Five things I wish someone had told me before I started PA school.

I made it through, but there were a lot of moments that first semester where I thought, why did nobody warn me about this? So I'm fixing that for you.

None of this is meant to scare you off. PA school is hard. It's also completely doable. Going in with realistic expectations makes those first few months so much easier.

What I cover:

• Why you need to start studying earlier than you think you do
• What the volume of material actually feels like week to week
• Building a study system before you're drowning in one
• The financial side nobody prepares you for
• Protecting your relationships and your sanity once classes start

If you're not in PA school yet and you're still working to get there, start here.

Resources:

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

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

One-on-one pre-PA counseling: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-counseling

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.

Hey guys, thanks for tuning in today.

So our topic for today's podcast episode is 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting PA School.

This stems from a guest post that I did for a girl named Brittany's blog.

She runs a blog called PA Fanatic and she's also on Instagram.

She's an MBA school and just has really great advice.

So we did a blog swap, but I want to go a little bit more in depth about the things I talked about in that post.

So if you want to find the original post, I'll link to it in the show Notes, but also you can find it at PA Fanatic.

So if you're going to PA school and that's your plan and you're applying to PA School, I feel like you should know what you're getting yourself into and know what to expect.

And I think it helps to have clear expectations and some tips before getting yourself into something that can be a little bit stressful or difficult.

So I'm going to discuss some of the things that I didn't maybe realize about PA school or things that I wish I had known before starting.

Just to make things a little bit easier, the very first thing is start studying for Pance from day one.

Pance is the name of the PA school boards that you have to take at the end of the program to become a certified PA and actually get licensed.

So it's very important test.

And in PA school, basically all of the testing is modeled around the pants.

So.

So if you're studying for that test from day one, you'll be studying for your school's exams and studying in a way that you'll be tested, basically, because sometimes the questions can be tricky and it's important to be able to identify what the questions are asking for and the types of questions that are asked.

So at the end of PA School, you already know you're going to have to start taking this test.

I didn't really start thinking that way until about my third semester of PA school.

And at that point I really started studying from my pants review book before every test.

And it made a huge difference in my studying and in my test scores.

I was doing better because I was.

I understood at that point that it was going to take studying for the actual boards to be able to do well and going into rotations that's even more True, because those tests tend to be a little bit more difficult and they are definitely modeled after the pants.

So you want to be sure that you're able to pass those tests.

Obviously you don't want to remediate if you don't have to, but there are a ton of pants review books out there.

You've got to find what works best for you.

I found using the comprehensive review book and I'll link to that as well.

And the Lance question answer book did best for me as far as I would study the material and then actually do practice questions that provided answers that went in depth about why something was right, why something was wrong to help me understand the concepts a little bit better.

Some people may think that's extreme to start that type of studying from the beginning, but the end of PA school catches up to you quickly and it will be there before you know it.

And then you don't want to be scrambling and feeling like you didn't study adequately for the test.

And there are a lot of PAs out there on Instagram PA students who go over their study methods and I've seen some really great stuff.

So make sure you're kind of paying attention to how others do it and then find what method works best for you.

The second thing that I wish I knew before starting PA school was that, and this wasn't maybe as much for me as I would say it's for other people.

But it's so important to make friends while you're in PA school and really take the time to enjoy where you're at.

I saw so many of my classmates who seemed pretty miserable.

Honestly, they were just ready to leave on Friday afternoon, wanted to go home even if it meant driving hours away.

They didn't really take the time to get to know their classmates and and to participate in activities that we did.

And I think it just made their experience less enjoyable because you want to enjoy where you're at and you want to be able to acclimate to an area and get used to it and become involved in the community you're in.

It's okay if that's temporary and that's your plan, but you want to have the best experience that you can.

And there's no need to make yourself miserable just because you're thinking about how much better home is.

And I think part of our not issue, but where our school was, it was a smaller town and we had a lot of people who came from bigger cities and they just felt like they were in the worst place ever.

It was just A terrible town with nothing to do.

But it takes effort to find things to do.

And most of the time, wherever you're at, you can find activities, you can find cool things that will allow you to have a great time.

And again, if your friends, if you're able to make friends, it makes it all that much better.

So my next tip is to find study methods that work for you and stick to them.

I tend to be someone who thinks that I can come up with a new study method that's going to be even better.

