Second year PA!

We made it!!

Our last final was yesterday morning at 8 am. It was in Forensics, and thankfully it wasn't hard at all. Afterward I went down to our class lounge to sort out orders for class gear that we had done. One of my classmates found a frisbee in the lounge and had the brilliant idea of setting up an ultimate frisbee game in our H+P lab. Eight of us then proceeded to have the best fun of the entire year. The tables were pushed to the side, but the curtain bunches were still down and there were chairs in the middle set up for a class, so it made fun obstacles. I'm sure the doctors in the neighboring offices really appreciated the ruckus we were making.

After our final we had a lecture on how to use the system that we'll be using to log all our patients and procedures over the upcoming clinical year. Then we had an hour before our survivor brunch started. I asked my classmate/good friend what she wanted to do, and she said "Let's sit outside and practice being human again." And that's exactly what we did. :) I loved seeing how happy and relaxed people were. Knowing what some of them had gone through to get here, it was nice to see them enjoying themselves. One of my classmates also coined the perfect phrase: "adrenaline hangover." That's exactly what a bunch of us are going through. Last weekend when we had three days to memorize as much as possible for oral boards, we were all on constant, 15+ hour adrenaline surges in order to get everything accomplished. That of course led to many upset stomachs and wooziness and other physical effects. I still feel charged up a little, my stomach is still a little uneasy, but overall I am loving life.

The alumni office threw us a survivor brunch, and we got to enjoy each other's happy company until we all headed off for our 10 day vacations. It was odd saying goodbye to the people whom we had suffered with over the past 14 mo, as now we won't be seeing them for about 7 weeks. Even more bizarre is that we will be seeing real patients, and frantically trying to remember all the information that has been crammed into our heads as we start to problem solve.

My first rotation is internal medicine at a hospital in Philly. Rumor on the street is that I work three 12s a week doing admissions from the ER. I'm excited to see who my first patient is going to be, and post more regularly stories from my clinical year!