Saif, McMaster PA-S1

Saif is a first year McMaster PA student originally from Hamilton, Ontario. He obtained a BSc in Kinesiology at McMaster prior to entering the PA program.

Applying to a University Program Out of High School

I was drawn towards the sciences coming out of high school, and for university I applied to a Kinesiology program as well as to the Life Science program.

On acceptance, I had to decide between a Kinesiology and Life Science undergraduate degree:

With Kinesiology the content just seemed more practical – with coursework about the body, anatomy & physiology, and anatomy labs.

With a Sciences undergraduate degree it was more chemistry, physics, biology, microbiology, etc. which was more focused on the theoretical compared to a Kin Degree.

I was drawn towards being hands-on, and learning on a more macro scale would give me a pretty good understanding of the human body, which I was mostly interested in.

My Undergraduate Extracurricular Activities

McMaster Dance Team – The first extracurricular I was part of was the McMaster Dance Team, which includes a contemporary and urban side – and I was on the hip hop team. I’ve always kind of had a love for dance as its been a passion of mine since I was young.

This was my first experience being on a team, and the experience shaped me a lot. It put me around like-minded people who had the same kind of passion as me. This reignited my love for dance, but also gave me a second family within a team.

McMaster Kinesiology Society – I joined the McMaster Kinesiology Society as a second year student representative along with my cousin. This experience was my introduction to overseeing things that happened within the program and organizing events for the students.

In third year, I became the VP social, which meant planning the semi-formal and clothing events. This required more broader responsibilities than being a second year representative. I would instead focus on planning events affecting the entire program as well as extracurriculars.

Superhero Training Academy –  I was also a volunteer throughout my university career at the Superhero Training Academy at McMaster, which is a program that pairs McMaster students with children or teens who have special needs.

For once a week for an hour, you are paired with a child or teen, and you exercise with them and promote healthy living and an active lifestyle. If they’re much younger, then you tend to do activities with the kids, but if they’re older then you are leading them through a  workout. This experience reaffirmed my passion of helping people and bringing joy to others, as well as the desire to promote health and wellbeing. Some of the kids were inspiring – in how hard they worked or how great their outlook was on life.

Deciding to Pursue PA

I went through a long journey to get to where I am today.

In high school, actually grade 10, I was looking towards business.

And then I don’t remember the exact moment or what caused it, there was a shift in my thinking and I started gravitating towards the sciences and I think that stemmed kind of from the ‘wanting to help people’ aspect. Now I know a lot of people want to “help people”, but I think I sort of had this thought or idea of wanting to be that person who can drastically help someone in medical need. In hospital, patients come to you at their worst – they’re broken, they’re tired or there’s something wrong – and if they need help, I saw myself fitting into that role and being able to handle that responsibility.

I think it takes a certain person with the right amount of empathy but also the right amount of being able to handle the emotional toll that it can have to have someone in their worst of times relying on you. And I felt that I had that.  So my end goal became to work in healthcare.

Naturally as most people do, the first thought was pursuing medicine or becoming a physician. With that I mind, I took all the sciences that I needed and applied to Sciences and Kinesiology at McMaster and University of Toronto. And then my journey of “I’m going to med school, what do I have to do, to get that to happen” started.

So I started taking all of the recommended courses like Chemistry and Biology and experienced all the ups and downs of grades, motivation that comes with applying to medical school.

I wrote the MCAT after third year and it didn’t go the greatest, unfortunately. My marks were also not the greatest in third year, so that was demotivating, but I was still headstrong on trying again and making fourth year better and rewriting the MCAT. So I still applied just to get to the process of applying and getting used to what it takes to apply to med schools but I didn’t expect to get in because of my MCAT score.

I applied and in the meantime,  I knew that I wasn’t going to be doing anything next year because I wasn’t going to get into any med schools.

How I stumbled upon the PA Program

So I started looking into other programs that were short in duration so in case I did get in, then I could move on to med school after. I looked into one-year master’s programs at McMaster and other schools.