And sometimes that's not the best strategy.

And you don't really want to try that out on a test.

One area that was a little bit tough for me at the beginning was anatomy.

Once PA school starts, it is quick.

You jump right in.

And so that first week of school, we are in the anatomy lab.

We are in class.

You just have a test in one week.

It's crazy.

So that was a little bit stressful.

And on my anatomy test, I didn't do that great.

My very first one, I got a C. It was a high C, but it was still C. My second one, I got a B.

And my third one, I got an A.

So it just took me some time to really figure out the best way to study for myself.

Which at this point I know that I need to do practice questions.

I mentioned that previously, but that's how I do best.

I need to actually apply the knowledge and see if I'm understanding it correctly.

I don't do that.

Great Hearing someone tell me the information.

I don't do that.

Great just reading it over and over.

So I also have to take notes, which can be very time consuming.

But I tend to make study guides.

I don't even study them.

I just kind of make them and then do the questions and study that way.

I also know that I don't do great in a group setting.

Sometimes me and my friends in PA school would study kind of in the same area, but not necessarily as a group.

It was nice to have people around if a question came up so that we could ask each other.

But we weren't quizzing each other or talking about the things because I just get very distracted.

So that was not the best for me.

You may also find that how you study in PA school is very different from how you studied in undergrad.

And that's just experimentation.

You'll just have to see what happens.

And the time is different, time management is different, the expectations are different.

The amount of information is a ton more.

So just be flexible.

I think That's a huge thing for PA School in every way.

Just always be flexible, but try to find what works and then just continue with that.

Get your method down and keep at it.

My next tip is, if you are struggling in any way at all, ask for help.

And this can be a tough one because you feel like, I'm in grad school.

I should have this all figured out.

They accepted me over thousands of other people.

But your faculty and your program want you to succeed.

They want to know if there's something that you're not understanding or if you.

Even if you're having personal stuff going on.

PA School is tough.

You've got to give up a lot.

You've got to make some adjustments to your social life to be able to do well.

So I think it's important to find that person that you can go to.

For me, it was one of our teachers, and she was also my advisor and my small group leader for one semester.

And we just clicked.

She was awesome.

She was a younger professor, and I just felt like I could talk to her.

And so the first semester of PA school, I actually failed a pharmacology test, and it was awful.

I think I was the only one that failed, and I just didn't.

I felt like I didn't understand the testing method, and it was just a lot of material that I had never been exposed to.

If you can take a pharmacology class before PA school, please do it.

And even then it will still be hard.

But pharmacology was just so difficult.

And our teacher was great, but his questions, I just.

I didn't understand them.

And so that was a tough pill to swallow.

And it kind of opened my eyes to the difficulty that I was facing.

But I went and I remediated, and it was fine.

And I never failed another test throughout PA school.

But I had to ask for help, and I had to ask my friends for help and find out how they were studying.

I had to go to that advisor and talk to her.

And I also remember one week where it was just a tough week.

I remember we were in, I think, our orthopedic section.

We were doing our small group check off, so we had to go through the whole physical exam, and there was just a lot going on.

And so we went to small group one Thursday morning, and our small group leader could kind of tell that something was off.

And it was me and three other girls.

And.

And so she asked.

She said, what's up, guys?

Like, is everything okay?

Did y' all look over this last Night.

And I said, to be perfectly honest, last night, I just cried.

I could not study.

I was so overwhelmed and stressed out that I just sat there and cried.

And it was so funny because every other of the three girls in my group were like, me too.

And so that's probably not the best way to deal with stress, but sometimes you just gotta cry it out.

And so we were able to kind of talk and talk through things, and she reassured us, and it was helpful.

But just know that if you are struggling, people want to help you.

And go to somebody, Go to a classmate, go to a faculty member, tell somebody that you need some help, and they will definitely be there for you.

All right, this is my favorite one.

So into PA School.

Going into PA School.

Make time for fun.

When I first started, I thought that it was impossible to have fun in PA school and still succeed.

I was so intense and probably really annoying about my studying.

I was living at home with my parents for the first year of PA school, and they would ask me to go out to eat.

So let's go grab Mexican.

That'll take, what, 30 minutes?

And I would say, no, I have to study.

And at night, going to bed, I would have my books and just fall asleep studying.

