Courtney spent a year in medical school before she switched to PA.

That's a hard call to make once you're already in, and she's honest about how she got there. We talk about why she started down the medical school path, what made her stop, and how she ended up in PA school instead.

She also went on to do a PA residency in critical care, so we get into whether that's something you should consider.

What we talk about:

• Why Courtney chose medical school first
• What that first year actually looked like
• The moment she realized PA fit her better
• Making the switch and applying to PA school
• What a PA residency in critical care involves
• Whether a residency is worth it as a new grad

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.

Hello, everyone.

I hope that everyone's had a great Thanksgiving and Black Friday and hopefully a nice little break, unless you had to work.

I was luckily off for a few days, so it's been nice to kind of catch up on rest and work and spend time with family and just kind of relax.

So I hope you've gotten to do the same.

And I'm really excited about today's interview.

I don't know if I've ever not been excited about an interview, but this one in particular is a girl named Courtney who is a physician assistant.

And I was actually introduced to her by our other Pre PA coach, Sam, Sam, who went to school with Courtney, and she felt like Courtney would be an awesome guest to bring on the podcast because she has a really interesting story.

She actually ended up going to medical school before she went to PA school, and so that didn't quite work out the way that she had hoped.

And she's going to go into lots of detail about that and talk about it and talk about kind of her motivations for going to med school, how.

How her kind of passion changed for PA school and whether or not she's happy, because I think that's a big question, is obviously you wanted to go to medical school.

Can you still be happy as a PA if that wasn't your original goal?

So really interesting.

And then on top of that, she did a PA residency.

So Courtney's was in ICU or kind of critical care, intensive care units type stuff.

And I don't really know anyone else who's done a PA residency, but that's kind of a hot topic right now because it's something that is sort of up and coming.

It's not a requirement for PAs, but more and more PAs are looking into doing residencies.

So it was really great to kind of hear her experience with that and if she felt like it was helpful, whether or not she would recommend it.

So, yeah, definitely stay tuned for that and I hope you enjoy.

So I guess to get started, can you just introduce yourself and kind of talk about you a little bit?

Sure.

My name is Courtney Struble.

I'm a PA in Kansas City, Missouri.

I work in a neuroscience icu and I work part time in an emergency room.

And let's see, I majored in exercise science in undergraduate school.

Then I went to med school for a year Then I came back and worked for five years, and then I went to PA school in Miami, Florida, at Barry University.

Okay, so that will probably be a little bit surprising to listeners to hear the part about you went to medical school for a year.

How did that happen?

How did you end up at pa?

I'm sure there's a story there.

Right.

So I went through life thinking, oh, I'm going to be a doctor, and there was really no other option to it.

And I didn't get the best grades in undergraduate school, and I took a year in between graduating and going to med school.

I went to med school in the Caribbean, spent a year there, and it was.

I, to be completely honest, was miserable.

So I came back and worked a little bit, and PA school was never really on the radar until I got out.

And then I started doing more research on what I could be doing other than med school.

And PA school showed up, and I was like, wow, why didn't I think of this before?

This sounds awesome.

So I ended up trying to pursue PA school, and luckily, Barry took me in, and here I am.

Interesting.

So when you got to medical school, how was it different than what you're expecting or more difficult or surprising?

I know that I've watched my husband go through medical school, and he was definitely surprised at times, and he'll even say he sometimes didn't really know what he was getting himself into.

And if you're going to med school, you really need to know what.

What you're doing.

What was your thoughts on that?

I completely agree.

I think that I kind of skated through undergraduate thinking that I could just get through on my intelligence, and I got to med school, and you cannot do that.

And I essentially, I think I fell behind almost immediately.

And trying to play catch up, trying to deal with my being away from home and being in the Caribbean versus being anywhere near home, There was no ability to ever just, like, hop on a plane and come home for the weekend.

So that combined with how difficult it was and just the amount of details that you need to know in medical school, I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Even during the first year, you know, it was.

