Accepted!

This weekend has been a pleasant yet busy life changing experience. Although my interview was to be held on Monday morning I had Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday to spend some much needed time with my family in Clovis.

It is interesting to come home after being away for so long and to see all of the changes that have happened around the house. My mom and dad are always working on the house despite being retired and I could see the fruits of their labor. The house was getting new shingles and the kitchen had a new microwave, refrigerator and toaster oven. Some more striking changes were outside though. A small twister had come through in the spring and wiped out a whole bunch of things such as the arch to our driveway, a few old eucalyptus trees, and a gigantic old tree which fell over and squashed a whole row of bushes along the side of our house. My father had been busy chopping up all of the wood and the place just seemed a little empty without all of those trees. The most striking change for me, however, was to discover that my younger brother had invaded my room! What was once neat and tidy was now chaos with posters on the walls, my desk filled with his items and a floor that was in desperate need of some cleaning.

I was looking forward to the interview on Monday, but I didn’t know what to really expect so I prepared for any interview question that might come my way. In the morning I put on my best suit and with my portfolio in hand headed to the lab. There I met with their COO who was very friendly and enthusiastic. I learned some of the history behind the lab as well as its future direction. He drove me to another hospital from which the lab receives its specimens to meet with some of the other pathologists. I briefly met with each pathologist and introduced myself to each of them one-by-one. Everyone was very kind and the process was not nearly as stringent as I had partially feared. We headed back to the laboratory and met with a few of the other pathologists where I had the opportunity to talk with them one on one. Lunch was provided and I then moved on to the gross room.

I was happy that the supervisor of the gross room had remembered me when I first came to shadow at their lab nearly two years prior. I was given a tour of the place and introduced to the talented and hardworking PAs there. It’s quite a busy lab and they receive over 50,000 surgical specimens every year. The laboratory receives specimens from a number of hospitals and labs, so the range of specimens that they receive is pretty much everything from A to Z. For me personally, I couldn’t have asked for a better place to increase my abilities. I was also impressed in that the lab was specifically built with grossing in mind during the construction. Specimen processing is very stream lined and PAs are used efficiently to spend the vast majority of their time doing what they do best, that is grossing. Specimens are received on a one at a time basis and cassettes are created on the fly, nearly instantaneously. They use the Voicebrook speech recognition software that I’m familiar with, but I will still have to get used to their information system which is Power Path. It was amazing to see the PAs gross through complex specimens on the computer just as fast as a person speaking into a dictaphone could. The benches are high tech to maximizes efficiency and eliminate lost time. 

It’s also fortunate that the supervisor and everyone else at the lab are very focused on helping its employees achieve their highest potential and professional growth. I got the feeling that I was very welcome there and it really made me want to put out my absolute best. 

One of the other interesting parts about the interview was a special test that I was given. It was a test designed to measure my descriptive abilities as well as how much time it took me. I was given three everyday objects and asked to describe them on paper. I had heard of a similar test in a book I read a while ago for prospective surgeons having to carve a bar of soap. The test was a good mental exercise for me and I found what I had wrote to be surprisingly detailed, although it did take a little longer to put my thoughts onto paper than I had hoped. 

On Tuesday morning I returned to the lab and was elated to discover that they had offered me a position there. I couldn’t imagine a place that I’d rather be and so I was eager to accept. I’m still moved at how understanding everyone was that I wouldn’t be able to start work until mid-January (visiting Hanako and her family in Japan). Everyone was very professional and had not just their heart into the business but also their own workers lives. I still can’t believe how lucky I am. I’ve made it my mission to become the best PA that I can be and to repay them by adding to their team. Man, I can’t wait to graduate!