"My story isn't interesting enough." I hear that constantly, and it's almost never true.

Preston is headed to Oklahoma State, and on paper he looks like the traditional applicant everyone assumes has it easy. Undergrad, prereqs, PCE, apply. But once he starts talking about the actual path, it's full of detours and decisions that made him a much stronger candidate than the summary suggests.

That's the point of this one. Everyone's application has texture in it. Most people just don't know how to see it in their own life, so they flatten themselves into a resume and wonder why nothing stands out.

Preston walks through his cycle honestly, including the parts that stressed him out.

What we cover:

• Preston's path to Oklahoma State and why he chose it
• What a "traditional" applicant is actually dealing with behind the scenes
• The experiences that ended up shaping his application most
• How he handled the waiting and the uncertainty of the cycle
• What he'd do differently if he were starting again
• Advice for applicants who think their story is too plain

Resources:

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

Free Personal Statement Worksheet: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-personal-statement-worksheet-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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Have you felt at any point like your story isn't unique?

Well, I'm here to tell you you're wrong and every story is unique.

We're talking to an applicant who most would consider traditional, but he has a lot of experiences that make him a little non traditional.

So Preston is going to tell us all about his experience.

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.

Per free.

Let's get to it.

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

So mypa 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 turning in your application and you can use the Code Future PA for a discount on any of their service options.

Alright guys, it is CASPA time.

Not quite yet, but almost.

The application is opening next week so hope you're ready.

If you don't feel ready, that is okay and normal.

But you are in the right place.

I'm Savannah.

I am a dermatology PA and host of the PA Platform and the Pre PA Club Podcast and I'm so happy to have you listening and I'm sure you're in the process of doing everything you can to prepare and make sure you are ready for your PA School applications, which is awesome.

So don't fret, you have time.

There's, you know, you got plenty of time before you have to submit.

Don't feel like you have to do it day one.

That's my number one tip right now.

But today we're gonna hear from Preston.

He is a student who reached out and just if you have advice, if you've listened to the podcast and you feel like you have advice that would be helpful to other applicants, things you haven't heard on here, a story or an experience you haven't heard, reach out, send me a message on Instagram, I'm at the PA platform on there.

Send me an email.

You can do my name Savannah, the PA platform.

I don't have an H on my name so if it's easier just do infoepaplatform.com and let me know a little bit about your story and let's get you on the podcast or set up to do a blog post to share about it.

I think the more different experiences we can put out there, the more it helps out other applicants and helps you all to feel a little, little less stressed about the process.

So before we jump into hearing about Preston's application cycle and what his experience was leading up to that, how it went, how he chose a developing program, I wanted to mention make sure you're taking advantage of all of the resources on the PA platform.com.

One of the easiest ways to find information besides reading the CASPA FAQ is just to do a quick Google search of whatever you're looking for.

Gpa, the PA platform, the PA platform, supplemental applications.

Usually something will pop up and if it doesn't, let me know and I will answer your question or work on something that we can help out with.

And then there are lots of free resources.

There's the personal statement, email, course and worksheets to help you through that.

A lot of things to help hold your hand throughout this process that you don't have to feel like you're doing it alone all the time.

And then if you do get the get to the point where you need help with personal statement, mock interview stuff, there are options there too.

And you can use the code Future PA for a discount on any of the services, supplemental application review, mock interviews, or the personal statement or interview books as well.

So I hope that helps.

If you have any questions, you know my inbox is always open and we will get through this together.

I, you know, been doing this for a while and happy to help you make less mistakes.

That's the point.

So.

All right, let's get into our discussion with Preston.

Also, you can go ahead and if you are a re applicant, this month's free webinar is for re applicants.

It will be next Thursday on the 29th, actually, the day that CASPA opens.

So make sure you sign up for that.

This one's going to be on YouTube.

We're trying something a little different.

So the easiest way to get notifications is to subscribe to the channel.

So that information is in the description.

And I'll be posting on social media too.

But I wanted to do something specific for RE applicants so we can make sure we're focusing on all of your questions.

All right, let's hear from Preston and thank you so much for listening.

If you have been listening for a long time, I'd love if you could leave a review.

Let me know what you like about the podcast, what we need to do differently, but that helps more people to find it.

