.

Like, hard to figure out.

Yeah.

The best thing that I can suggest is everywhere that you go that you're going to school, they should have their accreditation listed on the website.

So you definitely have to do your research and kind of dig in to see if that's what you want to do beforehand, because there are some certification or certification programs or, like, respiratory nursing, those types of things that are all from, like, tech schools, essentially, and those aren't gonna count towards your bachelor's degree to get into PA school.

So you could still have a bachelor's degree, say, in nursing or in respiratory from a tech school.

But most PA programs are gonna require you to have regionally accredited school as your bachelor's degree in order for them to admit you into the program.

Right?

Yeah.

Okay, so that's definitely something people need to double check.

Did you.

And this is something that I think is confusing on caspa, and I've worked with a few people on their applications trying to figure it out.

But did they still include those courses in your GPAs?

They did.

Okay.

And that's what I thought.

And I had to.

I had to email CASPA because I didn't know for sure.

My whole respiratory degree was science, and so I had to take in a lot of science at the university level.

When I applied to PA school.

Most of that science background came from my associate's degree in respiratory from a tech school.

So CASPA still included that in there.

So if you did really bad at a tech school, it's gonna still show.

You still have a chance to try to clean that up a little bit.

But they definitely did use that.

It was on a grading system.

Yeah.

See, and that's what's interesting to me that, like, PA schools don't accept it, but then CASPA still uses those credits.

And, I mean, basically anything you've ever gotten an actual credit and grade for count in their.

It definitely makes it more complicated.

I know the school that I'm going to at the University of Utah, their applications still requires me to send the unofficial transcripts when you apply to the graduate school after you've been accepted.

But then when I actually get accepted, they only want the official transcripts from the schools that were regionally accredited.

Okay.

Interesting how that background still plays into the decision process for the schools.

Interesting.

Yeah, that is like a very, I guess, kind of like, small nuance that I think people don't always think about, but it can be really important to back up just a little bit.

What kind of made you interested in medicine or respiratory therapy to begin with?

How did you end up there?

So I actually didn't even know anything about respiratory therapy.

When I got into the respiratory therapy program.

I had a friend who.

Yeah, I had nothing to do with medicine.

I never had any.

I came from, like, a serving background, and she's like, you should try respiratory, see if you like it.

So I actually applied to the program and got in.

You know, at the tech school, they kind of accept basically everybody, which is really bad, but sometimes that's the truth.

So they let me in, and I actually fell in Love with medicine at that point.

And when I was a student, my mom actually had really bad surgery that went bad, and she was in the hospital on a ventilator for about a month and a half.

And I was a respiratory student at the time, and I really hadn't had my ventilator class anything, so I had people explaining stuff to me a lot.

Once they found out that I was a respiratory student, they felt like I was interested, so they would explain things a lot further.

And I had a PA who was the surgeon who had done my mom's surgery.

She was telling me about the PA profession and kind of talking about everything.

And so that was six years ago, and I got really, really interested in it, but I didn't really pursue anything probably until a couple of years ago.

And that was when I really.

The bug got in my brain about PA and I started researching it a little bit further a couple of years ago.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Okay.

I think, like, your story of how you found respiratory so funny.

It's like, sounds like a good idea.

Let's just.

Let's just try it kind of thing.

Yeah.

I had no experience in medicine whatsoever.

I had not had any family members ever in medicine.

I'm the first one to even graduate from high school, so I had no idea anything about it.

She's like, you should just try it and see.

I'm like, all right, why not?

No.

That is awesome.

And Restwood.

And it's so funny because restroom is such great experience for PA school that you're, like, already set up to succeed and, like, so far ahead of the game, which is amazing.

Like, I think that's.

It was so nice.

It was funny how it worked out because I was interested in it back as a student, and I thought, you know, I'd never.

I would never fit for that.

That wouldn't be anything that I would fit with.

So I just let it out of my brain.

And then about four years into being a respiratory therapist, I'd worked with multiple PAs over various specialties, and I'm like, I.