I actually stumbled upon the PA program when my friend mentioned it to me, and explained the application did not require references, and I had to just submit my transcript to get started.

So I applied and got an email back with a link to the timed video and written McMaster PA supplementary application information. So I thought, “Okay, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it properly.”

I started looking into the program and looking into the profession a lot more and that’s where my physician assistant journey began.

And I remembered encountering a PA while shadowing an Emergency Doctor back in second year university, and I remembered how cool her position was and I could easily see myself doing that as well. As I was doing my research about the profession, this idea of becoming a PA felt more and more like a real possibility for me.

I thought that maybe I should just pursue this and I made it a mission to either prove myself wrong or prove myself right, to either convince myself that I am going to do med school or I’m going to become a PA.

I started talking to everyone that I knew who was involved in the program, who is a PA, who got in and accepted, and those who got in but also rejected their offer. I was also watching YouTube videos about PAs as well.

I did end up securing an invite to the PA Multi-Mini Interview (MMI) and so, dived even deeper into it. And then I did the MMI and then I got in and that kind of rotated my entire world around because now the possibility of me becoming a PA became real.

And so, I talked to more people and I got to know more things about the program and the position, and I was self-reflecting a lot. What really was the turning point in my journey was all of my own self-reflection.

I looked back at my initial motivation of why I wanted to do medicine. In my mind I wanted to go into healthcare to help people who are in need of help, medical help. And I automatically went to “Physician” because that’s what everyone goes to. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s the only way to do it.

Many people help people in need that are in the medical field. This includes nurses, physiotherapists, respiratory therapists, physicians and Physician Assistants – and they do so in many ways.

PAs are doing a physician’s job in a sense and they are helping, assessing, treating and managing patients. So why not? Why, what’s, what’s the takeaway from this?

During the time of admissions, I was also in a course in my second semester where we had to do weekly reflections, which was the work-self and purpose course. You explore your personality and what type of person you are and look at what career might be best for you.

And through those self-reflections, I could see myself transition from saying, “Oh, maybe this might be like the right thing to me” to “I think this is actually the right thing for me“. Even today, that self-reflection is still a process, assuming this role on becoming this person.

Overtime I fell in love with the PA profession. 

I fell in love with the advocacy and I had a lot of reasons over time because I was learning so much about it.

“The reasons that I chose to pursue the PA Profession is because I wanted to help people who are in medical need of help and the PA profession allows me to do that.

I am also a fan of the two years of education of PA school instead of the seven+ years of medical school.

The lateral mobility, or ability to switch specialties as a PA, was a big selling factor for me.”

Also, to explore my future, I made three different possible 5-year plans.

One Five-Year Plan was med school, one was PA and one was becoming a dancer that traveled globally.

But in those five-year plans, with med school, after the five years I was in residency still. And in the five year plan pursuing PA, my life was more established –  I had like a new car, a dog, I am debt free and it just looked like a nice life and a life that I kind of wanted to live, and I was working. So I value that.

The option of being able to move to a different specialty without more school, or re-doing a residency (like physicians do) was pivotal in my decision.

And in the end, there is great work-life balance of being a physician assistant (depending on your specialty of course).

There are also other values and goals I have in my life too – including places I want to travel, things I want to see, time with family and continuing to participate in dance – and still being able to make time for that.  I don’t want my life to become my job. So with all of that, these goals really fit well with the PA program and being a PA.

Tips for Students Deciding between PA vs. MD

To decide between becoming a PA or MD it takes self-reflection and being honest with yourself. It’s easy to convince yourself of one thing even though you don’t actually fully believe in it. It’s tough to overcome, and it took me a long time to get to.

For me to make the decision of PA vs. MD, it took talking to a lot of people. Talking to people who have gone through it,  people who were important to you, or people who have experiences similar to this who can give you perspective on the decision you have to make.

Because sometimes you can get tunnel vision and you just focus on one thing and you don’t consider other perspectives and other options (e.g. Only pursuing MD!). Expanding your horizons in that sense is definitely something I would recommend.

Also just researching and watching tons of YouTube videos of people explaining their experience, like this video or other videos on the Canadian PA Youtube Channel.

