The other night one of the kids on my baseball team struck out looking. Immediately, he starts yelling, “Why is he lying!!!?? That wasn’t a strike! Why is he lying!??!”
The umpire is 12-year-old kid. It’s really hard to read someone’s mind, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say he wasn’t lying.
Here’s the point. I see the attitude my hitter expressed all too often in PA students.
A community member wrote in with a few issues with answers in The Final Step. One of the questions was about treating urethritis. The question in TFS asks, “What is the first line treatment for urethritis?” The answer in the book is Rocephin and Doxycycline. The person was concerned because she thought the answer should be Azithromycin. She isn’t wrong, but I’m not changing the answer in the book.
Here’s why:
First line is Azithromycin or Doxycycline as recommended by the CDC
First line is Doxycycline and Rocephin as recommended by The American Academy of Family Physicians
Medicine isn’t always clear cut, but here’s the hard part: No one is lying or out to get you.
Should we give them Zofran? No, probably not. Should we give them an antibiotic? Yes, of course. After that it starts to get cloudy. You’re treating an uncultured infection. It will depend on what you “think” the bug most likely is – what’s most likely in your area of the country/world.
Many times you will find different recommendations from different physician bodies. You will even find conflicting recommendations and those that you just flat out disagree with.
(Specifically, I’m thinking of the FDA black box warning on the laparoscopic power morcellator. Even though our current solution is more elegant, I don’t believe it was banned for the right reasons.)
Are you supposed to eat egg yolks or not? Does stress cause stomach ulcers?
This is frustrating, especially as you’re getting ready for your exam, I know. It drove me nuts. I’m very black and white. But sometimes that doesn’t work.
Remember to breathe. No one is out to get you. No one is trying to trick you. But sometimes your perfectly right answer may be wrong. The test makers know that, so they try to stay away from grey zones.
There’s a lot more to passing PA school and the PANCE than just the medicine. Let me help:
Physician Assistant Exam Scholars
Brian Wallace