140 High School Valedictorian Decelerated

Hello and welcome to the Physician Assistant Exam Review Podcast episode 140. As I said, we finished up the blueprint last week, so I wanted to shift gears a little bit this week and bring you something useful in a whole different way. My name is Brian Wallace. I’m the host and creator here at Physician Assistant Exam Review. And we’ve been at this for close to 15 years now. And what I wanted to do today, rather than restarting the blueprint again, is spend a little bit of time on some things that are going to help you. I talk a lot about things outside of medical content that will help you to get better scores, help you to get better grades.

In fact, I’ve got something really special going on tonight and tomorrow night, which is a Master Class on test taking as it applies to high stakes exams, like the PANCE, like your end of rotation exams, like your EOCs, and how to get through those and how to squeeze out extra points from the things you know. I’m going to cover the 13 rules I have, techniques I have for passing those types of exams. I’m going to cover the three things you need in addition to medical content to pass those exams. And we’re going to go over a whole lot of things that I’m confident can boost your scores by, I’d say, 5% to 10% easily on every exam for the rest of your life, and that’s not overselling it. In fact, that’s probably underselling what we can do in just 45 minutes. So this is for October 1st and October 2nd at 8 p.m. Eastern time.

Hopefully you’re hearing this in time. You can go to physicianassistantexamreview.com/masterclass and register for one of those two options. They’re going to be the same exact class. I’m going to do the same thing. The jokes might be slightly different on different nights, but pretty much the same thing. So just sign up for one of those. But with that idea in mind, I wanted to run that Master Class.

There’s a couple of things I wanted to do as I finish up the blueprint, as we got into PA week next week. But I also wanted to bring you some insight and inspiration from students who have been in tough spots and turned things around and help you to see how that might be done or a couple of ways to do that. So Mary had asked me very specifically if she could share her story, and you’ll see why when we get into it. Mary was someone who was a valedictorian of her high school, graduated cum laude in three years from her college, and got decelerated in PA school. I want that to sink in for a second. So, all of you out there who have, I’ve been talking with a lot of people this week, who have failed the PANCE, who find yourself struggling in end of rotation exams and feel like you’ve got imposter syndrome and you don’t belong, I’m going to share with you Mary’s story so you can see how intelligent, how well structured someone could be and still struggle. And it’s one of the things I love, I was just writing someone today about how we run the 33 Days to Pass the PANCE program.

And we do it as a cohort, as a group of students, because you get to see the other students who are in the same situation as you. And you’ll hear in Mary’s story how alone she felt during this time. And it’s such a common theme that sharing that information, sharing the struggle, sharing with other people is so valuable. And looking across the room and saying, wow, look at all these other smart people who are also struggling. It’s incredibly empowering. It’s one of my favorite pieces of that program. And I’m thrilled to be able to host it for people for that reason.

But anyway, I don’t want to get too far down that track. I don’t want to spend too much more time introducing Mary’s story. She does an amazing job of telling it herself.

So let’s just go ahead and let her go ahead and tell that story. Where I wanted to begin with your story was you heard Elena’s interview where she’d failed her exam and what she had done to sort of recuperate, recover, and how she wanted to help and share that with other people because she knew what a struggle it was and how hard it was for her to find information on that topic and how alone she felt. And if I remember correctly, you reached out to me and said, hey, I had a similar situation, not the same, but similar that I think would also really help people. And I’d like to contribute and share that story. Is that accurate? Yeah, that’s accurate. Because I really identified with her talking about feeling alone.

And that’s how I felt too. So I want other people to not feel that.

All right. So can you fill everybody in on what your situation was? And we’ll start from there. Yeah. So I started PA school in 2018, I’m sorry, 2017 the first time. And I failed one of the classes my first semester and ended up getting the opportunity to reapply to the same school and start over with the next cohort. So that was after failing one course?

Yes. In your first semester? Yes. Yeah, I failed anatomy.

