Experience

Today as I sit in a coffee shop in Austin, well not just any coffee shop, but my favorite coffee shop, I am working on my CV. As I am writing about all of my clinical experiences from the past year, I am reflecting on what a crazy year it has been. I am excited to be completing my last clinical rotation this month, but I am also fearful of what this means. In less than six months I will be a graduate of Touro University and preparing to sit for the PANCE (Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam).

Here is what I have been up to for the past few weeks.

I moved to Austin for my last clinical rotation with Dr. Fullerton, the physician I worked for during the two years prior to starting PA school. I had the luxury of having a week off for Christmas, which was really nice. I have been gone from Texas long enough that I forgot how big Texas skies are, I love every sunset I have watched over the past three weeks. They are just stunning. I am so proud to call this place home.

I am also preparing for my public health field study, which will be from February to mid March. I will be traveling to Cambodia to work with an organization that provides crisis pregnancy counseling. This will be my first trip traveling abroad and I am so excited! It is certainly proving to be expensive to prepare for, but I know it will be well worth the experience. I am also hoping it will be the first of many trips abroad for public health and medical missions.

I applied for graduation! Which makes it a little more real that I am nearing the end.

A quote I find appropriate as I continue to realize how little I know about medicine, but am excited by the prospect that medicine will always be teaching me more.

"Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn."
  - C.S. Lewis