What Are Your Values? You should also be asking yourself self-reflective questions (and answer by journaling) on:

• What is important to you?

• Where are your actual values?

• Do you need the title of MD or do you just want an avenue to help people?

• Do you need to be the leader in a group?

Another thing to consider when you’re trying to pick a career is:

• Are you picking it for the title?

• Are you picking it for the status, the prestige?

• Are you picking it because of what it allows you to do?

Do you want to help people? Remember – being a Physician allows you to help people, but ALSO being a physician assistant allows you to provide health care to patients too. Being a nurse also allows you to do the same thing. There’s obviously different degrees of health care that you’re providing, but at the end of the day, if your reason to become a physician is to help people, then that’s a reason to become a lot of things.

Do you need the title? – You also have to think about the title too, are you okay with being not called “a physician” or “a doctor”?  Is it important to have “Dr” or MD as part of your name/title? Everyone, regardless of title, provides a really important role in healthcare and I think that’s a hard pill to swallow for some people.

Understand that different roles in health care are important to –A physician has a different role than a physician assistant. The physician is the supervising member in the sense that if something goes wrong, then health care staff often consult/look to the physician. So if you have something within you where you strongly feel you need to be the leader with a title in every circumstance, you also have to be okay with limitations that come with a PA scope of practice too – such as requiring medical directives as a PA in Ontario (not the case in other provinces or in the United States)

In surgery, the MD would be doing the actual surgery, whereas the PA would likely be surgical first assist, or taking care of inpatient/ward management while the surgeon is in surgery. You have to consider all of those differences, because PA is a different role and there is a different level of responsibility, and different tasks that are completed.

My GPA for PA School

It’s interesting because in undergrad, I rarely ever shared my GPA and I think that kind of speaks to the differences between Undergrad and being in professional school because in Undergrad, there was this unspoken competition between people.

And when you told someone in your GPA, it could change their perspective of you. They might look for you to get some extra help or view you as adversarial if they’re competing against you – and it is just was an uncomfortable experience at times.

My cumulative GPA of all four years of kinesiology was a 3.64, but I was personally aiming for a higher GPA, I would have liked it, a higher GPA, but in the end of the day, I think it’s reflective of kind of who I am in terms of, I know why I got that GPA.

My first year was my worst year (as most people have that experience) and that’s just because I was more excited by the university experience then about grades, which is natural.  In second year, everything flipped, and it was my best year academically – I was basically “head down in books” all the time – and it worked out academically. But I was felt like I was missing something.

My level of excitement, content / happiness was kind of just stagnant, probably because there wasn’t really much happening in my life. I was focusing a lot and I realized that I needed balance even though I was achieving great marks.

In third year, I became heavily involved in extracurriculars and I spread myself thin on a lot of different responsibilities and roles – and that ended up bringing my GPA back down. It was another learning experience to learn about who I am and what I can handle. And you know, having a lot of roles and responsibilities is good, but if you can’t do them all effectively, then it’s not worth it. It’s better to do two things and do them really well then to do five things and do them all below average.

So I realized that. And so then fourth year I kind of cut back a little and found a happy balance between everything. And there’s also very an existential year of trying to figure out who I am as a human.

How I studied

You learn that every class requires a different study method or study technique.

In first year Kinesiology, we had anatomy & physiology that requires a little bit more rote memorization – memorizing and then spitting them back out on a multiple choice exam. And then as you progressed through Kinesiology program – the classes get smaller and the tests tend to be more written short answer.

So that requires a different type of studying because it requires a different type of understanding. It’s not recognition anymore. Now it’s recall. So with the recall, you’d have to be able to remember the information but also communicate your information on paper. And I think that requires more than just understanding the material but also practicing the material. And I think that’s probably one of the best pieces of advice I could give for studying is practicing – you can read a textbook 10 times versus reading it twice and then trying to explain it to your friend or, or write it down on a piece of paper.