Okay. And I’m only laughing because I actually just got done writing something about how many of our class failed the first anatomy exam in my year and what a disaster it was and how our professor almost killed us. Yeah. Because nobody could remember all the details. But regardless, how did you go into school? Did you feel like it was overwhelming from the outset? Did you feel pretty comfortable?

How was your background heading into PA school, or what did you know about it going in? Yeah, so I was always successful in school before that. I was valedictorian of my high school, and then I graduated cum laude from undergrad. I did that in three years, taking like 17 hours at a time. And I was also working technically part time, but 30 to 35 hours a week at the hospital at the same time. And I never studied more than a day or two before an exam. I just like I just read over this stuff.

And once I was comfortable with once I could say, oh, I understand that, then I would go and take the test and do fine. But I was just memorizing. I wasn’t actually learning stuff. Probably if I had taken any of my exams like a month after passing them, I wouldn’t have been able to pass them because I was just memorizing. But you felt really comfortable using that style heading in because it worked in the past. Right. Right.

Exactly. And then I started PA school. And I remember actually when I went in for my interview, I was talking to one of the current students and and I was just kind of asking what it was like. And she said, you know, finals week in undergrad, that’s every week here. And I said that felt pretty accurate when I actually got there. And then I think everybody’s heard the phrase trying to drink from a fire hose, and that feels really accurate too. But yeah, I mean, every time I moved up in school, people kept telling me it was going to be really hard.

So like I was in middle school and they said, oh, high school’s going to be a lot harder, and then it wasn’t. And then when I was in high school, everybody said college would be really hard. And it was more challenging, but it wasn’t. I mean, I just crammed everything and took tests and then went to work and came back and started over. So then I got to PA school and I feel like I took it seriously, but I didn’t realize how different it was from undergrad and how much more difficult and how much more you have to actually learn. You cannot get by just memorizing. There’s no way to do it in the time that you have and the amount of information that they’re throwing at you.

Well, to me, and the fact that it repeats itself so frequently. Yeah. What I mean is you have a quiz or something every week, but then at the end you have a final. You still have to know all the information that you did. So, that sense of straight memorization and then dropping the information, you don’t have that opportunity because you have to come back can take a test on the same thing again two weeks later or three weeks later, whatever it is. Yeah, exactly. And memorizing is a waste of time because if you’re just if you’re only memorizing and dropping the information, like you said, you’re just going to have to start over when that final comes up.

So But if you actually learn it, then reviewing before the exam is a lot easier. I was also really over committed during during school or during the first semester of PA school. I was in a volunteer community orchestra, and I was on the church worship team, and I was also on a softball, like intramural type softball team. Basically, like every night I had some sort of a commitment. So I was studying like an hour or two a day, if that, outside of school. So I was way over committed too. I thought that that was my main problem, but that was a big one.

And have you noticed that there are times when you can commit to more even now? Like I know, I remember the first semester especially was incredibly difficult, but then there were other semesters that, you know, not to say they weren’t hard, but kind of backed off a little and I could do some other things. Yeah, absolutely. I’ve definitely picked a lot of those things back up, especially on rotations. It’s a lot easier. But during didactic, I was able to pick some of those things back up. But I definitely, when I came back the second time, or what they call decelerated, I picked some of those things back up once I felt comfortable and knew what I was doing.

Got to work a little. That makes sense. So walk me through a little bit about how that first semester went. So you were completely overcommitted. You were doing way too much. You thought from previous experience that, you know, this should be a step up, but not crazy. And then you found out, I assume relatively quickly that it was a heck of a lot more than you had initially expected.

So what happened from there? Yeah. So I, my first quiz in anatomy, I think I made a 20 out of a hundred and I was just kind of shocked and thought, well, I definitely, I didn’t, I just didn’t know what to expect. I’ll do better next time. And then my second quiz I made a 10. So at that point you’re in complete panic mode I would assume. Yeah you know I’ve never made anything below a B and that sounds like I’m bragging but I’m not I’m just saying like that was the level of difference between undergrad and PA school.

