"I Have an Analogy"

Today has been a DAY! It started with some Krispy Kreme donuts that our first speaker brought. PA Andrew Cali began by introducing what Physician Assistant (PA) really is. I have seen quite a few PAs so I was familiar with their role but I learned some more statistics throughout this lecture. PA are not only found in all fifty states here in America, but they can also work in countries like Saudi Arabia, Canada, South Africa, and many more. I have thought about PA before and asked if it is okay to have that as a backup option. PA Cali said that would be appropriate only if that is truly what I would want to do; if it will cause me chronic dissatisfaction, then definitely don’t do that. The next thing we did had me tearing up every few minutes. The amazing program advisor held a panel with us and answered our many questions about a variety of topics. A.J., Caroline, and Tori were so vulnerable and really wise with their answers. They shared their personal stories of why they choose to work in healthcare, what their journey has been so far, what they are doing in their gap year, and what they plan on doing. I learned so much from them and can’t wait to get to know them even deeper.

A.J. stayed for a couple of more hours to introduce lawsuit, liability, and legality in a really fun way. She first began by showing us a case about a surgeon who fell asleep in his car and missed an emergency surgery. This sparked conversation about physician bias, burnout, and much more. Although it is obvious the physician was at fault, we talked about why he might’ve fallen asleep. He might’ve had a really rough shift or just haven’t been getting enough sleep because of work. The surgeon was fined $6K and was asked to take some more courses for professionalism. I think it was fair that the physician was punished for his behavior to show that it was not appropriate. Sometimes, when things are let go, people think that it is acceptable and may repeat their mistakes carelessly. Because 34% of physicians have been sued, there are a variety of insurance options to protect healthcare workers. The three different types of insurance are malpractice/professional liability, business interruption, and facility. I never even knew there were insurances to protect physicians from cases that result in suing so it makes me feel better protected coming into the healthcare field.

T he next thing we talked about was an overview of careers with Furman advisors, which I was pretty familiar with. Mrs. Allen is my healthcare advisor so it was really interesting to see her and it makes me excited to get the extra one-on-one conversations this summer through MedEx. We also did some Highs/Lows at this point of the day and everyone got to share their clinical experiences from Friday. Caroline got to even pitch in a few times and at one point she shared that she will be joining couples therapy with her husband even though they don’t seem to have problems. However, her philosophy is to get help before you need it. Speaking of Caroline, she was the speaker for the academic integrity lecture and I didn’t think this topic could be fun, but she made it very engaging. She asked us many questions that made us think about a decision of whether something was considered cheating or not. One question was if student A reaches out to student B asking for answers to questions on the test, but student B never answered them, would that still be considered cheating? I had trouble with our question because I don’t think it is cheating but I also know that if student A would be reported, they would definitely get in trouble. When a lot of my tier-mates would share their perspective they started their response with “I have an analogy.” JoeJoe compared this scenario to a guy dm-ing someone else flirting, would the guy’s S/O not consider that cheating? Another way of going about this was Sebastian saying “So you’re a killer.” And then proceeding to describe an unsuccessful murder attempt. I was definitely convinced to think that student A cheated at that point.

The last thing we discussed as a tier was careers in dentistry with Fair Donhue. She was super nice and so willing to answer any questions we had. She said she has been a dental hygienist for over 20 years, so she certainly knows her stuff. I really do appreciate the flexibility that dentistry offers their employees and would love the private practice route, I just don’t see myself working with teeth for the rest of my life.

Can’t wait for tomorrow!!