Everyone was just talking about the boards and taking the step and doing this, and I just wanted to see a patient.

And that was so far beyond my grasp.

And, you know, after just really sitting down and thinking about it, it was like, you know, this is not for me.

And I said, nope, I can't keep doing this.

So was it hard to leave?

It was Hard to leave, mostly because it was like, well, what do I do from here?

Luckily, I had an awesome boss from my job that I had in my year in between undergraduate and med school that said, yes, come on back.

And thank goodness, because otherwise I probably would be working at Starbucks or something, which is a great job, but, you know, not anything that probably would have ended up being my career.

So what did you do in that interim between medical school and PA school?

So I was an exercise physiologist for a cardiology group.

I did stress tests every day, which during the first year is really interesting.

It was really helpful to me in PA school because I looked at EKGs all day, every day.

So when EKGs came around to PA school, I was like, yeah, I got this.

But as far as a career goes, you kind of reach your limit, I'd say within the first year or two.

And there's really no growth available other than advancing your education.

I could have gone to nursing school and been a nurse.

I could have done that.

My personality does not lend itself to nursing.

So luckily, like I said, I got into PA school and got to go that route.

So as an.

Okay, tell me the title again.

Electrical physiologist.

Exercise physiologist.

Is that something they trained you on the job for or did you have a certification in that?

No, they just.

They liked a background in exercise science, which I had.

I actually knew my friend from college had the same job, and so she introduced me, and it just kind of went from there.

But no, I had no training.

It was all on the job training.

Okay, so when you decided, okay, I'm going to become a pa at that point, did you already have all the classes and I'm assuming this counted as healthcare experience, that you needed to go ahead and apply, or did you have to work on some of those things?

So by that time I needed to.

I felt like I needed to make my application stronger.

So I retook some classes.

I got not the best grades, like I said, in undergrad, so I retook statistics.

I think I had to add, in a microbiology class.

So I took a microbiology class, and I think that's pretty much it.

I actually applied to PA School 1 round, and I did it very late, and I didn't get accepted, so I had to do it a second round.

And by that time, some of my classes were actually expiring.

You know, you have to have somebody done within like five years or so.

So then I maybe had to take another class or two because of that, like, maybe Medical terminology, I want to say, but nothing groundbreaking.

Okay, so once you got to your PA school interviews, did they address you going to med school at all?

Was that something that was a red flag for them or was it a positive thing?

Do you think it helped or hurt?

I think it hurt personally.

It was addressed at some.

Some didn't mention it whatsoever, which I was very thankful for.

But when it was addressed, I was not prepared to answer the question.

Essentially, I think it got interpreted that I couldn't handle med school, which maybe was the case, but I think that it got viewed that I was turning to the PA profession as like a step, which wasn't the case at all.

But the way that the questions came at me and kind of what I read into it was more of a hindrance than it was helpful towards my PA application.

So I've actually gotten emails from a couple people who are in very similar situations.

Either were accepted into med school or actually started, and some of them actually got pretty far.

Maybe they couldn't pass their step exams and all of that.

What do you think those people could do to make their application stronger, but also to give the schools confidence that this isn't really a backup?

It's just they're just as happy with this option and they are maybe even more happy with it.

Right.

I think, you know, especially in hindsight, med school wouldn't have been the right spot for me because I don't have the attention span to stay in one area for years upon years upon years.

Even right now, I hold two separate jobs.

So I think that it's probably something that needs to be addressed in your essay.

I think you need to just go ahead and attack it.

You're not going to be able to ignore it as much as I try to ignore it and try to just kind of push it back in the corner.

It's there and everyone knows it.

And I think you need to put every, you know, the application, the school's minds at ease and say, you know, I, you know, did this experience.

I learned this, this, and this about myself.

This is why the PA profession is going to be better for me in the long run.

And I, you know, you can leave it at that.

You can even maybe go into, like, hindsight.