And I appreciate you saying that because that’s one of the places I pound my head against the wall is trying to get people to understand that it’s not the same that people like oh no I can do the same thing and I can just work a little harder or do whatever. And that’s not necessarily the case. It’s much different than what you were used to. Yeah. So I, you know, went to study groups and I actually went to, they have like an educational counselor at my school that is supposed to teach you how to study. And she gave me a few tips that were relatively helpful. And then I just like didn’t get the hang of it until after the midterm.

And the midterm I failed. And I kind of started picking up, like I guess, understanding how I could study this stuff and not just be memorizing and be actually understanding and learning and and doing it constantly was helpful. And then, but by that time, mathematically, it was possible for me to pass, but I needed to make 90s and 100s on every single quiz. Which is an unrealistic… Yeah, it’s just, it wasn’t, at least for me. So anyway, I I did my best. I did make a lot of 90s and 100s, but not enough to pass the class.

And so I met with the it’s called the Prd committee. I can’t remember what it stands for. But I met with the committee of the school that that talks about what to do next. And they offered me a cumulative reassessment exam. So they gave me a week to study for it after finals. And I studied for hours every day. I told my friends, like, I have studied more in the last three months than I have in my life.

And I’ve studied more in the last week than I have in the last three months. So I just, I mean, made it my full-time job with overtime, to study for this exam. And I needed a 75% on that exam to pass the course and continue in PA school and I made a 74.2. Oh my god. Yeah, so that was tough. So they brought me in for another meeting after that and they offered me what they call the deceleration route, basically to come in with a new class nine months later. I did not have to redo my application or interview or anything like that because they knew me and they knew, I guess, how much I had improved over the semester.

And they saw that that I made the effort and was making 90s and hundreds by the end of the semester, but I just couldn’t learn a semester’s worth of information in one week that I had failed to learn throughout the semester. Sure. And at that point you’ve been struggling to hang on, you know, you’re, I’m sure you’re burned out to begin with, because you just finished all your other finals and then to hop back in and start studying again. It just doesn’t, it’s incredibly difficult. Yeah. Yeah. And I have friends who actually took that cumulative exam with me and, and passed it.

And then they continued on the next semester and said that it was awful because they didn’t get a break at all between semesters. Yeah. And, and I know that this doesn’t mean a whole lot now, but one of the things that was just, I was thinking about as you’re telling the story is this happened to you in your first semester, which I know that this is an awful situation, but I was literally just talking with someone earlier in the week who is, didn’t pass an end of rotation exam and then they were dismissed from the program. And again, they went through some mediation. They had some other issues. This is not a one-time thing. I don’t mean it that way.

But I’m picturing someone who’s struggling to hang on, struggling to hang on, struggling to hang on, and then gets dismissed later. In some ways, it’s almost a benefit that you kind of got slammed right up front and said, okay, let me, like I said, I get that it’s a horrible thing, but that you got a chance to sort of start over and reassess your situation before you got in over your head and you had an opportunity to start over. Yeah. Yeah. That would have been worse, I think. Yeah, I think I was fortunate to get the opportunity that I did when I did. And I learned a lot over those nine months, too.

I got to work as a scribe for a urologic oncology group, so that was cool. So you had nine months in between when your new class started again? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So how did you handle starting over with a new class? Was there any kind of an issue there for you? I mean, I guess the people coming in wouldn’t have any idea or even care.

But how did that feel for you as far as that transition went? So, I actually thought it was going to be a bigger deal, like, what do I tell people? I’m so embarrassed. Everybody will think I’m stupid, and I’m coming back in with them, and they’re just going to expect me to fail again. And, it was you know, it took it took a while to regain my confidence, but I think those nine months were helpful. That And then, actually, I came in with a couple of friends who had also decelerated one due to anatomy and then another one due to a different class. And we just kind of talked about it.

