All my life I have wanted to help people; I have always felt as though the most important way to accomplish that goal is keeping those around me healthy and safe. To that end, I have always been attracted to medicine and healthcare as a profession. I have known from a very early age that I wanted to become a physician, as my primary goal is to improve the health of the public wherever I am. Even when I was a child, my mother would let me carry around a little first aid kit, complete with fun little bandages, wet wipes, Neosporin and a few other trinkets. I even played Recess Nurse, where I would be the first person my friends would call if someone fell too hard on the swings or swung into something on the monkey bars. While my medical knowledge was not exactly at expert level, I carried with me an enthusiasm and a sense of calm that earned the trust of my fellow students. It is that same zeal for healing that I carry with me into adulthood. With that in mind, it is my most sincere belief that becoming a physician assistant (PA) is my first, best destiny.
One aspect of physician assistantship that appeals to me most is the level of interaction with patients. I am always fascinated with meeting new people, learning their problems, and learning how best I can help them. Just like in my early days as Recess Nurse, my medical experience up to today has involved many fruitful, productive and enlightening experiences with patients. I enjoy the sense of satisfaction both my patients and I receive whenever I am able to give them reassurance or certainty as to the potential of their recovery, whether it is a skinned knee, sprained ankle or any of the myriad ailments and questions my patients have had.
Physician assistants often play a vital and multifaceted role in general practice medicine; collaborating with physicians and surgeons is a delicate, complex process that requires a great deal of attention and communication. When operating in a group context, as in a hospital or clinic (or any other type of group healthcare organization), communication is absolutely vital; I feel as though I have the skills necessary to combine excellent communication skills with collaboration and medical expertise to become part of a top-notch medical team. My philosophy is that no man is an island, and neither are physicians – the most effective healthcare comes from a sense of openness and teamwork that allows all medical professionals involved to utilize their respective skills and experience in a collective effort. This way, patients benefit from decades of experience and the minds of several medical experts who can come up with the best solution for their problem(s).
PAs are often the front line in patient care, being one of the first layers of healthcare assistance people get when they go to the doctor. I know that, in my own childhood experiences with PAs, one of the most important things they did was help put me at ease with the experience and procedures inherent to a doctor’s visit. With that in mind, I believe one of the most important things PAs can do is to act as a liaison between the patient and chief physician, effectively relaying the patients’ needs and concerns with the physician and vice versa.
On top of that, PAs have a great deal of autonomy and authority to perform physical exams and prescribe medications as well, making us very important figures in the maintenance of patient health.
Given my immense respect for physician assistants as a profession, and my decades-long love for helping people and fixing problems, I believe I would thrive as a PA. The collaborative and multidisciplinary environment being a PA might provide me with would permit me to become a vital part in affecting change in a higher scope than just my own medical practice – my work would inform and determine the actions of other medical professionals in a concrete and important way. The sheer versatility of the practice allows me to learn a lot about multiple medical disciplines, which appeals to my sense of completionism and exceptionalism as a medical professional. I truly believe that I have a lot to offer the medical community, both on a micro-level (within a smaller organizational environment I would directly assist) and a macro-level (the medical field at large).
In many ways, I want to keep being Recess Nurse, but on a much larger scale and with much more sophisticated equipment and resources at my disposal. Whatever I have to do and learn to make sure the people in my community and practice are as happy and healthy as possible, I resolve to do it with every fiber of my being. For these reasons and more, a role as a physician assistant would allow me to fulfill my potential as a medical professional.