You're like, oh, had I explored the PA profession more, I probably would have just gone straight into that.

But unfortunately, that's not the way life took me and here I am.

So that would be my advice.

Yeah.

And, I mean, that's the same advice I give as far as grades or Anything.

Just if there's something that could be a red flag, go ahead and address it.

It's better to put a positive spin on it and talk about the lessons than to push it under the rug and hope that they forget about it.

That doesn't usually happen very much.

So, as a PA now, are you happy with your decision?

Do you ever regret not sticking with it or.

There are times where it's.

I think every PA will run into the frustration of encountering the patient who says, oh, I want to see the doctor.

And sometimes I'll go into 30 minute conversations about something and then they'll say, I still want to see the doctor.

Where the doctor goes in and says literally the exact same thing.

Because, of course, I talked to the doctor about what we talked about.

So that's frustrating.

But beyond that, I have no regrets.

I love my job.

I love the scope of practice that we have.

I enjoy the fact that when I get to a point where I am so stumped that I'm not the end all, be all, that's what the doctors are for.

It's really nice to be able to turn to somebody and be like, I'm stuck and I don't know what else to do.

And I'm not saying the doctors couldn't do that, but it seems to be much more in my comfort zone as a PA than it would have been as a physician.

Okay, do you feel, since you had a little bit of experience with med school and PA school, what would you say to people that say PA school is not nearly as difficult or rigorous as medical school?

Would you agree or disagree or what are those kind of similarities and differences that you found in your time there?

I mean, they get to be doctors for a reason.

So one of the analogies they used in the PA school all the time was you're drinking from a fire hydrant.

And that's absolutely true.

PA school.

PA school is not easy.

But you have to remember that med school, while they get two years to learn that kind of stuff, they go into a lot more depth and then they take probably at least two or three or more classes in a year on top of everything else that you're learning in PA school.

So, yeah, medical school, I thought was a lot harder.

I was a lot younger when I went.

I didn't probably understand the concept of prioritizing and studying and things like that.

All my med school classmates and I tried to study literally 24 7.

Like, you know, you're getting, like, naps here and there, and by the time I Went to PA school.

I was smart enough to know, nope, that's not how the body works.

So I think that time also helped.

But bottom line, med school is definitely a lot more difficult.

There's a lot more detail and a lot more information to know than PA school.

Yeah, not to take school was hard,.

You know, but yeah, yeah, I could see that with all the stuff that my husband had to learn.

Just out of curiosity, living in the Caribbean, did that make it harder to study?

I thought it made it way harder, but not for the reasons you would think.

It's not that I was distracted, like, oh, let's go, like down the street to the resort.

I went to a school called Ross University.

We were on an island called Dominica.

There were no resorts anywhere near the campus.

It hindered me because when I got overwhelmed in PA school, I could say, like, go for a jog or go to the mall and just walk around or do something just to take your mind off things.

There was nothing to do.

It probably wasn't safe for me to go jogging by myself.

It was on a giant rock in the middle of the ocean.

So there's no flat path.

There were no malls.

There was really no escape from the stresses of it.

And so that's what I got really overwhelmed with.

And again, why it probably led me to leave medical school.

Interesting.

I think when you hear somebody at school in the Caribbean, you think of, oh, it's a constant vacation.

You can study on the beach.

But I guess that may be not always the case.

Anyone who goes to school in the Caribbean, I'm pretty sure would agree with me.

So tell me a little bit about your job now.

I guess you have two jobs now, so what does a normal day look like for you?

Yeah, so I actually luckily came into this job.

I did an acute care residency.

It was about 15 months right after PA school, which I did six months of ER rotations.

And then I did, let's see, nine months of all the different ICUs at a tertiary care hospital.

So I had time in the medical icu, the trauma icu, the neuroscience icu, even spent time on the floors and stuff like that.

So my job now is all in a neuroscience icu.

We take all of our strokes and our aneurysms and brain bleeds and stuff like that.