There had been some people in our class when we came in in 2017 who had decelerated and they didn’t tell anyone. And so we were going through all that we found out later, but we were going through all this difficult stuff thinking we were the only people who’d ever gone through this and had no one to help us. And come to find out we thought there were people who had gone through it before us and had succeeded. And I wish that we’d gotten to talk to them earlier and gotten some advice or just kind of felt a little bit less alone. And that was a lot of… When we found that… I’m sorry, that was a lot of what Elena had to say as well, that she felt very alone because no one told her that anyone else had failed.

She felt like she was the only one. And then she found out later that there were five or six people in her class who had failed her PANCE. And she was kind of furious at first that it would have been nice just to have a conversation with those people. And I’m sure for you to have, even when you started over, to have known to say, hey, you guys were successful the second time around. That’s at least something for me to cling on to. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

And they did end up reaching out to us, but it was just a little later than I would have liked. And so the friend and I that came in the second time together, she and I just kind of decided we’re going to be as open about it as possible. And we’re going to warn people, like, don’t just take a 20 and say, oh, probably just do better next time and not change anything. Right, because a 20 is not a 75. Right, right, exactly. And mathematically, you have to make a couple hundreds to get that back up to a passing grade. Anyway, so we were just as open as we could be.

And our class has said multiple times that they really appreciate us being open about it because nobody failed anatomy in the second class that’s coming in with them. And how many people do you think failed it your year or at least were in danger in your first time? I think five or six people took that cumulative exam. So that’s a nice impact. It could have been more, yeah. And did you find that anyone, and I’m asking this for a reason, Did you find that it was a problem for you in any way to share that information? Other than your own sort of embarrassment, did you find that it was an issue for anybody else or anything else that you had to do?

No. I mean, nobody has said anything negative about it that I’ve told. And it was literally my own pride that was the hardest part about it. But honestly, the people that I didn’t want to know, I just kind of glazed over it. And most of the people that you think are going to care, they don’t. So you just kind of say like, oh yeah, I failed anatomy, you know, and then I’m starting over and they barely blink at it. Like you think they’re going to have this awful reaction and you’re going to be super embarrassed.

And the point of that question and why I want you to talk about it for a second was because that’s exactly what Elena found was, you know, your first thought when you fail the PANCE, your first thought when this is going on is, how is this going to affect my job? How is this going to affect my future? Is this going to be a problem? And the answer is it’s a huge problem for you. And I totally get that. But your employers, everybody else doesn’t know and doesn’t really isn’t all that interested. You know, as long as you’re the person you are, and you come back and do a good job, everything else kind of fades away.

And like I said, I know it’s a struggle for you. But I think that’s a big part of the struggle is that fear of what everyone else is going to think, and the reality seems to be that it’s just not much of a story to everybody else. Exactly. Yeah, it affected us a lot. It affected my family and my you know husband who’s working to support me. That was a big thing. But, I mean, he was still supportive through it, too.

You know, I got a job in those nine months, but it still delayed us, you know, making actual money for a while. But, honestly, that was the biggest impact. The biggest other person who has impacted. Everybody else is just kind of like, well, you’ll do it next time. Right. Like, proud of you for trying. And that’s it.

So, what were some of the things that you changed when you went back and when you started again? Because clearly you had a different mindset going in. Clearly you had a different methods of doing things, I’m assuming, based on your current success. Yes, I did change a lot of things. I actually made a list. So, I, first of all, I quit everything except for school and then church on Sundays. I was going like Wednesdays and Saturdays and Sundays and, you know, all that stuff.

But I stopped doing everything except for church on Sundays. And then school, of course, told all my friends and my family that I was going to be hanging out with them a lot less and just like to expect less from me because I needed to focus on myself and on school. And then kind of pick those things up as I felt like I could handle them. Anyway, that was the first thing that I did. I also learned that you can study differently for different classes. So, like, one class might be read and underline and then, you know, write out the hard parts or something like that. Other classes might be best learned using flashcards.

And so, you might want to teach a class to your dog or your cat or whoever will listen or pretend to. That is a good study style. But I just kind of had boxed myself into reading and underlining things. And that was the only way I’d ever studied. So I tried out different study styles for every class and figured out which one stuck the best. That’s interesting. And I think it’s something that kind of is natural, but I wouldn’t have thought to say it, which is the idea of studying differently for different classes and using different styles.