As for tips on getting a good GPA and getting ahead in general – is very subjective. Everyone has different weaknesses and different strengths. Some people have great memory and can easily memorize information, and others need to look at it a hundred times to remember it. You have to experiment with what works. But I think practicing is never a bad idea.

For example, a few days before the test, just take an empty piece of paper and then write everything that you know about one topic and see what you’re missing, see what you got wrong and then refine it from there. I used that technique for certain courses that required short answer questions and I saw a drastic improvement in my marks.

My Experience at McMaster’s PA Program

What is Problem Based Learning (PBL)?

Problem Based Learning is used in many health care programs at McMaster University. The Nursing program, Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc), Physiotherapy, Speech Language Pathology (SLP).

PBL is where you take a problem and then you learn from it. What that looks like in the PA program is that in tutorial you are given a case. The case is a trigger for a research question and learning objectives.

So and then when you come together, it’s not a lecture style. It’s tutorial, which is seven to eight people in a room with a tutor who will guide you along when you are straying from the path and you all come together after doing your research and you just discuss what you’ve learned and seeing where you have differences in research.

If there’s a difference in what was found, or if someone does not understand, you can explain. And you’re kind of just using this group-based setting to learn about the problem and to be able to solve the problem. So when you have a problem, you’re trying to find the solutions and learning solutions is the main part. So the problem gives you a solution.

My favourite PBL Resources –
Medical Textbooks including  Toronto Notes (now called Essential Med Notes), which provides you  the Canadian perspective or Canadian guidelines on, on long list of different diseases and complications and it condenses it really well.

I also like using UptoDate.com because I’ve heard that it’s used pretty frequently in clinic and hospitals use it a lot. So I thought I should get used to it too. I have gotten somewhat used to it. There’s a lot of information. If you go to the summary tab it condenses it pretty well.

I also like to use AMBOSS, which provides also really good summaries and connect this information is the most important stuff. They provide links to videos.

I like watching Khan Academy videos, or any organization that does YouTube videos on diseases.

I watched a variety of those to get kind of a better picture and because sometimes being taught stuff is definitely helpful in those videos. They’re usually 10 minutes long so you can re-watch it a few times and add that to your notes.

It’s about using a variety of resources and finding resources that work for you, what kind your palate can, can take, is, is the best idea. I know a lot of people use a lot of different resources, but there’s some that are more popular than others like AMBOSS’s are popular and up to date. And watching Khan Academy videos or Osmosis videos are definitely a popular option.

Classes in 1st year PA School

Tutorial – We have tutorial, and tutorials is where we learned our content through Problem Based Learning. 

Interviewing Examination & Reasoning (IER) – And then we have our I.E.R class so interviewing, examining and reasoning. And that is basically our clinical skills class where we learn how to take a history, how to take vitals or how to do a physical exam, listening to the heart, lungs, abdominal exam, lymphoid exam.

Wednesdays, which is our kind of flex day. We have communications class, which happens once a month. And that’s basically how we learn and practice talking to difficult patients or patients that are going through difficult scenarios that are a little bit more touchy.

This class is more just about communicating. You normally don’t have to bring knowledge or content. It’s kind of just being empathetic and relating to a patient. So for example, a patient who just found out that they have cancer, how do you approach that and how do you talk to them?

Professional Competencies (Pro Comp) – On some Wednesdays we have our professional competencies class and that’s where when we have usually a subject matter expert come in and explain a topic to us. These topics can include health policies, Canadian government, learning about the history of the PA role, PA advocacy, how social media affects the profession, affects healthcare, and learning about the interactions between PAs and other stakeholders. As well as what people are saying about PAs and their perspectives on them. So we are more well-rounded PA’s and clinicians when we’re working.

Large Group Sessions (LGS) – And then we also have LGS’s, which are large group sessions. These include learning about ECG or spirometry, other investigations. Sometimes we have sessions about a disease, so we’ve had sessions on congestive heart failure, and maternal complications during pregnancy.

Longitudinal Placements (LPs)

Longitudinal Placements (LP’s) are clinical placements that the students organize, and there are basically four half days per LP (approximately 16 hours). And LP’s can be completed with any specialty, or any PA or doctor.