My name is Preston Whitmill.

I graduated from OU this past May.

I 23 years old.

I'm just have been working a lot.

I was full time student and also worked at a hospital just as a cardiac monitor tech watching EKG strips for.

I've done that for over two years now.

And then I also consistently volunteer at a clinic as a case manager, a free clinic.

I do a lot of case management work with PAP's patient assistant programs and reaching out and doing referrals through specialists and things like that.

So that's kind of just what I'm up to now.

Since I've graduated, I got, I went to a local community college and got my emt.

I went through that process just kind of as an insurance plan.

Throughout this application process I wanted to be able to fall back on something that I don't know was going to diversify my application in the event that I wasn't going to get in this cycle.

So that's kind of what I did there.

And then, you know, pandemic.

So just been figuring out just like everybody else what to do, how to handle.

I mean work continued.

So that wasn't super different for me.

Which it was odd coming out of that period.

April, April, May, where people had all been at home but I'd still.

The only thing that changed was school.

Not being at school anymore but hearing stories of people who stayed in their house houses for an entire month.

I was like, man, like a pandemic.

Scary.

But I'm glad I didn't have to.

I think a month at home by myself is scarier.

Yes, yes.

There's definitely pros and cons to both sides of things.

So did you, you said you graduated in May.

What was your major?

Just Health and Exercise science pre pa.

I chose the path of least.

Least resistance.

That's great.

And I.

So your school had like a specific kind of pre PA or not really.

There's a designation that they, they even put it like, I don't know if it was on my degree, but it was like whenever I logged into my portal it was.

That's awesome.

My school did not and I think still does not have anything specific to being pre pa.

So I mean that's great that your school at least gave you a little bit of help there.

Did you?

So we're going to like get into more details here, but some questions that initially come to mind.

Did you take a gap year then?

Yeah.

I mean, okay.

Not a, not a chosen gap year, but okay.

Okay, well, we'll talk.

I applied for.

I mean, does it really count?

I applied to one school really?

Well, I Applied to two, and then later found out the one that I applied to.

My prerequisites didn't match up, and it wasn't even matching up.

It was.

I think you were only allowed to have, like, three outstanding credit hours, you know, like one class.

But in my final semester, I was taking two of the prerequisite courses, and so I was like, well, I guess I didn't even get considered during that.

So.

So I ended up just applying to one, and nothing came to fruition with that, but.

Gotcha.

Okay, well, we'll get into that.

So what made you interested in kind of medicine and the PA profession?

It was.

I mean, as most.

At least most people, I think it's kind of a culmination of a bunch of different events.

But my dad has been in medical sales kind of his whole life, so he's always worn scrubs around the house and been in hospitals, and I've heard all of his stories, and he works with doctors and PAs all the time.

And.

And then.

So that was kind of how I leaned towards the medical field.

Now.

That was wide variety.

I mean, I was thinking, like, maybe I'll just take over my dad's business or something, like, whenever I was a naive kid, but my dad told me.

No, so maybe you still can.

Maybe still can.

No, I don't think I want to, now that I've figured some stuff out.

But anyways, so that.

And then also, like, my junior year of high school, I've gone on a lot of mission trips, which I've heard you talk about, ones that you've done as well.

Junior year high school, I got to go to Honduras, and we stayed inside of a volunteer clinic, and, like, we slept on the unused gurneys while we were there.

So that was a really cool experience.

And it was cool to be able to see.

I don't know, it was just cool to be able to have the idea that these people who have dedicated a lot of time to their profession are coming down and giving.

Giving it away.

Because that's kind of what I want to do with my time, is I want to be able to help those that can help themselves.

And so that's kind of where I was at.

I thought that was super cool.

And then senior year, high school, I tore my ACL and tore up my body, and so PA kind of helped me walk through that and losing football and stuff.

And so.

Yeah.

Is that.

Was that your first interaction with pas?

Yep.

Pretty generous.

Yeah.

The sideline pa, He.

He was actually kind of like a school friend.

Hit one of his kids went to our school in the past and so he was kind of our sideline doc and he works in orthopedics and has for 30 years.

He was actually ended up being the first PA that I shadowed like two years later.

