WE'RE DONE!! GRADUATION DINNER :)

Ended the year as we started. A group picture. (Kind of reminds me of the dove commercial :P)

The end of physician assistant school wrapped up so quickly with last minute paperwork, meetings and job interviews/offers. After our final rotations we had our final OSCEs. It was well organized and very fun. Comparing my last OSCE to the very first one I had I can’t believe how much I’ve learned in the past 2 years. I also didn’t realize how much I’ve grown as a person. I still believe that I am that shy smiley girl that entered the program but I hope to think that now I have a little more spunk.

Looking back it was a whirlwind experience. I can now officially call myself a physician assistant yey!! Here are some celebratory pictures of our grad dinner. 

To my family. Thank you for being supportive through every step of the way.

To my longest and oldest friends (from high school aka "the beakers") Thank you for being there when I needed and understanding when I wasn't able to make it to some events.

Highlights

- Dr. Bosma - (special guest voted by the class) gave a fabulous speech

- Kaira (Class president) - gave a heart felt remark about the last two years bringing the room to tears

- Kodley - Gave a fabulous laugh out loud class roast about all the quirks of our classmates. 

Amy - Medical Director Award (Outstanding Capstone Paper and Presentation)

Kaira - Faculty Award for Student Exemplifying the Future of the Physician Assistant Profession

:( I don't have a picture of Gisoo

Gisoo & I (yey!) - Collegiality and Leadership Award, as Determined by the Class 

To the Class of 2014,

We have learned together, partied together, cried together and grown together. The past two years was made great because of your friendships. I am proud to have you as my colleges and most importantly be able to call each of you part of my family. It has been awesome!! I am sad that we now go our separate ways but excited that we begin our careers as physician assistants. 


We made it!! Congratulations!

Celebrating with family and friends :)

** Oh I forgot... I guess I still need to study for the certification exam in October :S

THE JOB HUNT

Time to look for jobs :P

As the year came to an end we began getting introduced to different job opportunities. It was beginning to feel strange as employers are coming to us. We were given free pizza lunches (good brand name pizza), we had a nice outing to look at rural opportunities and we got good schwag from them :)

Our field trip to rural Manitoba

 At the beginning of the summer we were given a booklet of job opportunities available in the province. There were a few in the city and a lot rurally. The applications were in and I began going to interview after interview. It was strange to be competing with your fellow classmates/friends and I admit there were times where I wanted to give up as most opportunities weren’t offered to me at first. It’s hard to determine what employers are looking for.

Free coffee!!! yey

I am excited to say that I have accepted a position in internal/hospitalist medicine in rural Manitoba. It will be a long commute 45-60 min (depending on traffic) one way but the position is what I am looking for. I am hoping to get good teaching and to continue writing about my experience in my first year working as a physician assistant. 

Have two weeks off. Start my position Sept. 15 :P -

ELECTIVE #2 - OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE

For my last rotation I went to a diamond mine to see what occupation medicine is all about. In the mine the only medical provider are PAs. It sounds exciting that PAs are able to provide medical care in remote areas. These PAs have had years of experience in emergency medicine and are fully capable to treat patients with the common cold to trauma accidents, heart attacks and strokes 

TYPICAL DAY

6:30 am – 10:00 am – OPEN CLINIC – patients walk in similar to a walk in clinic. I saw mainly things you would see in a family office. One of the biggest differences is since there are no nurses or pharmacists you need to be all those roles. This includes placing IVs if needed and counting, labeling and bottling prescriptions that you've prescribed.The PA also has appointments for audiology and spirometry testing for all employees. 

10:00am – 12:00pm – PAPERWORK/HEALTH PROMOTION – the PA has tons of occupational health related paperwork such as workers comp etc. We also did wellness promotion with surveys on wellness.

I had ice cream everyday :P

12:00pm – 1:00pm – LUNCH – all I can say is ALL YOU CAN EAT 24hrs breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks (and yes a self-service ice cream bar)

Best pastries ever!

1:00pm – 3:30pm – PAPERWORK/HEALTH PROMOTION

3:30pm – 6:30pm – OPEN CLINIC

Days were long especially when there were not many patients coming in. There weren’t many workplace accidents as you would think and no life threatening emergencies that I saw. The mine places a great importance in safety. I did get some awesome one on one teaching with the PA that works there. They have all the training equipment that you need especially for emergency medicine. I didn’t have to fight for it with the med students or my fellow classmates :P

I was taken out to tours of the pits. This was crazy. I didn’t realize how much is required to run a mine. There are always employees working 24 hours in the day. I didn’t get to see much wildlife. I did see some caribou and siksik (artic ground squirrel).

My steel toed shoes were one size to big for me :P 

WHAT I SAW

Pharyngitis

Pneumonia

Finger lacerations

Closed fibula fracture – had to send to the closest city for an x-ray

Syncope

Cornea abrasions – yes they have their own slit lamp

One diamond :P 

The only diamond I saw - displayed in a case. This was found during there first exploration digging.

Yes there were other activities offered in the camp. They had a gym open 24 hours as well as exercise rooms. I participated in yoga, basketball games and movie nights.

What made this rotation awesome was the PAs. Working with PA preceptors are great as you are able to see their full scope of practice and learn a lot from them.

Here are some more pictures from my adventure.