You know, this is actually something I really want to pursue and I'm interested in.

And actually the PA that I shadowed for that wrote, like, one of my letters of recommendation.

She was my supervisor as a respiratory therapist before she went to PA school, and so she let me shadow her because I was telling her how I was interested in it, and I just fell in love and I couldn't stop.

So that's awesome.

So what made you feel like initially that you couldn't do it or that it maybe wasn't for you when you first had those kind of thoughts.

I think honestly I, you know, I was still a student in respiratory.

I had, like I said, I'd never had any, any kind of experience in medicine before that.

So I think that it was initially just really intimidating to me.

And I know that a lot of people are in the similar situation with that.

They just think that they're not smart enough or anything.

And I come from a family, like I said, that I never.

None of my family has graduated from high school, gone to college, anything like that.

So I was a first generation college student at that point.

I'm like, there's no way I could ever be smart enough to be a pa, let alone even do medicine.

What am I doing here?

So I was really overwhelmed.

And I saw how the respiratory therapists were taking care of my mom and they were way too smart.

And like, I'm in school for this.

Like, if I can't even handle this, how can I handle something where I'm making the decisions?

And it ended up working out and here I am.

Well, I'm glad you kind of push.

Pushed beyond those limiting beliefs, which I think everyone has at some point during this process, just because it is so kind of grueling and rigorous.

Even if you do have people to help you or without kids, I mean, there's just.

It's hard no matter what.

So I think it's really cool that you even like still pursued it and kind of stuck with that seed that was planted, even if it was a long time ago.

So in your respiratory therapy experience, like, what does that job look like?

Which I like.

Again, I think respiratory therapy is great experience for PA school and I think it's underutilized by pre PA students as like a degree and experience, because it's to me, way better than a bio degree where you can't really do anything with it.

So what does that.

Yeah, what does that job look like?

What does that training look like?

A little bit.

So usually in order to work, you have to have an associate's degree, which we've already talked about, and then you can go back and get your bachelor's degree.

But it really doesn't make a difference.

If you want to work clinically as a respiratory therapist, you just need to have an associate's degree.

It goes all the way up to a master's degree if you want to teach and things.

But a lot of people, that's kind of newer in the field.

There's not a lot of master's programs out yet.

But as far as the actual degree, once you graduate from an accredited, it's called coarc and it's still accredited, but it's not a regionally accredited university level accreditation.

So what they do is they make sure the program is up to standard as far as the respiratory education goes.

And then they do mostly classes just in respiratory basis.

So like you do anything from anatomy and physiology to those types of things.

And it's important to mention here too, that that anatomy and physiology that I took in my associate's degree did not count and I had to retake that when I went to the university.

Even though I had tested out of all of those classes technically from my degree, it still was required for PA school.

So I did have to retake that and those won't count.

Okay.

But what I, after I got my associate's degree, then I sat for my board exams.

And at the time there were.

It's called a therapist multiple choice exam.

And so what it is, is you have to take, you have to hit like certain cut scores.

One is a certified respiratory therapist and then the higher cut score is a registered respiratory therapist.

And then if you hit the higher cut score for registered, you have to sit for your clinical simulation exam.

And it goes through scenarios.

There's like 21 scenarios that you.

I don't know if they've adjusted that amount.

It takes like four hours and it's forever long.

But once you pass that, then you're registered and you can work in a lot of places.

We're accepting certified respiratory therapists where you didn't have to do your clinical stimulation exam, but they're all going away from that now.

And a good portion of the hospitals are now requiring that you actually get your bachelor's degree.

So.

Okay, that sounds intense.

It definitely isn't fun.

It required a lot of studying.

I imagine it's very similar to how you take your pants.

But I, you know, it's not as hard as the pants because there's a million different things on the pants that you're learning where respiratory is more focused on like the cardiopulmonary system, but.

Well, that's like the hardest.

Well, that's what's so interesting.

So cardiology and pulmonology together make up the majority of the pants, which is.

What I'm banking on.

Yeah.

So like you, that's what I say.

