One week until spring break friends! We were so glad to have Ally Miller (Scholtes), PA-C, come to speak to our club last week. Ally grew up in Granger, IN, and went to Saint Joseph High School right here in South Bend. She did her undergrad at the University of Dayton and majored in Exercise Physiology but ultimately decided that she wanted to expand her horizons beyond one body system, which would be more typical of a physical therapist. That took her to PA school at Butler University in Indianapolis, and now she works with a hospitalist group at Community East in Indianapolis.
We asked Ally some of the questions submitted by you all, and have included some of the highlights below.
Why PA?
We hope this was helpful and are glad that many of you were able to make it to hear Ally speak last week. For more info on working on an interdisciplinary healthcare team, check out this podcast: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/core-im/e/67130142 . If you would like to be in touch with Ally about the PA track or possible shadowing (remember, she lives in Indianapolis!), please email us at [email protected] and we would be happy to help. Good luck on midterms everyone!
We asked Ally some of the questions submitted by you all, and have included some of the highlights below.
Why PA?
- Importance of balance, wanting to switch between specialties, and being able to start working right away
- PAs serve as a “second pair of eyes” in the hospital
- Work for critical care, pulmonology, and internal medicine doctors
- Work all days of the week, summer and winter holidays, from 7-5 each day
- She begins her days by looking at the patients on the schedule/ward and rounding early in the morning
- Have to speak up for what you feel is right
- Every doctor practices a little differently
- Doctors serve as a great source of learning and information
- Constantly learning
- Don’t have residency - just classroom and then rotations
- First year of work is like residency because you need the hands-on practice
- Medicine is always changing
- It takes time to learn how to navigate rough socioeconomic situations and difficult medical conditions
- You can’t absorb a patient’s pain, but you can let them know that you care
- It’s important to sit down with patients, not above them; meet them where they are
- Listening and communication is huge - PA gets more time in the room with the patient, so you have more time to sit with them and let them talk to you
- Figured out PA between soph and junior year
- Did CASPA junior summer (the PA program application)
- Interviewed senior year, graduated in May, then started in May
- Thought she wanted to do neurosurgery
- Wanted to start broad so she didn't forget basics; better to start broad and then specialize, unless dead-set on a specialty
- Healthcare hours
- High GPA
- Good GRE score
- Letters of rec
- Essay
- Shadow as many people as you can - this takes initiative!!
- She followed a nurse practitioner (NP) for a summer at Memorial (Hospital in South Bend)
- Call, email, be pushy! People in healthcare are usually passionate and want to share that with students
- They appreciate having a second pair of eyes
- She tells the doctors which patients she already saw, and what she did, and the doctors are always very thankful
- This allows them to see more patients and help more people
- Sometimes doctors just tell you what to do and what to scribe
- Lots of boundary negotiations
- Did a practice interview to see weak points - check out the Center for Career Development for interview practice!
- The title Physician Assistant may be changing - still called advanced practice providers (APPs) in some hospitals because they work with NPs who do the exact same thing
- Patients don't care if you're a doctor or PA when they’re in a hospital
We hope this was helpful and are glad that many of you were able to make it to hear Ally speak last week. For more info on working on an interdisciplinary healthcare team, check out this podcast: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/core-im/e/67130142 . If you would like to be in touch with Ally about the PA track or possible shadowing (remember, she lives in Indianapolis!), please email us at [email protected] and we would be happy to help. Good luck on midterms everyone!