I work from 5am till somebody comes in at 5pm to get checkout when I work days, but then I also work nights.

That's 5pm to 5am we manage.

We have an 18 bed unit.

So on the really good days we have two advanced practice providers.

I'm actually the only PA in my group, so usually I'm in charge of nine patients.

There are days where you're in charge of all 18, which is a little overwhelming, just doing rounds and stuff like that during the day.

And then at night, you do the admissions and just kind of make sure nothing exciting is happening overnight.

And then in the ER is just like your typical ER.

Luckily, where I work, they don't do where the PAs have to take the quote, unquote easy cases, the minor cases.

We just kind of pick up who's next in line.

If we still had paper charts, I'm sure it would be like, hey, this chart is next in line.

It's all you.

Interesting.

Do you like one better than the other?

I had to grow to like emergency medicine.

I really hated it when I first started.

It was just part of my residency, and I'm like, okay, I'll just.

Just do it and get through it.

But I've learned to really, really like both.

Going to the emergency room every once in a while definitely gives you a break from the icu.

And that's really nice, just because I think otherwise I would start to forget everything else I learned in PA school.

Yeah.

Working in Durham, I feel like I've forgotten so much.

Tough if you're not doing it every single day to remember everything.

So being that you did a residency, which is really interesting, do you.

Is that something you'd recommend?

Do you feel like it helped you get a job or helped with your knowledge?

I mean, what made you want to do that?

That's kind of more on the med school route.

It is a little more in the med school route, but it was three PAs that I worked with during my rotations.

I did my general surgery rotation with a trauma group in Hollywood, Florida, and the three PAs that were there all did residency programs.

They essentially ran the icu because the surgeons obviously want to be in the or, and they don't really want to be bothered with ICU problems.

So they got to do all the bedside procedures.

They did bedside trachs.

They did central lines.

They did bedside IVC filters.

And they were my inspiration to do critical care, actually, because they.

I was just, like, enamored.

Like, oh, my gosh, you know, everything.

And they're like, oh, I got a really good head start in doing a residency.

And I was like, I want to do a residency.

And it was.

It was very beneficial to me.

I got to take a year, and granted, I got thrown in the deep end just like everybody else, like they day one expected me to just carry my load, but it was just getting the constant experience of seeing patients every day for almost average six days a week and doing your own management and doing the procedures.

That was a big thing for me, and I loved it.

I don't think it's for everybody.

I luckily at the time, didn't have big family commitments to have to prioritize.

I could take the time and kind of selfishly go do that for a year and a half and then come home to Kansas City.

And I think it helped me get the job.

I was really scared.

Pas in Kansas City are few and far between.

I get a lot of what's a PA all the time.

We have a PA school that's in, I think, their third year, so I think that'll help.

But getting to play that card, like, hey, I have this specialized training to help me just kind of hit the ground running.

And I think I was pretty successful in that, and I think it really did help me just be successful in my position.

Interesting.

Do you still have that same level of autonomy in your job and getting to do kind of procedures and do all the things that you want to be doing?

Unfortunately, I work in a system that is not quite up to date.

It has nothing to do with my being a PA or an practitioner.

The advanced practice providers in general are a little limited.

That is changing.

It's changing slower than I think, but it's probably going a lot faster than it has in the last 10 years.

And I just need to be patient and allow it to happen.

Interesting.

Yeah, that's.

That's really cool.

So what just kind of in general, what advice would you give to somebody who's trying to.

Trying to decide between PA school and med school?

I think you just need to look at yourself.

Had I had more kind of like self awareness when I was in college and had I known more about the PA program and the PA profession, I probably would have gone to PA school immediately.

You know, I can lead.

I am.

I think I have a leadership personality.

But just like I said before, when it comes down to it, I take a lot of comfort in the idea of having somebody else step above me to be like, I don't know, I don't know what I'm doing.

And maybe, you know, had I finished med school and had the knowledge that they have, maybe I wouldn't have that problem.

