If I were back in the grind of PA school, knowing what I know now, I would be working extra hard on my habits and my routines. These are your rocks for getting you through the tough times.
Have you heard of Jocko Willink? He’s an ex-Navy SEAL bad-ass who commanded missions in the worst of Iraq. He’s written a couple of books you might want to get your hands on.
A favorite quote of mine from him is “Discipline = Freedom”
Another one of his strategies I talk about is “prioritize and execute”
When all hell breaks loose, choose the most important thing and do that first. Then choose the next most important thing and do that next. Simple, right? In theory, it’s easy, but not when the bullets are flying.
When we have a nasty comminuted fracture (lots of bone fragments) that needs to get fixed, do you know what we do first? We put two pieces together. Then we put together another piece, and so on.
Horrible trauma patients come in crashing, where do you start? Airway, Breathing and Circulation, right?
Create your list. Prioritize and execute. It always seems so much harder until you bring it back into perspective.
One thing that should be on your list of priorities is constant review. Not a lot of time, but a little. Dip into things from time to time, and your memory will hold them longer and longer each time.
The perfect tool for that is the The Final Step. It’s a quick review question book I wrote for exactly that purpose. Race though the most important things. Spend five minutes a day, and you’ll be rocking it.
Take a look here for more information:
www.physicianassistantexamreview.com/thefinalstep
Brian Wallace
P.S. A fantastic and fun way to get your hands on a copy of TFS is to set up a group order. You’ll get a major discount for your classmates, AND you’ll you get your copy included in the shipment at NO CHARGE, just for setting it up. It doesn’t take much work. Once we decide to run with it, I’ll set up a special checkout page for your classmates. Then I ship you the books and you hand them out. Hit reply if you think that sounds like something you’d like to check out.
