Saturday, August 13, 2011

Fall Semester Schedule

Well, I was really looking forward to writing a post about which states that PAs are especially needed, but honestly I don't have the material yet.

As a student of the PA Program at WVU, one of the first things that we did at the beginning of our matriculation was to become members of the AAPA, the American Association of Pathologists' Assistants. Us instant-cup-ramen eating students are given a lucky break in that application fees are lower for us, but I can't remember the figure off the top of my head. Anyways, the AAPA website has a very useful page that only members can see which is a job listing specifically for pathologists' assistants. Laboratory managers from across the country can post an advertisement on the AAPA Job Hotline page for a fee and have quick access to every potential pathologists' assistant applicant. Right now, there has got to be a little over 2 dozen job listings. (If you come from a nursing background you are probably laughing, but it's quite a good number for how few PAs can be accepted into and graduate from these programs.) I wanted to report which states these advertisements are coming from, so I sent an email to the AAPA. I requested their permission to post on my blog how many advertisements per state were there, but unfortunately I haven't received a reply yet. When it comes to private information, one can never be too careful, so I'll try sending them another email within a week if I don't get a reply.

Now that we have successfully registered for the fall semester, I had the time to write out a simple schedule of our classes. Looks to me like it's going to be another busy semester, as expected. 

I'm sure you are all in awe of my prowess with Excel. The Path 610 course won't begin until September 19th so it isn't listed here. We will also be attending pathology conferences with the medical school residents from time to time, so I expect those will be scheduled Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings. Wednesdays look to be a little lighter in load, but I know already that we will be using that time for catching up on studying. Unlike the first semester where some of our classes ran until 6PM, this semester, all of our classes finish by 3PM. I think of it as a mixed bag. We will be finishing classes earlier but our mornings are going to be more compacted. Altogether, it's 17 units, but they are going to be some pretty tough units. School starts on August 22nd, so I should study ahead of time during this final week of vacation.

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Update 8/20/2011

Looks like my original schedule was just a tad off. For those of you who are really interested, here is the actual schedule for this year.



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10 comments:

  1. ThatgirlAugust 14, 2011 at 11:39 PM

    The student membership is $45 for the length of your study program and through the end of the year you graduate, which really isn't a bad deal at all!

    It is interesting to see how a different school handles student instruction :)

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  2. Forrest MerrillAugust 16, 2011 at 6:16 PM

    Thanks for the clarification! It certainly is a good deal.

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  3. Ed WilsonAugust 20, 2011 at 10:46 PM

    Hi, Forrest:

    Are you in the gross room during each one of those available slots or is that time you can go in for observation as your schedule permits?

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  4. Forrest MerrillAugust 21, 2011 at 10:01 PM

    Hi there EdW,

    For the fall semester, each of us is assigned a single week in which we go to the gross room individually everyday for the whole week. Those weeks typically become super busy, but I am a little bit lucky. My week comes up on August 29th, which is still relatively early in the semester and hopefully the pace hasn't picked up too much by then.

    Of course, whenever the gross room is not busy with a lot of cases, we are free to go in and observe the grossing going on or practice our cryostat skills. But those slots in yellow are our mandatory times to go during our gross week.

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  5. Ed WilsonAugust 21, 2011 at 10:58 PM

    Thanks for the info. Also, thanks for taking the time from your schedule to write all of these blog posts. I will begin the WVU program in January and reading through your posts in the past week has given me some idea of what to expect.

    Good luck with the fall semester! I'm going to focus on enjoying my last few months of freedom for the next couple of years. :)

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  6. Forrest MerrillAugust 21, 2011 at 11:04 PM

    I'm glad that this blog has been of some help and congratulations on getting in! If there's anything I can do to help just let me know.

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  7. fongpeehowchoaAugust 22, 2011 at 3:14 AM

    Dude, insane schedule, looks pretty crazy, but you got this.

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  8. Forrest MerrillAugust 23, 2011 at 8:32 PM

    Looks like it's going to be tough and busy. I can only try my best!

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  9. Ed WilsonAugust 24, 2011 at 10:15 AM

    Forrest:

    I'm planning to take your advice of studying anatomy prior to starting the program. Now that you've been through gross anatomy, is there any one particular resource which you could recommend that would be the most helpful? Thanks in advance.

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  10. Forrest MerrillAugust 24, 2011 at 5:23 PM

    Hey Ed, i would recommend studying from the Michigan Online Anatomy Course in the link on the right-hand side of this page. That one really prepared me for anatomy.
    The text that you'll be referring to over and over is the Atlas of Human Anatomy, by Netter. You're going to have to buy the text anyways, so it might not be a bad idea to buy it beforehand and study from it.

    When you go to the Michigan website, scroll down and click on the link that says "list of dissections". It will be your godsend. Have fun studying in leisure while you can!

    ReplyDelete

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