But I think you just need to look at your personality and you have to remember that, you know, do you have the drive to give up four years of your life for school, and really, you are giving up that time.

I think my being in the Caribbean, I thought that I was missing out on all this stuff at home.

But then I went to PA school in the United States, and I still missed out on a lot because it's such a time commitment.

So are you ready and willing to dedicate yourself to that?

I think that you need to.

And understand how important one thing is.

You know, when you go to med school and you take the step or the boards when you go to residency, like, you take this step one, you know, after two years.

And if you don't do that well and you can't get into the residency that you want to do.

Like, I have friends that wanted to be surgeons that are family practice doctors now.

And yes, they say that they're just fine and just happy.

I don't know that I really believe them.

Like, that's a big difference.

And it's all because they took a test two years into med school that they didn't maybe do the best on.

So there's a lot of things like that.

The PA profession I don't think is necessarily like that.

You know, you pass boards, it's yes or no.

There is no in between.

And then after that, if you want to go do a surgery job, most likely you'll be able to find a surgery job.

And if it turns out you hate it, you can go to family practice.

And there's no, you know, repeat residency.

There's no anything like that.

So, you know, if you're ADD like me, I think that you would maybe be better suited to be a PA, but who knows?

The overarching opinion of residencies for PAs is somewhat negative, just in the sense of.

Of you can get training on the job.

Why would you take lower pay for a year?

You could get the experience and not need that.

And I think I see both sides of it.

But, I mean, obviously I didn't do a residency.

I went into my job and I trained for three months with my doctor.

And even now, sometimes I even I consider myself like a permanent resident where I'm seeing patients on my own.

But if I have a question, she's there.

Like you said, like that person that if something comes up, whether it's a dumb question that I just need reassurance on or something crazy walks in, it's nice to have that person.

And no matter how long I'm there, I know that's not going away.

So I don't know how much more I would have Gotten out of a residency.

Yeah, I think that's a common.

A common thing.

And it depends on.

On your profession.

You know, like, if you were going into family practice.

No, I think that's.

That probably is a big waste of time.

There's not a lot of procedures in family practice.

PA school is geared towards doing family practice.

You know, I've met.

Let's see, obviously, acute care emergency medicine is a big one, that around here they're getting more residencies.

We actually have an APP residency at the hospital where I work for critical care.

I think anything that's like, procedure heavy, it really helps.

But I'm comparing myself to a nurse practitioner, I suppose.

But looking at a nurse practitioner who came straight out of school and tried to hop into a critical care job versus me coming out of residency, there was a big difference.

And there's a big difference in the way that the doctors treat you or at least treated me.

They had a lot more confidence in my decisions and what I had to say.

And I think in general, you know, when I took my new job and they were like, okay, you're going to start alone on nights, but, you know, the doctor's always there and it's fine.

And I'm like, it's okay.

I've already done this.

Like, I covered nights in the icu, you know, with my residency.

And they're like, oh, okay, well, right on.

And, you know, my manager says really good things and say about.

About me.

I suppose I don't mean to toot my own horn that she's like, you know, I would love if our residents could just come out as well prepared as you were, then this would be like a cakewalk.

Like, I hope it was residency.

I don't know if that's all it.

Was, but so it sounds like beyond knowledge.

You got confidence too, in that area, which I think is important.

I mean, there are things.

Now I'm three years out from graduation, but I can look back and say, yeah, it took me a year to feel like I could really treat psoriasis.

And it took.

Even now, I think pediatric patients are where I struggle because I just don't see them as often.

I don't have as much experience.

And so I think it's until I've seen it more and for more years that I'll finally feel comfortable.

So when you're kind of thrown in like that and you're doing, doing it all and it's an intense program, you do get that quickly.

Do you feel like your residency was anything compared to, like, A med school residency as far as intensity or, you.

Know, I was considered an internal medicine resident.

So, you know, everything that they did, I did.

Like, I didn't get less patients than they did in the icu.

