Life filled with PAssion

Good afternoon! This post will be about my volunteer experience at UPMC East Hospital located in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. This occurred during both the summer and school year, and I accumulated over 100 hours of service altogether. I worked at UMPC on the Emergency Room level restocking the rooms with various medical and household supplies. The items ranged from bed pans and sickness bags to bed linens and heated towels. I had a cart that was fully stocked with these materials and I would make rounds to all of the rooms to make sure that they had everything that they needed. I would also give the proper equipment to any medical team staff on duty. Even though I did not have a ton of hands-on medical experience with patients, I did interact with them a lot. Through these interactions, I learned proper bedside manners and how to treat patients who were severely ill and in a lot of pain with respect. I was often the only visitor for many patients, so I learned how important it was t

Today's post is going to discuss what physician assistants do in the work place! During my freshman year at Duquesne, I took a class that taught me about the role that PAs serve in the medical field. The exact freedom of a physician assistant varies based on the practice or hospital that they are working for. Overall, they preform primary care exams on patients and come up with diagnoses and treatment plans for the patients. Some PAs are even able to prescribe certain medications, it all depends on the place of work. They also work with other professionals in their medical team such as: physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, nurses, medical doctors, and doctors of osteopathic medicine. It is important that physician assistants are able to work with all kinds of people and are able to keep their calm when faced with challenging situations. These are two skills that I will need to focus on improving throughout my professional career. Additionally, PA

Today I wanted to start my first official blog post by reflect on a shadowing experience that I had at the LifeCare Hospital in Wilkinsburg, PA! I worked with a former graduate from the Physician Assistant program at Duquesne named Alex. We met with several patients and she explained the process of seeing and documenting patients in different areas of the hospital. There were several patients that we saw which required us to dress in full protective wear (gown, mask, gloves). At one point, Alex even let me touch and evaluate a patient's bed wound. The wound was so severe that it had bore through all layers of the patient's skin and had reached her bone. The patient was in severely suffering and was crying out from her pain. Alex remained calm however, and explained clearly and effectively to the patient how the hospital staff was going to take care of the wound. That made the patient calm down and stop crying out. This interaction served to be very eye-opening for me because

Hi! My name is Meredith and I am an junior at Duquesne University. I enjoy swimming and reading in my free time, as well as spending time with my family. This blog was created in order to share my story of pursuing a Physician Assistant degree with you! My posts will mainly discuss different advancements in the medical field, as well as my own research and experience with my major. Thanks for stopping by, enjoy!