But he was, he's just, he's an awesome pa. Like he represents the profession so well and I'm thankful that he was my first point of contact because I mean first impressions are just everything, you know.

And so anyways, he kind of came back with the reality that I wasn't going to be able to play.

And it was, it was kind of the idea that I was thinking about playing in college.

And so whenever I did lose it, it was like at the time I thought I'd lost everything obviously, but I was okay.

It ended up being okay.

And he kind of helped me through that.

But he was kind about it and just great patient care experience, I guess.

Yeah, that's a pretty common theme and story that I hear a lot from applicants either in essays or interviews or just in general where, you know, they were really involved in sports and then an injury happened that kind of took that away and they had to figure out what things were going to look like and how it was going to be different.

And pas ended up being part of that process in some way is a good thing.

So would you consider yourself a traditional.

Or non traditional applicant?

I think in many ways I think from the outside I'm considered traditional just because I'm a young applicant.

But I don't really feel like there's, especially through my college experience, there's not a whole lot of traditional that I felt just because I've.

I lived at home my, my entire time, I never had to live on campus and that was automatically set me apart from the majority of my classmates.

And because I didn't know people, I wasn't in any really any groups besides like our campus ministry and even that there's not a.

It's a large campus.

So I never really saw a whole lot of overlap.

And so I think it wasn't what made me kind of a non traditional student was just maybe not knowing anybody and just kind of going through it kind of by myself.

And then I guess that's, that's really it though.

I mean I.

And I played baseball my freshman year at a small school and so that was, it was interesting.

It was an experience that I, I'm thankful that I had.

But when it came to the end of my freshman year, I decided that I needed to move on for a Plethora of reasons, but yeah, so that.

And I guess that kind of made me also a non traditional student where I transferred in and I was commuting, so I'd missed out on a year with a bunch of students.

And also I just didn't.

I wasn't on campus, so.

Yeah, but that's.

Like I said, I'm still young, so I guess there's a lot more non traditional students than me.

That's interesting.

And I.

It's hard because I don't feel like the traditional non traditional definitions are really that great because everyone does have these little things.

Like, I was traditional, but I graduated in three and a half years, which is non traditional.

And I mean, I think we all have these little things that are a little bit different and how we do things, but.

So did you go into undergrad wanting to do PA or did that change while you were at school?

I went in.

I was pre med my freshman year, but that was because I was at a smaller school and they didn't really have any other options.

I was like a biochem major or something like that.

So I was in there with all the geniuses.

But it didn't.

I don't know, because I was considering med school, obviously, and then considering.

I mean, that was kind of the period where I was like, maybe I could just take my dad's got a nice life.

I was like, he makes enough money, maybe I'll just do that.

It was less about maybe what I wanted to do, but.

And then I just really started kind of examining things and examining personal characteristics and maybe who was and maybe where I fit in.

And I saw a PA profession, I kind of saw through Gene, the PA that I had kind of had my experiences with before.

And then also seeing in my own mind without really knowing the differences, Like, I didn't know the differences between PA and like MD or a DO yet, but just from an outside perspective, I could tell the difference between being a doctor and a pa, like stress wise, hours wise, responsibility wise.

And so that's kind of when I.

Because when I transitioned my freshman year from pre med, because I went directly into pre PA and it was kind of.

I've always kind of had like narrow, narrow vision.

So when I set my sights on it, that's what I.

That's what I was gonna do.

It wasn't really.

I never really tossed things up because, I mean, I know the majority of college is kids just like, what do I want to do in life?

Like, even the other night I was talking with a Buddy.

And he's a senior now.

The kid's a genius.

He's like mechanical engineering or industrial engineering, getting a.

Also getting his master's in business, Business administration at the same time.

And he's like, I just don't know what I want to do.

And I was like, I was just thankful because I. I've just known what I've wanted to do, and it hasn't been a point of question.

And it's just.

And I think it's made it easier just to put my head down and work towards a goal, because you can't work towards a goal of the target's always moving.

So, anyways, yeah, I kind of made that decision in my transition year and then just plowed forward, so.

Okay.

Awesome.

Yeah.

And that's what I think.

More people now, because I'm older than you, are going into undergrad with more awareness of what PAs are, at least a little bit.

