Okay, two weeks to go and semester number one is in the books! My grades so far are pretty good. I have managed an A in Biochemistry, Anatomy, Problem Based Learning and Professional Seminar; a B in Clinical Medicine and Patho/Physiology; and a C in History & Physical Exam. My grade for Pharmacology is yet to be determined.

For a lot of people in my class this report card is A-OK, lucky for me I happen to be one of them. I sit in the back row and tend to be a lot more laid back. I don't ask a lot of questions because people who do that annoy me and I secretly think they just want show the rest of the class how smart they are by asking completely ridiculous questions. I don't study as much as a lot of my class which allows me to have some semblance of a social life. I am grateful for this! Sometimes I feel like a slacker but when it's all said and done I realize that getting an A in every class is not worth my sanity. "you know what they call the guy that got C's all through Med school? Doctor!"

Our instructors vary from being as annoying to me as nails on a chalkboard to being downright fascinating. One of our Clinical Medicine instructors (we have had approx 10 this semester) crams about 5 hours of lecture material into 2 hours. She uses abbreviations in her power points that none of us know and has given us enough handouts this semester to keep a cozy fire going all night long. Oh, and we're all pretty sure she makes her own clothes and was the inspiration for Dr Seuss' Grinch character. Key Point: I cannot stand her

Our Clinical Medicine class is this: 2 hrs on Mon, 3 hrs on Tues, 4 hrs Wed. We are never sure who is going to be lecturing because most of the time we have outside physicians and PA's coming in to lecture and it's always completely random topics. I posted something on facebook about our last test and I think we had well over 1000 power point slides, 14 handouts, plus the material from the last test. Each instructor gives our medical director 10 questions. The medical director picks the same number of questions from each instructor to put on the test. This means that if 70% of the material covered comes from one instructor, this instructor and the instructor that lectured for an hour will get the same amount of questions on the test. The test is 30 questions. I don't know, this just seems ridiculous to me. Also, you only pass the test if you stay with the pack. If you are more than 2 standard deviations away from the mean you fail. So if everyone does pretty good on the test (mean is 95%) and you got an 87% you could possibly fail the test. It's just craziness!

But...I am super happy to be there! I know everyday how fortunate I am to have gotten into this program. I just need to vent a little here and there. However, I am seriously wondering how a few of the people in my class got in. Seriously!! I think some files got switched around or some sort of foul play is involved. Also, a love triangle!!! Coming next on Kermster's blog!

Stay tuned :)

Yo Yo Yo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX7jme2b0N0

This is a really funny "rap" that was made by the Emory University PA program! It's about the first year of PA school :)

A blog!

I was searching the PA forum and I ran across a PA student's blog. After reading it I am 95% sure that the student is a Senior at my school. That means he is currently doing clinical rotations while we, the juniors, are going though our didactic year. He never mentions the program specifically but he does talk a lot about the individual instructors, class schedule, ping pong tables outside the classroom and he mentioned that it snowed a foot a couple of days before Halloween. Makes sense to me.

Anyways, his blog gave me the idea that maybe I would do a blog about my experience in PA school. It seems these days I don't have much to talk about that isn't somehow related to PA school. I'm sure that a lot of what I post will not be remotely interesting to most of the people that read this blog but I think it might be a good way for me to vent. The guy whose blog I found almost got divorced during his didactic year b/c his wife felt that he was neglecting her so much and he had a 3 year old son. Reading his blog made me feel very grateful that I have no real responsibilities outside of the program and that my fiance' understands that we will have to sacrifice time together for a little while ;)

So, more posts to come.....