Relationships and Pathologists' Assistant School

Relationships are tough. Pathologists' Assistant School is tough. Mix the two together and you get tough².

Being in a relationship during PA school is a mixed bag. Unless you're from the local area, most likely you've had to move a couple hundred miles to live close to campus. That means that if you were in a relationship before getting accepted, now you've transitioned into a long distance relationship.

Long distance relationships are especially difficult (I should know since my first ldr failed). I've read on the internet that between 60-90% of long distance relationships fail within the first year. It's hard to believe, but I can see the truth in it. Relationships are like flowers and if you don't give them enough water or sunlight, they'll wilt and eventually die. Obviously, being in a long distance relationship means that it's difficult to maintain the couple of ingredients that relationships need such as communication and physical presence. Stripping away these two necessities from a relationship is akin to blocking sunlight and water from reaching a flower. Where once it was easy and required almost no effort for the flower to grow, now the flower struggles against the elements just to make it to the next season. It is only through sheer determination that the flower refuses to die.

In PA School, your most valuable asset for building and sustaining a relationship, time, is needed for studying. This also implies that school needs to be your number one priority. For many graduate students, relationships often and unfortunately get relegated to the back of the bus out of necessity.

If you find yourself in a long distance relationship and in pathologists' assistant school, you needn't give up all hope. There are a few things that you can try to do to keep the flower alive. In my opinion, the most important thing that couples can do is to maintain contact. Keeping connected is the most important thing that you have control over. You won't be able to text each other every hour, but you should make a schedule where you write an email or call each other and stick to it. With my previous ldr, our emails went from once a day to once a week to once a month and then proceeded directly into oblivion. Do not pass go. The End. Don't make my mistake and think that things will get better.

If it's possible, try to meet up in person whenever possible. For us students, there are only a limited number of times throughout the year where we have a break long enough to travel out of town. They include spring break, summer vacation, Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Years. Even then, your significant other may have other obligations such as work. Being able to meet up is like a rain in the desert. You should savor it because they are few and far between.

PA school is stressful enough and relationships don't make the stress go away. They can also add to your worries, which is the last thing you'll need before a test. Fortunately, those of us who apply to PA school are all hard workers and we apply that perseverance to both our studying and our personal lives. I'm very happy to be with my girl even though we are separated by 8,000 miles of stone and molten iron. We keep in touch by emailing each other at least once a day and talking on SKYPE at least once a week. It's enough to keep that flower going, but it's definitely tough to be in a state of limbo.

PA school is the place to be for learning, but I'm certain that graduating will be the happiest day of my life. That and summer vacation is too far away.