I really like that. Yeah. So, that was really helpful. I also learned not to just stop studying when I understood it, but I learned that I needed to know that material. Because part of my problem with anatomy is the professor would get up there and explain where things were, and I was like, yeah, that makes sense, and I think that would be good enough to take a quiz the next week. But it’s not. You have to know it, and you have to be able to say it back or write it out or whatever without help before you can take that quiz.

I also started using timers when studying instead of just sitting in a room for five hours and just trying to study as hard as you could. But, so I started doing 25 minutes of studying and then a five minute break. And then in that break, I would actually leave the room, take a walk, go to the bathroom, drink water, whatever, come back, and then 25 uninterrupted minutes of studying after that. So that was helpful because I have a problem with looking at my phone when I’m trying to study. You’re not allowed. If I just feel like I have like five hours, then, oh, well, just checking Instagram for five minutes is not going to make a big deal. But maybe I was in the middle of something when I picked up my phone or five minutes turns into 20 minutes on Instagram or Facebook or something like that.

Very, very easily. And the other thing I think is funny is when you go that, that just that habit of going to check your phone, when you get a little bit of a break, I have a feeling that that impacts you on the day that you sit down to take a longer exam. And you’re so used to that twitchiness of going to check your phone that when you have to sit there for an hour or two hours or three hours and you can’t do it, I have to believe that that’s draining in some way because it’s such a habit built up in all of us. And to practice that, I think, is actually really important. As silly as it sounds, I think practicing not checking your phone will be helpful in the future. Definitely helpful. So yeah, those 25 minutes were longer than I normally go without checking my phone.

So that was really helpful. Also, I started using my extra time with what I call micro studying So, you’re not actually like at a desk with all your stuff out and reading and underlining and talking through stuff or anything like that. But I downloaded the Quizlet app on my phone and made flashcards for for anatomy, but overall for some other classes. So, like, maybe I’m waiting in line at the bank or maybe I’m, I don’t know, waiting in line anywhere, basically, or just about to go to bed or anything like that. Then I’ll just kind of flip through five or six or however many minutes I have just looking through those flashcards. And then also I started listening to your podcast too on rides to and from school or church or wherever I was going. And then also using The Final Step.

That’s super helpful as well because then I don’t actually have to make the flashcards myself. It’s basically just pre-made and that’s what we pay you for, I guess. But Yeah, just doing those when I have a couple extra minutes anywhere. Because Actually, your email this week that was talking about the 15 minutes of of throwing back and forth with your kid for baseball, 15 minutes four times a week makes a difference even more than one hour on the weekend. So, that’s kind of what I started doing as well. Yeah, I think all that time adds up. And you don’t want to be, you know, you need some downtime also, but I definitely think that, you know, just like exercise or anything else, that little bit of every day is, is different than really going hard on Saturdays.

You know, I think that you get much more out of that repetitive nature, especially when you’re trying to remember things and learn things for sure. Yeah. And you mentioned something that you do need some rest time as well. I, And that I didn’t learn until after my first semester coming back. I started going to like a counselor for some like anxiety and stress and stuff. And she’s like, when are you doing stuff for yourself? I was like, oh, you know, I can put that off another three semesters.

And she said, no, you can’t. So I started resting better. There’s one guy in our class that takes every Sunday off and I’m very impressed by that. And I just, I’m not, I’m too high strung to do that. So I don’t take a whole day off, but I definitely take hours off or, I mean, now on rotations I do, but in didactic I didn’t. And most people don’t notice until they wind up with an eye twitch or something. And then they say, wait a minute, this isn’t supposed to be here.

Yeah. Yeah. So you learn to, you know, all nighters are not ever helpful for me. They weren’t in undergrad, but I try to do them. In PA school if I was really, really stressed about an exam. But no matter how much information you go to, if you, I mean, go through during those extra hours, if you haven’t slept, it’s not going to come back when you’re taking the exam. So sleep is really important and rest overall is important because you’ve got to give your brain time to kind of solidify that stuff you threw in there during the day.