Like, you are so set up to be successful because that stuff to me was so hard to learn without any background, especially just on paper.

And I think, you know, sometimes People ask about what to do electives in.

And I kind of wish I did a cardiology elective just to try to solidify more of that knowledge and see it in clinical practice.

So, yeah, you are set.

And like, we didn't have to do any type.

Well, okay, so we didn't have to do simulation on pants.

But like, during PA school, you do a lot of.

Of that kind of testing, but it's not.

I don't know, it's always a little more pressure in a standardized setting.

So it's not quite like that, but.

It was all electronic.

It wasn't on the testing thing.

And they would pop up scenarios.

Like, if you ever look on Instagram and you see people post questions.

Yeah, similar to that.

But it would be like six questions in a row related to the same case.

And then you would say, like, what would you do next?

What would you do next?

Kind of a thing.

So you're basically like, a scenario would be someone's coming into the ER and they're short of breath, and their history is this, what would you do?

Kind of a thing.

Yeah.

The scary part is that people think a lot of times that these emergency physicians or PAs or anybody are like, calling the shots in the ER.

And they are.

They definitely are.

But when someone is short of breath, everyone is running around doing their own thing, or like in a code, everyone is doing their own thing.

And you want to think that it's this perfect little algorithm that you follow, but really, you.

Like, we know we go straight to the head of the bed, we bag the patient.

We're the airway part of that.

And then we set everything up for incubation and we just sort of do that.

Or if someone is so short of breath, like, say from asthma, we just start a breathing treatment and then the physician will order it later.

Because we just have to have a little bit of autonomy in that way in order to take care of the patient.

Because they're running around with like 15 other patients in the ER and they can't keep up with all of that.

So we have to step in and do a lot of that.

Yeah, I mean, and that's what.

So, like, my husband works at a hospital.

I work in a cross clinic setting.

But, like, hearing him and all of my friends who work in hospitals, like, how important, what an important part of the team respiratory therapy is because you're so specialized.

And to be honest, like, yeah, sometimes they could do what you do, but they don't want to.

Like, you're the expert and they want you to be the one to do it, especially in those, like, emergent settings, ICU settings, kids.

And that's the crazy stuff.

I remember I had a C section with my daughter.

I remember getting wheeled in and they had, you know, they always have it set up, like, just in case, and those teeny, tiny little tubes they have for babies.

That freaked me out.

Oh, yeah.

Like,.

Yeah, that is the task.

She decided she wanted to quote, unquote, code when she was born.

And they did chest compressions and everything.

And the respiratory therapist was actually somebody that I had previously worked with, worked in the NICU for a long time.

And so I knew her well.

And she's like, we're doing this now, we're doing this now.

And I could follow along and that was really helpful.

But I can imagine it'd be so terrifying for somebody who knows nothing about medicine and being in that situation where they're working on your child.

Yeah.

I don't know if it's better to know stuff or not know stuff.

Just honestly.

But.

But yeah, my daughter, she took them.

She.

I forgot her, like, APGAR score.

She took a second to, like, warm up and.

But she was fine.

It like took a minute to cry and stuff.

And they had to, I think, clear her out a little bit.

As healthcare professionals, everybody who is in healthcare, for some reason, when they have a child, something happens.

Happens.

Yeah, without doubt.

Yeah, we.

Yeah, we talk about that at work too.

Like, we.

I don't know, it's.

It is weird how you feel like that.

Yeah.

But then you, like, don't want to talk about it because you'll jinx yourself.

It's there in the back of your mind.

You're like, I just know.

I know.

What areas have you worked in?

Or like, what kind of schedule do you have?

So typically, as a respiratory therapist, you work anywhere from 8 hour shifts to 10 hour shifts.

And most often it's 12 hour shifts.

So we do three 12 hour shifts a week.

Okay.

Lately it's been a lot more because of COVID but we've had a lot of people working like five or six shifts a week at 12 hours a week, myself included.

It's been crazy.

But that's the typical schedule.

And then I've worked current.

Like, I worked in the NICU for about a year and a half.

