Week 1 ~ Getting Comfortable

Being in a new place is always a nerve-racking thing to get used to. Lucky for me, I already knew my mentor Crystal prior to starting this internship. Crystal has been a Family Medicine Physician Assistant for about 22 years now. As I was meeting everyone else at Wichita Primary Care, I quickly realized each of them are very kind and easy-going.

A Physician Assistant is a career that has always sparked interest to me. During my first week, I was able to experience the wide variety of patients with different medical conditions and ages that come to Crystal. I learned that her schedule for the day is never set in stone; people will often call and she will fit them into her schedule within the next few hours.
Logo for Wichita Primary Care

The weather was pretty bad my first day, so a lot of people cancelled their appointments. Crystal explained to me what a SOAP note was and that it is used for every patient. SOAP stands for subjective, objective, assessment, and plan. For the first patient we saw that morning, Crystal took their blood and showed me how you label it and send it off to the lab. We then saw a patient with a sore throat so Crystal gave me the opportunity to do a strep test, other than actually swabbing the patients throat, which Crystal did. 

Day two is what Crystal described as a more normal day because we were up on out feet more. The day started off with someone coming in for a normal checkup. Another person then came in with trouble breathing and complaints of leg pain. After Crystal checked out the patient, she made the decision to give the patient oxygen because it was difficult to take deep breathes. The spouse of the patient was called because Crystal didn't think it was smart for the patient to drive home and wanted the patient to go to the ER. A third patient came in with having a constant headache the past few days, so Crystal prescribed medication. I had such a great time over my first week of internship and am very excited for week two!

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