And hopefully the undergrad programs and schools will catch up a little bit more, too, and make that more of an option so that people can kind of focus on that from the beginning if it's what they want to do.

Okay, so you.

We kind of talked about before you ended up applying to PA school the first cycle, a couple schools didn't get in and then reapplied.

What was your PA school application process like?

As in, what schools were you looking at?

Like, what were you looking for in school schools?

What.

What were your struggles during that process?

It's just such a complicated thing and there's lots of steps.

So what was your take on it?

Well, because I guess because of everything that I mentioned before, I've always kind of been ahead of the curve.

And maybe not because.

Not.

Not because I'm like, type.

Is it type A?

That's like, I need to do everything.

It's just I haven't had really anything else to focus on.

So besides work, which work is just something I show up at nowadays, you know, and then.

And then I was be able to.

Able to involve myself in the clinic, which.

That's like maybe two days a week.

But I just got in on CASPA pretty early.

I started weeding my way through what it looked like.

And then there was a student that I knew who helped me minimally.

Like, I think I talked with them, like, once, and he's in one of the schools that I was applying to, and.

But we weren't great friends.

He just kind of was a friend of a friend.

And so I got ahold of him and asked him a few Questions.

And then other than that, I was just kind of on my own and tried to read the fine print as much as I could and then just kind of went for it.

But yes, schools wise, location was really the priority for me.

Although I did apply to out of state schools this semester.

Really obviously top schools were the ones one down the street, OU and then a couple new programs that are cropping up.

Well, I know you're.

I can't.

You're in eastern United States.

I know.

And like, you guys are pretty well saturated with PA schools.

It's just kind of now leaking over here.

And y' all don't have a ton up there?

No, we have like within the last five years.

I think we've.

There's been three new programs started before that.

It was just.

So it's really obviously caught on within the last few years and which I'm thankful for because I will be taking part in one of those new schools.

So.

So how many did you apply to total your second time?

Five.

Five.

Okay.

What were the outcomes with interviews or.

So I got lucky, I guess.

I applied to five.

I got one interview and I got one acceptance.

So I applied to the local schools.

One besides one.

There was one that's a developing program that's kind of been.

So it's been a school that's been trying to be in conjunction with the Indian tribes in Oklahoma.

And I think from what I've heard, there's been a lot of chefs in the kitchen with that.

And so it's been really prolonged and like they've been trying to develop it for like three years now, I think.

So I was kind of weary of that one actually, now that I'm thinking about it.

I only applied to 1.

I applied to 3 of the.

In state schools.

There's one.

There's a private one that was down the street, but it required.

They require biochemistry.

And I would have had to add on a whole nother semester just to apply.

And they're out of sync with the rest of the schools.

Like their school that starts in January.

Yeah.

And so.

Yeah, I just didn't really.

It makes sense.

Yeah.

But.

And so I applied to Midwestern in Arizona and then because I just.

I went through.

What's the.

What's the website that has all the schools on it?

PAEA is the main one or the arcpa.

They both have list of all the accredited schools and their accreditation status and all that.

Yeah, I think it was paea.

I just literally went through most every state and was coming through schools that my requirements met.

And then I kind of narrowed it down and I was like, well, if I'm going to go $100,000 in debt, might as well be on the beach in Miami.

So yeah, why not?

Yeah.

That one didn't work out though.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

All right, so what, is there anything that you feel like made you stand out on your applications or anything that you think was a red flag either that you identified or that came up in interviews or from schools?

I think, I don't know, probably because of the.

I just haven't had a whole lot of people to compare my stuff with, you know, so I would.

I've been nervous throughout that like I haven't been good enough, that maybe not what I've done is enough, but that, like, I don't know.

But patient care wise, like my experience is different than what other people's have had.

So like I, I'm a cardiac monitor tech.

Like they.

It's something that hasn't really ever been mentioned in or that I've ever heard of anybody really doing.

And so for me, I was like, well, if they count scribing.

I was like, like, I mean, I do a lot of stuff around a lot of people, so I kind of did.

Is that patient care?

Is that healthcare?

I don't know.

What'd you put in?

I put in as patient care.

Yeah.

And that's actually advice that I took from that former student because he said if they don't see it as patient care experience, they're gonna change it.

