As the final weeks and days leading up to my first day flew by I couldn’t believe that PA school was finally about to happen. This was something that Angela and I had been preparing for and dreaming about for years, and suddenly it was only days away. I felt like I had a pretty good idea of what to expect when classes started, but come Sunday night I still had an intense bout of nerves. Despite the many months of research and numerous conversations with PAs, faculty, and PA students it became suddenly real as I tried going to bed on Sunday night. It had suddenly become much more than a series of interviews and applications, I was starting PA school in less than 12 hours!
Monday morning came quick enough and I found myself sitting in an auditorium with all my classmates getting ready for our day of orientation. Thankfully I had the opportunity to meet many of my classmates the week before classes at a place called Top Golf Dallas. We all hung out on Saturday night as our last hurrah before school took over our lives. And it became pretty clear on Monday morning that school was definitely going to do just that. In less than fifteen minutes the dean of the School of Health Professions boldly proclaimed “At times during this program you’ll want to kill yourself--but please don’t do that!” If you want to know a sure way to wake up a hundred half-asleep students, feed them that line! However awake we all were thanks to that comment, it didn’t last too long. The orientation progressed through a dozen or so presenters covering all the logistics we would “need” to know to be successful through our programs. While I’m sure each presenter legitimately believed their information was valuable to us, after the third or fourth lecture on how to properly access the internet on campus I have to admit I began zoning out.
Thankfully, after lunch we were split into program-specific orientations. This part of the orientation confirmed to me one of the reasons that UTSW stood out to me as a program: the faculty. From Dr. Jones, the program director, to the newest professor that joined this semester, to the administrative team behind the scenes, I have never before felt that a group of faculty and staff sincerely want to see us succeed. They took time to introduce themselves to us on a more personal level and then had us do the same. Their excitement was contagious and got all of us energized about the rest of the day. While it was still just an orientation, the faculty that led it (and the fact that it pertained to us directly) made it much more interesting. I left at the end of the day fairly overwhelmed and classes hadn’t even started yet!
Tuesday was our first day of lectures. The first week we had three hours of Neuroscience before lunch and 3 hours of Human Physiology after. The reason for that is because we have our first Neuro exam on Wednesday. Yes, after only four days of classes we have our first exam!! The first week flew by. Some of the lectures were a review of things learned in undergrad, but the honeymoon period was short-lived as our second Neuro lecture was intense. The third lecture didn’t let up either and was by far the most intense amount of information I have ever experienced. However, despite all the fairly challenging lectures, the professors made it exceptionally interesting! They never let it be simply a drone of scientific facts or anatomical structures. They were always tying the topics to the clinical representations we’d be seeing in real patients. And for me, the clinical applications spread throughout the lectures made the concepts much easier to understand, and much much more applicable to my future career as a PA.
The first week was short as we had only three real days of lecture, and we have a four day weekend--plenty of time to study for that first exam. Next week we start our Anatomy courses (lecture and lab) and we start our cadaver dissections first thing Tuesday morning! I was also assigned to the first phlebotomy (blood-drawing) group for next week. We will learn blood draw techniques then work four shifts with a lab tech at Parkland Hospital practicing our skills. I was assigned to the third shift, so I’ll be up at the hospital from 10-midnight all next week. Regardless, I’m definitely looking forward to these first patient interactions!
I’ll do my best to keep everyone updated periodically on how things are going! Angela and I really appreciate all your prayers thus far and would appreciate them going forward as well!
Top Golf was awesome! Neither of us are any good at golf, but it was still a ton of fun!
I made him take pictures before his first day! :)
Always gotta find a way to represent! Go Gators!
He's so official!
We got a new roof this past week, and she was terrified of all that noise they were making. She stayed at my side like this for the ENTIRE day!
I took a shower while the roofers were still here and came out to find her like this...apparently since she couldn't be at my side she decided it was best to just hide under the bed. Poor thing! She was so scared, but this was just too funny!
It was UT Southwestern night at the Grand Prairie Air Hogs baseball game, so we got to go for free!
Some of the food was also only $1 for UT Southwestern people so- of course-we took advantage of that. 4 hotdogs, 1 hamburger, and nachos. So terrible for us, but so yummy!
There is nothing better than Saturday morning walks :)
Also, I (Angela) will be in Florida ONE WEEK from tomorrow (Sunday)!!!! YAYYY!!! I seriously cannot wait for lots of family, friends, and beach time!!!! Hopefully we will write another post before then, but if not, I'll make sure to update y'all on the trip!
Have a great Memorial Day weekend!
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