Like, they just split it up evenly.

And the doctors surely didn't take pity on me and not having that.

That education, you know, like, they would pimp me the same way that they would pimp the med students.

And, yes, I was just sitting there, like, I don't know, you know, a lot of the time.

But I think that's what kind of drove me is like, well, it doesn't matter.

Like, clearly they want you to know just as much as they want the doctors to know, so you should probably learn it.

And so, yeah, even their new residents now, their new emergency medicine, like, they're in the lectures with the ER residents, and they're going to the children's hospital just like the ER residents, and they seem to educate them.

Just.

It's just like the rest of residency or the rest of school, where they just kind of do it in a condensed amount of time.

And cut this corner and cut that corner.

Interesting.

Well, that.

I mean, think that can speak to the quality of it.

I mean, at that point, if you're doing exactly the same thing, even for a shorter amount of time, you can't necessarily say that it's lower quality.

Maybe not as lengthy, but, I mean, you're still.

Still getting that same knowledge and that same experience.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that's really interesting.

Did you ever feel discriminated against?

Cause you were a PA by either doctors or the med students or in other residents?

No, never by the residents.

Never by the med students.

Med students actually have always been like, wow, you know a lot.

I'm like, pas know a lot.

You should kind of be nice to them.

You're probably gonna want one, Right?

Every once in a while, I'd run into a doctor, like, giving, like, say, trying to transfer.

I could think of one instance trying to transfer a patient out of the icu, and they're asking me these questions, and I just didn't really know the patient incredibly well.

And they're like, what year are you?

And I was just like, I'm a pa.

They're like, oh, okay.

And, you know, and so, like, little things like that.

But I never felt like they tried to, like, dumb something down because they knew I was a pa.

They definitely never took that kind of mercy on me.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah.

I was never on any.

Even any rotations with medical students.

Some of the People in my class were, and I just wasn't.

I was with a few nurse practitioner students off and on, but never really any med students.

That being said, I was living with a med student.

And it was actually interesting because when it came time to study for his boards, kind of like you were saying, we would be studying and something would come up and I'd answer a question correctly, and he would just look at me and go, you know that?

How do you know that?

Right.

I was like, what do you think we learn?

And then even now, I mean, or when I first started working, I would come home and say, yeah, I did.

I did this many biopsies.

I cut a cyst out today.

He'd say, you do that?

I would say, what do you think I do all day long?

And so now that he's a resident and works with PAs and sees PA students, he understands a lot better.

But it's interesting, sometimes they just don't know what's involved with being a pa. And it does make you wonder, some of these people that go to med school, if they have no idea about the PA profession, would it maybe have been a good fit for them?

Who knows?

But sure.

The residency also helps, I think, build that relationship, too, because so they're training alongside with me, and we're going through the same miseries and the same, you know, hard times with the attendings and this and that.

And I can only hope that that means that when they're attending that they'll hopefully have a little more respect for a pa, you know?

Yeah, we'll see.

You hope so.

That's what my hope is, that my husband can help to educate others about being nice to your PAs and your nurses, and they're the ones that are going to help you out.

So, yeah, it's an interesting place to be in.

Yeah.

I think as far as residency goes, what type of person or what type of.

I guess it would depend on kind of what they wanted to do.

What type of student do you think should go to a residency?

I think it just depends on what you want to do, how much time you have.

You know, like, there were some months where I did work six days a week and had one day off, just like the residents.

I think at one point, you know, I was in the hospital every single day at some point time because they had asked me to come days sometimes and then help cover nights.

But then I got to go home early the next day.

It was very odd.

But I don't really know that it has to do with a student Necessarily, like, if you struggled in school or not.

I think it's just kind of, how confident do you want to be?

You know, I wanted to be as confident as the PAs I worked with in Trauma, because I granted they had been in the job for eight years and being into my job, you know, three years now, and I'm like, oh, so really, you probably would have had that confidence eight years in, but I just wanted to be more top of the ball sooner, I suppose.