He said it's, it's.

He said it's not gonna be something that.

And so I was like, well, I guess I'd rather it go in as that and then consider something else.

But like I said, I've never heard anything about it and I'm not necessarily in patients rooms, but I am like providing a valuable service to patients.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I rationalize it in my own head.

Yeah, that's gray area.

And it does come down to how you explain it and what you think you're doing.

Like if you feel like you're contributing to that patient's care and, and something like that, like you're going to be probably involved at some level in making decisions regarding patient care.

Yeah.

If you're monitoring and having to kind of watch things, I mean, that's how they tend to designate that.

But yeah, I was interested.

So yeah, that may be a Good one for people to kind of look up and see if there's any jobs around them in that area.

Yeah, interesting.

At least where I'm at the need is pretty great.

Especially because just because everything.

The hospital expansion is crazy right now.

Like they're just added on wings and wings and wings.

Not necessarily to.

Not necessarily specifically because of COVID but because.

I mean, because of the COVID experience, but not because necessarily COVID patients.

Right, right, right.

At least from my hospital's experience.

But yeah.

So there's definitely a lot of opportunity and there's actually been several.

There's a.

A girl that just got done with orientation where I work, who is pre pa, she's about to graduate.

And so there's.

There's been more interest and there's.

There's a lot of med school students where I'm at several kind of non traditional, but they're all kind of seeking the same thing.

And so it's been good and a skill that I'm pretty sure I'm going to be thankful that I have that point.

Cardiology, biggest section of pa. School of boards of everything.

So having any base knowledge is extremely helpful.

So yeah, that definitely sets you up to do well I think in that section at least.

And that's what's cool about VA school because then you'll have classmates who have experience in other areas who can.

Y' all can help each other and that'll be really beneficial.

How big is the class you're going into?

Yeah, I think I saw somewhere is like 26 or something like that.

So I guess it's a.

To me it sounds like a decent sized class for a first.

First class.

So yeah, I don't know.

Let's talk about it being a first class a little bit.

What.

Because that's something people ask about a lot.

Did you have any reservations about the accreditation status or going into a new program or.

And if you did, how did they kind of make you feel okay about that either through your application process or the interview.

So for me it was kind of like.

I guess I tried to just evaluate each school based on maybe just perspective, I don't know.

So like with the whole.

The NSU school, the school that was being kind of made by the tribes or whatever, just outside perspective is that it's.

They've kind of drugged their feet for several years that I don't necessarily know.

They didn't inspire confidence, you know, but whereas the program that I'm in now or that I've been accepted to, it's OSU and they have a well established DO school in Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma, that's been running for, I don't know, probably 40 years, something like that.

Like, it's all state of the art stuff.

And that's where we're situated.

That's where the PA school program is going to be.

And the faculty's great.

I did a lot of research on all the faculty and yeah, they're all really well experienced.

There's only one that I think that has specific education experience and I might be wrong about that.

I don't know.

But yeah, just, I just kind of evaluated resources and said, do they know what it takes to put together a program like this or.

And I don't know.

And then throughout the process, they really instilled confidence.

So obviously it'll be about March or I guess I have no idea when you're going to display this, but March upcoming is when the accreditation meetings happen.

And so provisional accreditation should be doled out to our school.

But they've been really upfront with everything that should happen of if this, this is when the decision is, this is how it'll look and this is what will happen if we don't get accredited.

So.

But they've, they've presented it as a foregone conclusion.

And so, I mean, it's made me a little bit more confident, I guess.

And I've, like I said, I wasn't, I'm not super not confident.

Yeah, well, and the accreditation process, which some people don't realize is super rigorous for schools, it takes like three to five years before they can ever apply for provisional status.

And it's very expensive.

There's just a lot that they have to have in line to even get to that point.

And so most of the time there's no issue because they've gone through all of these checkpoints before they get to that point of accepting their class.

So I think you should be fine, hopefully.

But what, so one other thing I wanted to ask about though is you had mentioned you were looking into the hpsp, the Health Professional Scholarship program, which is, I guess that's technically through the Army.

What, what are your, what have you learned about that and that you could share with us?

So there's, and it's, it's more so of a, like, I'm trying to keep my options open as much as possible.