No, I think that’s, and those are the kinds of things that I have trouble convincing people of. And I think that they’re the most important thing. So the one answer is work as hard as you possibly can and get that done. But the other answer is you’re not a computer. Your brain needs certain things. And one of those things is significant rest. And there are certain times a day when your brain is better at learning.

There are certain times a day when it’s better at consolidating memories. And from 12 to 6 a.m., it’s much better at consolidating memories than it is at learning new things. And that time is so wasted, even though we all struggle with it and everybody does the same thing. It really just doesn’t work. Yeah, it doesn’t. And that’s another thing. Like, if I felt like I was running out of time, like, oh, I need to get through this whole other chapter or something before my exam tomorrow, but I need sleep, then I learned how to prioritize important information first.

So, like, I at least need to know these things that are bolded and blue or something like that before the exam tomorrow. So, let me just read those things, go to bed, and then I’ll wake up. You know, maybe 5 a.m. Or something and study a little bit before the exam rather than, well, I’ve got to get through this information, you know, and then it ends up being three o’clock in the morning and your test is in five hours or four hours or however long. It’s better to sleep and come back to it in the morning. Yep. And it’s tough.

It’s something people struggle with is that prioritizing of information. I think you say that really, really well. And I’m guessing that’s something you didn’t do as well the first time around. Definitely not. No. I was in the weeds all the time and thinking that was going to help me understand it better, which I guess at some point it does help you understand it better, but if you’re always in the weeds on the first topic and then you’ve got an hour or two to go through the second topic, and it you know you you’re not going to get through the weeds on that one and you’re barely going to understand the important part. Let alone the third, fourth, and fifth topics that are all going to be on your exam as well.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. And the last two things that I had written on my list of things that I changed. I joined a quiz bowl group with some classmates. So like an hour before the exam, we would get together and just kind of ask each other questions. I just kind of ask questions off the bat, but there was one guy who wrote test questions, which I wish I had done because I know now that it’s super helpful.

But he would write test questions and ask them to us. So that was helpful. And that was a group that you guys just formed? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Interesting.

Okay, good. And then the last thing that I have on my list is stop comparing myself to others because that was a big deal. I was always kind of listening when people were like, oh, I made a 90 on that quiz. How did you do? I’m like Well, I made a 75. Or you know Or a 20. Well, I never told anybody about my 20s when I was making those.

Which is another thing that factors into feeling alone. Because the people who make 90s and 100s are willing to tell their test grades and the people who are making 20s and 10s are not. So If all you hear are people saying, oh yeah, I made an 80 or a 90, and here you are with your 20, you’re not going to go and tell somebody and be like, I made 20, guys. Who’s going to study with me? And that’s the, right, exactly. And everyone shares when they pass the PANCE and nobody ever says a peep when they fail it. There’s not a word out there.

Exactly. Yeah. So that’s kind of, you know, when I, when I came back, that was one of the things that we try to try to kind of change the culture and saying like, it’s okay to not be doing well, as long as you’re doing something to change it. And we’re here to help if you, if you don’t know how to study or we’ve been there, we’ve made those tens and twenties. And, and a lot of people actually did end up coming, come coming to us for help. And then, the class below us, I think three or four people failed anatomy and took that cumulative exam. And so we helped them study for their cumulative exam.

Wow. That’s amazing. I’m sure that was just a huge, like you said, cultural shift for that class. Cause I can picture every other class, you know, basically in the history of PA school where everybody just keeps their mouth shut and doesn’t share that information. So that’s unbelievable that you guys would be that open and that helpful. Yeah. I mean, I really didn’t want other people to go through what I went through and feel alone like I did.

And so that’s kind of where my head was at when we just decided we’re going to be open about it. Yeah. So that was helpful, I think, for other people. One of the things that just reminded me when you were talking about comparing yourself to other people, I’ve always been a very fast test taker. And so all my classmates would think that meant that I was smart. What they didn’t know was they had no idea what my grades were. You know what I mean?