And I, you know, I.

It helped a little bit with negotiating my salary on my first job.

They probably thought it was crazy when I said, like, you know, I know that I only have a year experience, but really, this does equate to, like, two or three, and I think that I deserve this.

And they listened.

I was really, really scared, but they listened, and they at least gave me a little bit more starting money.

And, you know, just like I said, my manager, after we get two months of orientation, and she's like, you know, you just.

You literally did just hit the ground running.

Like, you decided to catch on to epic.

Like, I've never used EPIC before, and you decided to catch on to, like, how we round, and that's all we really needed to do with you.

And I was like, yeah.

I mean, because I've done all this and, you know, I don't know, I like to think that that has to do with the residency, because as much credit as I'd like to give myself, I don't think it was just me.

Yeah.

So as much, it was almost like you got a lot of value out of your experience, but you almost had to prove it to them because that's not really what they were used to.

Right, right.

And then if you've never met anybody who's done one, then you're never going to know.

I did a rotation in CT surgery, and they said the same thing.

They're like, you know, I think that we could teach you everything you needed to know, but if it came down to it and say you are one applicant who had never done a residency, and I had another applicant who graduated the same year and had the same experience, but they'd done a residency, I'm taking the one with residency.

Yeah.

So that was another reason.

I was like, oh, well, I'll be more competitive.

Which I think for people maybe going into jobs in big cities, that might be a benefit too, because I know some of the people in my program did have trouble once they graduated getting into certain areas in cities like Atlanta, because there's a lot more PAs with experience there.

And so it's more saturated and it's harder to break into that market if you're coming in with zero experience.

Yeah.

So that could be.

Yeah.

I think I knew somebody in New York that it was a few classes above Sam and I, but she wanted to go to neurosurgery and she was like, no, no, neurosurgeon is going to take me fresh out of school.

And they're like, well, you can do a residency and then we'll take you.

And I think.

I don't know if she ended up doing it or not, but.

But yeah, I think you're absolutely right.

I think the bigger city, the more competition there is.

Yeah.

Well, and more PA residencies are popping up, so it's going to be interesting.

That's what sometimes people ask, what do you think the future of this is?

And I don't.

I don't think it's ever going to be something that's required.

Oh, I don't think so either.

Yeah.

But I mean, I think.

I think it is a good kind of breakthrough type thing for anyone who's looking to get into something.

Like you knew what you wanted to do and you were able to pursue that right out.

Whereas I was looking for a job in Durham, which are hard to come by at times, and I kind of lucked into my job.

There was a PA leaving.

I was able to just move into her spot that could very well have not happened the way it did.

So I think had I come in with experience, though, that would have been a different story, I think.

Not to say I don't know if this is true in every field, but as a PA with derm experience, I think you can find a job anywhere.

And I mean, it's a huge selling point just to have any bit of experience coming in.

Yeah, I think you're right.

Interesting.

Well, yeah.

Any other pearls or tips to share?

I don't know.

I don't think so.

Well, this has been awesome.

I really appreciate this.

Thank you so much.

So we covered a lot, but I do hope that that was helpful to you, especially if you're someone who's trying to decide between medical school and PA school, or if you have questions about PA school residency.

So thank you so much to Courtney for taking time after her busy workday to come and talk to me.

But until next time, if you aren't a member of the Pre PA Club Facebook group, and if you're not following me on Instagram, make sure you're following along just to stay updated on what's going on and then we'll be back next week with another episode.

And the December newsletter will be coming out on December 1st.

The November one kind of didn't get sent out, so it'll be kind of a slam packed newsletter this month.

And if you want to get on the list, make sure that you use the link in the description or go to my website to make sure that you are getting all of the blogs, getting all of the anything up to date as far as what's going on with the PA platform.

And I'm here if you need me.

So everyone have a great rest of your weekend and a great week.

And I can't even believe it's almost December, but thanks for sticking with me and we'll see you next time.