Yeah.

Like, I want to, I want to set myself up for success going into, especially after listening to people like you and to, listening to people around me and to.

I want to take loans seriously, I want to take my future seriously.

Like that I don't dig myself a deeper hole than I need to.

So smart.

Yeah.

And so that's kind of where.

And I.

And I've been kind of.

I've been blessed to be put in a position where I don't have loans right now.

And so I don't know the freedom that I have now.

I don't necessarily want to give up.

And yet even the idea of taking out a large loan is pretty nerve wracking to me.

But through that, through my nervousness, I've explored as many options as I can.

Whether I've explored enough, probably not.

I don't know.

I'm looking for scholarships and stuff, and maybe we can talk about that later.

But the Health profession Scholarship program specifically, I started trying to contact them kind of.

It's kind of a long process.

It's like just trying to get the right point of contact is difficult because there's so many recruiters, there's so many different people whose numbers are out there.

And so I struggled to do that for a while.

I made calls upon calls getting people who would take my information and then say they'd pass it on to somebody else.

And so that was probably two, three month process before I finally even got the right people to talk to.

And I've kind of been pursuing this through the Navy and the Air Force, both of which have health profession scholarship programs.

Well, and that's also the other thing is if you go onto their websites and you look at all the information that they provide you, some of it, I don't want to say the majority of it, but a lot of it is not necessarily correct, not necessarily all of it is the most accurate.

At least the Navy has whole sections on the health profession scholarship program.

And when I finally got ahold of the right guy, or it was, I guess a sergeant, I don't know, but she was like, oh yeah, that, that doesn't exist anymore.

And I was like, nice.

But she told me there they have different options or whatever.

It's just not necessarily the one that they had presented on their website.

But then through the Air Force, it's kind of a long process where they advise you to start in March.

There's this pre qualification form that you fill out that's seven pages long, seven pages long, where it's like every physical question that you could think of, from whether you've ever had glasses to whether you have ever had any gastrointestinal issues and Just because in my mind, I think that they just want to ensure that they're not taking on somebody who's trying to get free health care.

I don't know.

But.

And then there is like they send you to MEPs eventually, which is like a.

They basically put you through Ricker's physical.

And she actually so I talked to the Navy lady about this and she said they put you up in a hotel beforehand because of COVID I guess.

I don't know.

But they put you up in a hotel the night before they wake you up.

I like 5am and then they get you going and they do this physical process.

And then you have to have a certain amount of.

What's the word I'm looking for?

Not resources, but recommendations.

Like you have to.

I haven't gone through all of it yet, so I'm still trying to figure it out.

I'm going to start that up here in March and I'm going to try to take it as far as I can because it's an application process.

As much as it's a big decision for you to pursue it.

It's a big.

Or it's just because you decide to pursue it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get it.

So I'm going to go through that and see if I have the opportunity and then make the decision whenever the time comes if I'm given the opportunity.

So it's pretty similar, but it's a March to October kind of thing.

And so, yeah, I mean, it'll be I'll have already started PA school by the time we even figure out if I'll get it.

And they and they end up actually, he said they back pay you and for if you end up getting it and accepting it, they back pay you for whatever expenses that you paid and for your tuition.

And with both of those.

So the Navy program that they now have, they make you some kind of I think it's called an E5 officer.

And you are given a monthly stipend of like over $5,000.

So that is all that they give you.

You're not expected to be called upon or anything like that, but then you're able to do without what you will.

They don't write a check for tuition, but they give you that money.

And then I guess the expectation is that you pay for your tuition with that and live off of it.

But then I think that there's.

With that, I think the Air Force, maybe there's a certain amount of days that you're expected to be maybe not called upon, but some sort of duty.

Um, so I'm still working through it, but there's.

Yeah, I'm, I'm glad that I can put that information out there just because a lot of the information that I found was not necessarily the best information.

So it sounds like if that's something someone wants to do, it is going to take some legwork to kind of get, get it all figured out.

And I mean.

No, you go ahead.

I was just going to say when we get to the end of this, if anybody hears us and is interested, like if they want to piggyback off my legwork, that's fine with me.

Like, I can send them the connections that I made and like, I'm fine if I can help somebody not have to go through the frustrating process of calling 20 different people and getting the same answer.