It was a little absurd, I realized that.

But I think most people who go to PA school are kind of type A and have that feeling that you just have to study all the time and that you have to do as well as possible.

Not that I'm advocating barely passing, but it's okay to take a break.

Like, you have to eat dinner.

So I wouldn't really hang out with friends that much.

I was supposed to be planning a wedding, and my mom would try to talk to me about wedding stuff, and I would not even acknowledge it.

I did not want to talk about wedding things.

I was too busy studying.

And so after the first couple semesters of didactic year coming into January, because I started in May, I loosened up a little bit.

And when I did so when I started going to dinner and started focusing on my wedding and actually doing things outside of studying, my grades started doing better.

I did really, really well that semester.

And we had some really hard sections, including pulmonology and cardiology.

And so I think just taking that stress off of myself and realizing that 30 extra minutes of studying was probably not going to push me that much further up as far as my grade goes.

I mean, maybe I would get a 93 instead of a 92.

And is that really worth it?

Does it really matter?

Your employer will never look at your GPA in PA school.

They do not care.

All they care about is that you graduated and passed the pants.

So that realization was really big for me.

And I think that's something in undergrad too, where you want to do as well as possible, but don't do it at the expense of your own sanity or your own health.

And for me, I love reading for fun.

I mean, I've always been a book nerd.

I won a Harry Potter dress up contest when the fourth book came out.

When I was in fourth grade, I dressed up like Harry Potter.

I was the only girl dressed like Harry Potter.

And I never read a book for fun through all of PA school.

And looking back on that, it just makes me sad.

That was so crazy.

Why could I not focus on myself at times, too?

So I don't want you to do that.

Don't make that mistake.

And those friends I was talking about earlier that you should make in PA school, make sure to have fun with them.

Y' all may end up in different areas later on, and you want to have memories to look back on.

I met three of my very best friends in PA school, and we still keep in touch very regularly.

One of them is in Houston, one of them, and the other two are now where I'm at.

And out of all four of us, three of us work in dermatology and one works in surgical oncology.

So she takes care of some of my melanoma patients.

But we would go to the gym together.

I always joke that I would have.

Well, it's not really a joke because it's true, but I would have never gone to the gym if it wasn't for my friends.

They would be like, all right, we're going to the gym after class.

You're coming.

And even though I would walk while they ran and refused to do some of the crazy stuff they did, it was great.

It made me stay in shape and made me stay active and was a great stress relief.

And we were able to form really great friendships.

We would go get ice cream after test and we would go to dinner.

It was so much fun.

We went to spring break together.

And my most favorite thing that we did is we randomly, in the middle of class one day, bought floor seats to a Taylor Swift concert.

I just went online and saw that they were available and kind of whispered to them, hey, y' all want to go to Taylor Swift this Saturday?

And we did it, and it was awesome.

We met Taylor Swift's mom, who can say that?

So it was really fun.

But, yeah, I would definitely say just make time for yourself.

Make time to hang out with your friends and make sure that PA school is something that's fun.

You don't want to look back and think of it as the most miserable time of your life.

That's no good.

So those are some of my tips.

I may come back with some more later on, but I would love to also hear about your tips and things that you wish you knew before PA school or even before undergrad.

A lot of people will ask me, what's one thing you wish you told yourself before undergrad or wish you knew before or when you were in college?

And I think I would have just told myself to relax more and have more fun and not be so uptight and so stressed out about school all the time.

I think if I had less anxiety about my chemistry test, I would have done so much better.

But it's really hard to see that in the moment and I realize that.

So do your best and take these tips with you.

Share them with somebody who's about to start PA school, and then be on the lookout for our next episode.

If you want more tips and more advice about pre PA stuff and going to PA school, make sure you're following along on Instagram.

You can find me at the PA Platform.

Make sure you join our Facebook group.

It's called the Prepa Platform.

I mean, that's wrong.

The Prepa Club.

And I do that with Brian Palm who runs a website called MyPA Resource.

And I would definitely recommend joining that.

It's a great group of people answering questions, asking questions all the time.

And as always, you can find [email protected] and I would love a review.

If you've stuck with me this long, five stars is great.

Give me some tips.

If there's something you want to hear about, let me know and I will get to it in an upcoming episode and I will see you guys next Friday.

Thanks for listening.