So I thought it was very funny that they would all use that as a comparison. And the reality doesn’t even, it didn’t even matter. It had no relevance on whether I did well or didn’t do well. And it just has to do with, like I said, like how, how you are comparing to other people and what things you’re comparing. It doesn’t even matter to begin with. Right. Right.

Because it’s not like there’s only three top places and only three people are going to graduate. Like, you know, you’re either going to pass or you’re not. It doesn’t matter what everybody else is doing. And I spent a lot of time stressing about why am I not as smart as this person or why am I not getting it as well as this guy or this girl or whoever. And that just takes away your confidence and you need confidence to take a test. And my larger point is you don’t even know what they’re doing. I mean, they can be telling you anything they want.

You know, they can come across like they know it, but you don’t actually know what’s going on. That’s true. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah so comparing yourself is just a waste of energy there’s no reason to do it and it’s not helpful so it sounds like you’ve done a lot to shift gears create a whole better situation for yourself and come up with a whole new style of approaching the workload and everything how has that been going for you? Tell us where you are in your journey now. So, I never had to take another cumulative exam again. So That was nice.

That was a huge relief.

Now, I’ve finished didactic. I am about to finish rotation number five out of eight. So, I have three more six-week rotations, and then I’ll graduate at the end of July. I’m still not sure exactly what area I want to practice in, but I know that I’m passionate about underserved populations, especially immigrants and refugees. So I’ll hope to work at a place that lets me serve those patients. And since you’ve started again, so you said that you didn’t have to take any of those tests again, but overall you felt pretty comfortable with how your approach has been. Your grades have been pretty, you know, and again, you don’t have to share anything in particular, but have been about where you hoped they would be, about where you thought they should be.

Your exams are going fairly well? Yeah. I I feel like rotations have been cool because I I realized that I actually know some of the stuff that I learned in didactic and that it actually is helpful. I feel better about stuff that has been repeated throughout time. Every Every time I go back and study something that I have already been tested on, I feel like I know it better every time, or I’m just reviewing rather than relearning or rememorizing information. So, so I think that’s a testament to my successful changes that I’ve made is that the information that I’m repeating, I don’t look at it and think, have I learned this before? I’m actually looking at it and recognizing it.

And, you know, maybe I’ll remember, or have to relearn lab values or something like that. But for the most part, I feel like what I learned in didactic is coming in handy because I actually learned it and I didn’t just memorize it. And yeah, so my grades are good. I’ve passed every EOR. I’m doing better on every EOR than the one before. I’ve been reading your newsletter, obviously, and I’m using a lot of those tips and tricks and philosophies to keep getting better. And like I said, every EOR has been a better grade than the one before.

Wow, that’s fantastic. That’s exciting. So if you had to give some advice to somebody who’s listening and sort of on the edge or even just struggling, let’s say they got that 30 or 20 or whatever on their first exam and they’re not sure where they are or what to do, where would you begin for them? Well, first of all, reminding them that they’re not alone. That other people are struggling too, whether they’re saying it or not. And not to be afraid to ask for help because that’s what your faculty is there for. And I mean, they report their, what do you call it, how many people stay in the program and how many people pass the PANCE.

So they want you to succeed whether they like you or not. So you can ask for help. And then second, don’t be afraid to change your game plan. Like, if you’re studying a certain way, you don’t have to just muscle through it or do it more or do it harder. You don’t have to stay up later, you know, writing out every single, I don’t know, phone or anything like that. There are different ways to study and it’s okay to change halfway through. I think that was part of me.

I was stubborn and thinking, well, I just need to do it more or harder or I’m just, you know, or something. But, but yeah, it’s okay to change the way that you’re studying. And you can ask, I mean, I’m sure most people would be glad to tell you how they study, but don’t compare yourself to them, but you might take their tips or try this or try that. Yeah. No, that’s great. So then just to wrap up, fill me in. You are in your fifth rotation.