And then most of my other experience has been a division between hospital and long term.

Okay.

And I did.

I feel like I've worked so many jobs, it's insane.

But most of them are like simultaneous, so I'll Be doing a long term job.

Prn.

And then I'll do a hospital job where I'm full time and kind of jump back and forth between the two, but.

Nice.

Yeah.

Is there a lot of demand for RTs?

Well, I guess there is right now, but in general, like, is that something where there's.

It's pretty easy to get a job?

Yeah, I found that it's pretty easy afterward.

There's a lot of people looking and right now we're really short staffed.

But we were before COVID hit anyway.

Oh, gosh.

And so we've had a lot of travel people and there's a lot of opportunity for those people who want to travel, especially right now with everything going on.

But even before then, people were making like $4,000 a week traveling.

Oh my gosh, that is insane.

I have a friend who actually just.

He's a traveler that he's working with us now, and he just got back from New York when they had their whole situation happen.

Yeah.

And he said that he made $1,000 a day as a traveler and he worked five to six shifts a week.

So they need people bad.

That's insane.

Right now I don't make anywhere near that.

Yeah.

When it was bad.

What.

So were you taking care or have you been taking care of COVID patients?

Yeah, every day, multiple times.

We've got.

Our ICU only has about 20 beds and it's chock full.

And about half of them are COVID patients.

And probably about six of them are intubated and critical.

And we're in a kind of weird spot in the valley where we have the University of Utah on one side of us.

So they get a lot of the major cases.

And then we have.

In Utah, we have a.

Like a business called Intermountain and they own most of the hospitals in Utah, like the bigger name ones.

So they're on the other side of us.

So we're like this little tiny hospital sort of centered in the middle of them.

So we're just getting all of their overflow.

Gotcha.

And we have a lot of that.

We have a lot of like transient population that comes to us.

A lot of drug overdoses and those types of things.

And we're managing like the airway and the ventilator on those.

We deal with anybody who's coming in with any kind of asthma problems, any difficulty breathing.

We don't get a lot of kids because Primary children's hospital is connected to the University of Utah.

And everybody just goes there.

And so we, we don't get kids very often.

We do occasionally for like, little things like a head laceration or something, but for the most part, they all go there unless it's really critical.

Gotcha.

Fingers crossed we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Maybe on some of this.

I don't know,.

They've come out.

Yes, me too.

Hopefully that'll help.

Hoping so.

Okay, let's transition to talking about PA stuff.

So you had to take some classes.

You obviously were getting great patient care experience.

Was there anything else application wise, you were doing to prepare before you actually applied?

Yeah, so it kind of all.

It was weird for me.

It sort of all worked out because I hadn't decided that I really wanted to be a PA until about two years ago.

And at that time I had.

When my daughter was born, I was actually in my first semester going back to school to become a page, and I had to withdraw from the entire semester because she ended up in the NICU after she was born.

And so my priority was obviously to take care of her.

So I withdrew from that.

And so that was a huge red flag, I think, on my application that they were like, hey, what's going on here?

But I addressed that in my personal statement.

Just saying I've had this happen and it didn't stop me.

And I was still persevering.

And I think if you mention something bad, just, you know, do it quick and move on.

Yep.

And I think that helped.

But I had the following semester when I. I still continued.

I actually decided to do something really stupid.

Oh, no, please don't do this.

I took four science prerequisites in one semester.

And you were working and I was working full time.

And I have three kids.

Oh, my gosh.

Terrible idea.

Don't do it.

No.

I ended that semester with all Bs, and that's still impressive.

Well, I really wanted to apply to the University of Utah, and they only require four prerequisites.

5.

They have like a chemistry course, anatomy, physiology, and then some kind of biology.

So I was like, well, I'm just gonna take them all at the same time, get it out of the way.

And that was really be a terrible mistake.

I should have spread it out a little bit more.

But it worked out and I, you know, I applied and I didn't think I had a chance.

And I'm like, I'm gonna have to get more hours and more.

Like my.

I had.

My hours were great, but I had.

