Thus far I have completed psychiatry, surgery, primary care and pediatrics. I am currently on my fifth core rotation in emergency medicine. A typical day for me right now entails, getting up at 5:30am and being at work for 6:45am. My shift begins promptly at 7:00am. This is usually a slow time in the emergency department so I will get sign out from the doctor or physician assistant that was on the overnight shift. As the day goes on the waiting room quickly becomes flooded with people of all ages with all sorts of chief complaints. The exciting part of the ED is that you never know what is going to come through the doors.
I see all different patients whether they are complaining of a cough or are having a stroke. My job as the PA student is to go in, get a history from the patient, do a physical exam and then present the case to the attending or physician assistant. Once I present the patient, the attending or PA will ask me what my differential diagnoses are, what labs and diagnostic testing I want to order and if I know the diagnosis then they want to know how I am going to treat it. If the patient has a laceration then I do the suturing; if the patient has a broken limb, I do the casting and splinting and the list can go on and on.
When my shift ends around 7:00pm I am usually exhausted from running around all day however I always leave with a smile on my face. I have found that the physician assistant profession is a very satisfying job and you can really impact people’s lives. I usually will get home around 7:45pm, eat a quick dinner and then get right to studying. I will typically try to study for an hour and then relax and watch TV for an hour before I go to bed around 11:00pm.
--Carly Arena
Carly graduated in 2009 from Quinnipiac University with an undergraduate degree in Health Science Studies. Subscribe to our feed for more posts from Carly!