Which one’s been your favorite so far? That’s really hard. I’ve loved everything. I really liked peds. I really liked I’ve worked at two different non-profits. One of them was like the designated clinic for people in public housing, and then another one was the designated clinic for all refugees arriving in Tennessee. So, that was really cool.

That’s probably my favorite one, the refugee clinic, because that’s kind of the people that I’m passionate about. But also, it was kind of like half family care and half urgent care. So I got to see a lot of interesting things that were unexpected. And then, but then I also got to, you know, like educate people about diabetes and hypertension. And, that sounded boring to me in the beginning, but now that I understand more, it’s actually, it’s really cool to see patients actually understand what’s going on in their body. So that’s cool. No, I agree.

That to me is a ton of fun, is watching the turnaround in the people as you have that conversation. So that’s great. Well, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing this with us, sharing this with everybody. I think it makes a huge difference. Like I said, I couldn’t be more thankful to Elena for having shared when she spoke about failing the PANCE. And then now from a whole different perspective, a whole different issue. But something that, like we talked about today, is how few people talk about and sort of sweep under the rug and make everybody feel like they’re alone.

And I think it makes a huge difference when people like you come forward and sort of say, hey, this is what happened. And yes, in the moment, it was awful, and it’s been awful, but right now I’m doing pretty good and things are looking up. And I’m going to wind up where I wanted to be anyway. Just, you know, it took a little longer and I had to figure some things out, but that’s fine, and here I am. Yeah, yeah. And that’s absolutely, I believe that God had a plan for me and that this was in the plan all along, and I grew a lot from it. I’ve gotten a lot of peace, that this was the right thing for, to happen to me because I feel like I’ve helped people, in my current class through things that they may not have had anybody else to help them with.

So I definitely believe this was the right thing to happen to me, but I would like to prevent it from happening to other people. Of course, of course. Well, thank you again. Thank you so much. So, I hope you can see now why I wanted to share that. She’s just an amazing human being. In fact, you guys who are newer to the community may not realize, I spent six years writing a monthly newsletter for the Physician Assistant Exam Review community, a print newsletter, a 5,000 word newsletter every single month on one of these topics, on test taking on study skills, on peak performance, on some type of content and a way to learn it better.

I spent six years doing that. It’s one of the places where I refined a lot of the ideas that I have and a lot of the techniques that I use. And Mary, I’ve had one or two students help me to edit that to make sure it looked a whole lot, made me look a whole lot smarter. And Mary was one of those students who spent probably two years with me editing that newsletter and doing an amazing job. And that’s where we talked a lot about some of those study techniques that she changed and how she changed some of her approaches. That newsletter has morphed into the 33 Days program. That’s really where I took all of that content and turned it into the lessons inside of that program.

So if you’re curious about how all that works and where all that content came from and wound up, that’s where you can find it. The last cohort in 2025 is going to be running November 1st through the beginning of December. So, if your test is December, January, or February, this would be an excellent time for you to head over to physicianassistantexamreview.com/33 and find out a little bit more about that program. But in the meantime, much more interesting is going to be the Master Class I’m hosting tonight that can actually have an impact on you immediately at physicianassistantexamreview.com/masterclass. Next week we’re going to be doing some really fun things for PA week so if you’re not on the email list, you won’t hear about it until next week’s podcast which will put you a little bit behind because we’re going to start on Monday but some really fun things going on there. So go ahead and get on the email list and make sure that you’re going to hear about that. You’re going to really want to be part of it.

Anyway, that’s it for today. Again, just take Mary’s story to heart. Share what you know, share where you’ve been, help someone sitting next to you. Everybody’s struggling, regardless of what you think is going on. You don’t know what’s going on. So lending a helping hand and just even sharing your story a little bit, not whining about it, not saying how hard things are, but sharing that, yeah, you’re struggling. Yeah, this is hard.

This is a difficult process. And everybody’s going to need some help. So being part of that conversation is incredibly valuable to the people around you.

All right, take care and I will talk to you next week and we’ll see you on during PA week. Thank you.