So, no, I'm sure you'll get questions about that because it is a good option for some people.

I don't think anyone in my class did it.

We had, but in the class below me, one girl, her husband was actually doing it for medical school.

And so, but like you were saying, like his tuition was paid for and they got a monthly stipend that covered basically their, their housing cost of living.

We were in kind of a low cost of living area, so they really didn't have to take out too many loans besides her schooling, which is great.

And so I guess that's in return for a number of years of service.

Is that how it works?

Yeah.

So the way that they presented online, and this is also something that's a little different.

They presented online, it's like a year, for a year kind of thing.

Yeah.

But the reality of it is is they kind of do say that within mind of medical school.

So the majority of schools are going to want you or the majority of the branches are going to.

Aren't going to let you sign a contract for less than three to four years or something like that, which is if you're pursuing the scholarship itself.

I have a feeling that the extra year isn't necessarily what your mind's on.

So you make your decisions and then whatever comes from that comes from that.

Cool.

Yeah, that's a really good kind of broad option.

The National.

National Health Service Corps, the nhsc, that's the other one.

And that one is fairly competitive to get, especially for the one while you're in PA school versus the one once you're done, which is still somewhat hard to get.

But those are probably the two biggest besides school specific options which are sometimes available as well to kind of help with paying for school, which I mean.

And that's.

I've said it before, but it's one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't like actively search out scholarships.

I just, I didn't think they existed and didn't really.

I mean, I had six months before I started school where I could have been applying and writing essays or whatever I needed to do.

And I just, I didn't really think about it.

So that's awesome that you're kind of already taking the time to figure out some of that to see if you can help with funding your school and make those loans a little bit less.

But yeah, I.

That's actually something that I'm kind of going through right now of just the process of.

Because I've already done the health profession stuff, so I've kind of got that in line and I know when I need to start that.

But I'm trying to find scholarships.

It's kind of odd because they point you to like there is a website called like Fast Web or something like that.

Fast.

I don't know.

Yeah, I might have just made that up.

But why not?

I haven't looked for scholarships in a lot of years.

So fast web scholarships.

I don't know.

It was something that maybe Fast Foot pointed me towards or maybe I found it on financial aid.

Something.

I don't know.

It was.

I found it on like an official website and it's like, like in a website that I guess puts together different scholarships and.

But it seemed very.

So far it seems kind of gimmicky.

Like there's a lot of smaller scholarships and not necessarily that small scholarships are bad, but they're like just really random and ones that don't necessarily pertain to me that I don't think that like it recommends me for like tech scholarships and different things like that.

I'm like, I mean, I'd like the money, but I don't know if applying is worth it because it's not an app, it's not a scholarship for me.

I don't know.

Yeah, and that's what's hard because there are a lot that just won't be applicable.

But I mean there are some specific to either pas or like grad school level health care professions.

And that's what I've seen.

I know some like drug companies will have them specifically for people in healthcare.

I posted one on Instagram a few days ago, which, when this airs, the application will have closed.

But, like, societies for PAs I think are good places to look, too.

This one was through the Florida Durham PA Society.

It was a $5,000 scholarship, which is a lot.

I mean, that's a huge chunk.

And so that for somebody who was, like, interested in working in Durham and you had to write an essay and things.

So those types of even smaller societies, like, I know the Surgical PA Society has some.

And the PA foundation has some bigger ones, but those are a little bit more kind of general and more people are going to apply.

But, hey, like, I think go for it and see what happens.

You just never know.

But.

Yeah, well, we'll definitely kind of let us know if you hear me.

Get scholarships.

But where could people kind of contact you or reach out if they wanted to?

I've got your email, so I don't know if that's the best way.

Well, yeah, that's.

That's about it.

I kind of stay off of social media.

I've got a LinkedIn if you're interested.

Yeah, you connect me with me there.

Other than that.

Yeah, you can just get at me in my email and I try to respond as fast as I can and.

Well, we'll understand if you're busy with PA school, so.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much.

Yes, ma'.

Am.

I appreciate the opportunity and thank you again for all that.

All that you've done, all the resources you pumped out that people like me get to benefit from.

So try to keep them coming.

We'll see.