My name is Alex Franke. I'm a physician assistant student here at West Liberty
University and today I just want to show you what it's like to live a day as a PA
student.
So we're gonna go in our physical diagnosis skills lab. Today
we're working with the pediatric population so we had some volunteer kids
come up so we can practice doing physical exam on them.
Julie hi my name
is Alex, we met before right? I'm a PA student so we're just going to
practice doing the physical exam today it's that okay with you?
We have a skills
lab which has multiple clinical diagnosis skill stations or exam rooms
so we have a few exam rooms where they're actually set up you knock on the
door go in and can do almost a real-life patient encounter with one of your
classmates or any volunteer that you were examining. They all have the
otoscopes and fundascopes and blood pressure cuffs and I mean the sink the
table the whole nine it's just like walking into the doctor's office. I was
very interested in medicine and I knew that so it came down to between medical
school and PA school and after a lot of thought I decided that being a physician
assistant better suited my lifestyle than being a physician was because I
like to be involved in a ton of different things I like to be really
hands-on and it just gives you a lot of freedom the flexibility between what
field you're working in and also how your schedule set up
Today we're gonna go into our clinical skills lab our clinical skills class and
we're gonna work on our suturing techniques.
What we're gonna do first is
practice just getting the needle in at the 90 degrees and bringing it out
through the subcutaneous tissue so the foam on the board is simulating
subcutaneous tissue. So our cohort is relatively small compared to other PA
programs and because we have such a small class comparatively you get more
one-on-one instruction with each of the providers and all of our faculty
have gone through PA school or medical school and they know how to apply the
skills we're learning here out in the field and it's just nice to be able to
approach them and ask them questions and we also get a more complete learning
experience I feel like because I can go a little more in-depth and make sure
that you have really honed in and are 100% competent that skill before moving
on so you're not just getting an overview of the PA education you're
getting some of its really hands-on and in-depth
So today our PA student society we do a monthly potluck where everyone brings
some kind of dish and we all just kind of sit around and hang out and share
It's a two-year program so the first half is twelve months and it's we call
the didactic phase so it's all in classroom work you're sitting through
lectures and getting experience in our labs as far as practicing your clinical
skills and your physical diagnosis skills and then the second year of the
program you're out in the field so either in hospitals around the area or
wherever the rotations are set up and that's just what we called our clinical
year clinical rotations you'll do five-week rotations with different
preceptor and learn these specific diseases diagnosis treatments and skills
that are done in each area.
Today we're doing our clinical skills lab where
we're learning how to cast each other and put splints on. I have my nice
pink camo cast and I'll be getting it taken off soon.
We're going to try to use something to give us a little
bit of control
So our program is extremely affordable compared to others in the region
especially myself being in state it really helps having a lower cost because
when you come out physician assistants do make nice salaries but you're still
gonna have student loans you have to pay off for a while so the lower cost really
allows you to pay off those student loans a little bit quicker and get to
have making actual money quicker as well
So the final exam you have to take before your certified physician
assistant is called the PANCE exam and it is a cumulative exam of all the
information that you've learned and get a lot of clinicals and vignette type stories
that you have to diagnose the patient or treat the patient and the pass rates at
West Liberty are extremely high I know that last year's class did all pass on
the first try which is amazing and every year continually we just keep getting
better and better at that and I feel very prepared just now at this point
From the knowledge I've gained so far I feel like I'm retaining it and I
feel like if I continue to study and be presented good material the way I am
I'll be fine whenever it comes to taking my certifying exam
Hopefully this gave
you a good look at what it's like inside the PA program. For more information you
can check us out online