I'm gonna have to get more prerequisites and stuff for to get into any kind of program.

And to my surprise, they offered me an interview.

And I was like, I am not qualified for this.

What?

And I had.

I have all the science background from my respiratory degree, which I did well in, but I didn't do well in the rest of my degree.

I ended with like a 3.3 GPA.

Okay.

Total.

And my science was lower than that on caspa.

Yes.

Okay.

And I thought it was going to be better because I had my.

I had like a 3.9 in my other associate's degree.

The CASPA sort of average things out and it was a lot lower than I anticipated, which was fine.

It was still above the minimums.

But then they.

Sorry, my daughter's just walking in.

So, yeah, they said that basically what they liked about my application was like my respiratory experience about,.

We get a break if you need to go handle it.

Mine's sleeping.

I think she should be perfect.

No matter.

She's coloring on the wall.

Exactly.

Yes.

There's no telling yes, but yes.

Anyways, what happened was they said that they liked my experience as a respiratory therapist, and that stood out a lot.

Even though my GPA wasn't really fantastic and my classes weren't.

I didn't have a ton of prerequisites, so I just did the minimum of what they needed as far as the academic portion goes.

And I feel like if you meet the minimum, go ahead and apply, because if not, then you never know.

And I would have had to wait an entire year to go when I would.

Like I got an early acceptance.

That's amazing.

I have no idea what they saw on me.

Well, yeah, I mean, your experience is impressive.

You have a ton of hours, but it's high quality hours, too.

And I think.

Yeah, and, like, people get into the debate of, like, what's more important, patient care hours or gpa.

And there are some schools that have a strong preference, but usually schools want a mix.

And, like, obviously from your experience and seeing the classes you took all at the same time and what you've been able to juggle, they can tell that you're going to be a great PA student.

And so, like, that, like, I think that speaks for itself, but I'm completely with you.

If you meet the minimums, go ahead and apply just because you never know.

Was that the only school you applied to?

I applied to two and I had a big problem.

I actually posted this on the Pre PA Club on Facebook if anybody else had an issue.

But I applied to Stanford as well, just randomly, because I'm like, why not at Stanford?

And they immediately rejected my application.

And they said that they were missing half of it.

And so that part was weird.

That.

And so I contacted them, and I contacted CASPA and Casper's, like, sure enough, half of your application's missing.

They're like, we're happy to resend it.

And I'm like, well, I already got accepted to bu, so there's no point.

That was my.

So.

Oh, wow.

How weird.

Yeah.

So I don't know.

And I guess no one else has had this issue that I've talked to, and they said nobody else has been dealing with it, but I submitted my applications in a different state, and the Internet was not great.

So I'm wondering if it had something to do with that.

Who even knows?

But, hey, it was meant to be.

And you're good.

So, yeah.

Program is kind of one program,.

A.

Little bit of both.

Yeah, no, that.

Like, that's amazing.

I.

Like.

I. I think that's awesome.

Are you gonna have to move for school or are you good?

Nope, I live five minutes.

That is so perfect.

Like, yeah, it's gonna be.

Literally.

I only applied to the one school because, like I said, I didn't have any prerequisites.

I didn't have that many.

And I thought, I'm gonna have to go for a whole other year to get more prerequisites, post back.

And I didn't end up needing to because I met the minimums for the school that I was applying to, and I actually took the GRE and I did really bad.

Oh, no.

On the gre So I was going to apply to a couple more programs that I met the minimum score, but I didn't because they require the gre and there was a minimum, and I blew that out of the water and didn't even make anywhere near that.

So it's a good indication that GRE is not everything.

Oh, no, definitely not.

Um, I had a question.

Oh, gosh.

The jury.

And you had tons of experience.

Oh, did you apply early?

When did you submit?

That was my question.

So I submitted two days before the deadline.

Oh, wow.

Did I do rolling or no?

Yeah, on August 1st.

I submitted at the end of July.

And that's another reason I didn't have any idea that I was even going to get in, because I'm like, oh, I'm applying so late.

