Your clinical year will be one like no other that you have ever experienced. Changing rotations every two, four, six or maybe even eight weeks is a lot of change. Some of you will be moving physically to new places for each rotation which adds the extra stress of packing, driving, maybe even flying and settling into new digs right as you start a new rotation. It can be a lot.
I graduated from PA 17 years ago in 2004 and that year only one of my classmates did a post-graduate residency and it was kind of by mistake. She followed a fiancé far from home, hated her first job, and took a dermatology residency spot out of necessity when her engagement broke up and she had a lease in a city with no job. She ended up loving dermatology and still practices it to this day. Residencies were just not commonplace ‘back then’.
You’ve passed your PANCE (Congratulations!!!), landed your first job as a PA, and now it’s time to start focusing on maintaining your NCCPA certification. Part of that process is obtaining and logging continuing medical education (CME) credits. When I first graduated, it was hard to keep straight the different types of CME credits. How do I know if an activity counts as Category 1 or 2? What the heck is the difference between Category 1 and Category 2? What records do I need to keep in case I get audited by the NCCPA? Wait, I can get audited...like the IRS audits taxes?!
You’re about to graduate from PA school and enter the job market. Congratulations! Time to craft your resume, a rite of passage as a professional. Maybe you’ll dust off those cobwebs from an old resume, or create a new one from scratch. But where do you start? Googling “How to write a resume” will return an endless number of (maybe helpful) results. But, if you’re anything like me, I still had questions like, “Do I include my previous job experience, like before PA school?” or “Do I include my clinical rotations?” I was fortunate to have a wonderful staff member at my PA program that helped me write my first professional resume. So, let me pay it forward to you all.
If you’ve listened to our audio series, you’ll know there are several things that make my palms start to sweat. Presentations on rounds. The first day of a new clinical rotation. Mariachi bands. Well, here’s another one: job interviews.