But they don't have rolling admission, and they do everything with the application at the same time.

Gotcha.

I feel like that helped, but I would recommend applying as early as possible because that Gives them a lot more time to review your application where mine was just like thrown in their face.

And thankfully they snapped, snatched it up, and decided to go with me.

I feel like.

I really feel like.

And I hope that you're like, I think you're so.

Stories can be so inspirational to people who feel like.

Because the questions.

And you see it, if you're in the Facebook group, you know, is this too late to apply or can I get in with this xyz?

And there's just never like a black and white answer to those questions because there are people who get in right when you apply at the deadline, or there are people who get in with a lower GPA or applying to one or two schools or they get off the wait list.

I saw a post like 2 days ago where a girl got off the wait list and to start tomorrow.

She was like, I start tomorrow.

And I was like, I'm stressed out for you, but so excited.

But, like, that's crazy.

Especially right now.

I'm starting in May and there's already so much for me to do to get prepared that I feel like if I started tomorrow, I would probably cry, but I would do it, but I would cry right?

And that would be completely valid.

Like, I think if you get through PA school without crying, you're like a different breed of person, honestly.

Yeah, you are super, super old man if you can go through PA school and not cry.

But what, what tips as a parent do you have for people who are trying to either balance kind of like pre pa, getting ready to apply and like, being a student and working full time and being a mom or dad or parent?

Like, what, what have you found?

Like, works for you or didn't work for you and your family, and every family is different.

But like, how, how do you kind of handle that?

So I'm lucky because I have my husband and he's been so good about everything.

But the people who don't, I would recommend take it slow.

Don't just try to rush into it.

It's not going to be something that you can just do overnight and assume that you're going to be a PA tomorrow kind of a thing.

It's, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day.

And it's just that you.

You have to try to take it slow and process each step of the way.

Don't take four classes in one semester that are prerequisites.

That's a lot.

Listen to my advice.

But the, the best thing in my advice is just to take, you know, take it slow.

Take one thing at a time.

And then just don't try to plan too much.

I found that if you plan too many things other than like major exams and stuff like that, then you end up getting bogged down and overwhelmed.

And I, you know, I have a messy house all the time and I've made my priority school.

And so when people come to my house, I'm like, sorry, it's not insane, but it's something that days off I'll work on my house, but when I'm working, I just downtime.

I'm studying constantly at work.

And everybody that is there pretty much understands because most people are in school for something or they've been through medical school of some kind.

And so most everybody understands.

And I think that as long as you just focus on the end goal and try to keep.

Keep your mind positive, then I think that'll really help.

Yeah, that's great advice.

Do you know what area you want to end up working in?

I have no idea.

I have.

I've kept my options open and I've told that it's probably a good idea to just let the rotations decide.

Yeah.

Because I.

A lot of people expect me to end it in something like pulmonology or critical care of some kind of.

And I've done that for so long, I kind of want to get away from that.

I'd love to do something in just like family practice or a chill clinical job that's not running around chasing after people that are trying to die on my shift every five minutes.

That would be a nice change of pace.

But again, I could fall in love with it as a critical care PA on the other side of things.

So who knows?

And I'm just going to let my rotations help me decide that.

That's awesome.

Well, I'll.

It's crazy.

It'll fly by.

Like, it'll go by so quick and then you'll be making that decision.

So.

Yeah.

Where can everybody kind of like find you or contact you or if they have any questions?

So I'm on Facebook.

You can just search my name, Jesse Gavin.

And you're in the group on the.

Okay, cool.

That's probably.

And then I have an Instagram.

I'm not the most active on it, but I'm trying to be.

And I'm trying to post more stuff like PA and pre PA related.

So I can help people a little bit with that.

So it's Jesse's Anatomy.

I stole it from someone else, but I thought it was really good.

That's good.

It's there, but it's J E S S I E S Anatomy.

Awesome.

Okay, well, we'll make sure everybody knows where to find you when they have all the questions.

But thank you so much for sharing your story.

Thank you for having me.

You've been awesome.