The PA students organize them – finding contacts and putting together a schedule or a time. I really enjoy LPs as they allow you to explore anything that you’re interested in.

So if you are really interested in geriatrics, you can do a LP in geriatrics. I have personally done an LP in family medicine, Cardiac ICU and in the ER and all three were great. I had amazing preceptors for all three, and all were with practicing Canadian Physician Assistants who had been working for a while.

The PAs that I did LPs with all understand where I am in the PA program, and they have a lot of experience taking on students.

They were really good at teaching me and allowing me a glimpse into their life.

They also took time to just talk to me about what they go through their day-to-day, things they think about, things that they kind of encounter and their perspective on the profession, and on the future of the profession. We had really good conversations in the time that I was with them, and I really enjoyed that aspect. My PA Preceptors became my role models in a sense of -like- one day I want to be like them and also advocating for the profession, but also just being a great PA.

The PAs were all very respected and shared collegiality with the nurses and physicians they work with. So a big goal of mine is to, as a PA, integrate well within the health care team.

Second Year of PA School

Second year PA school is our clerkship year, which means that we rotate through different specialties and there’s varying lengths of specialties.

There are different streams of clerkship – one stream could be that you do three months of family medicine at the beginning, then ER for one month, followed by one of month general surgery, internal medicine and then a one month elective.

So although you are still a PA student, you are expected to see patients – do assessments, make differential diagnoses and work with a physician as a physician assistant would to get the experience of what it’s actually like to be one.

And so in that four months, or however long you hope to gain that experience, gain that knowledge, kind of dip your toe into what it might look like to work in that specialty and hopefully we find out where we think we will work best.

I’m excited for all of it. To be honest I came into the PA Program being drawn to emergency medicine and working in the emergency department. But now after doing a few different placements (LPs) in different places, I realized that I could find, you know, passion or love in almost any specialty because you see so many different types of patients and every specialty kind of have kind of has a different vibe or a different atmosphere when you walk into it.

So a family medicine clinic will obviously feel different when you walk in versus an emergency department or an ICU. The patients vary drastically in those 3 settings.

I would also be interested in doing a rural placement to see a what a rural hospital looks like and how they function.

The PA program at McMaster also allows us to do international electives if we want. So I know some students in the past that are working now have done international electives. I would also want to keep that option for myself.

I think it would be a really good experience in seeing how healthcare is handled in a different country, and I hope to use that experience to become a better PA.

So yes, I’m excited for the entire 12 months after September.

What I enjoy about attending McMaster’s PA Program

I really enjoy the people I’ve met at McMaster’s PA Program. I’m lucky enough to be with a lot of great people. I’ve become really good friends with these, with, with the students that I’m with. We’ve bonded over a lot of, you know, hardships and stress, but also we’ve gone out and hung out at people’s houses and it’s just kind of, we all know what we’re going through. No one knows what you’re going through like PA students when you’re also a PA student.

I really value that face to face contact. So I see my tutorial group twice a week for three hours each. So six hours with my tutorial group. I see my clinical skills group, which is a different group, three hours a week. And then I see another group in communications once a month. Then we have pro comps where I see everybody, so we see each other pretty often.

I value the preceptors and the tutors that we’ve had. They’ve all been just really great and I think I’ve been especially lucky because I keep getting paired or put into groups with people that I think that are just amazing.

“They advocate for practical and clinical content, they advocate for our learning and they want us to be prepared for next year and clerkship and prepared for the real world.

They’re not just doing this just because it’s something to do – they’re really invested in us and I really appreciate that and I think I will be that much of a better PA because I’ve had such great experiences with the McMaster PA tutors and preceptors.”

And also, McMaster’s is kind of like my home. I did my four years there. I’m from Hamilton so I didn’t have to adjust to a new school in any way. I have my set places that like to study, places I like to get food. I know where the dance studio is.

Choosing to join the McMaster PA Program was probably the best decision I could’ve made.

The Ideal PA Student

There’s a lot of different things that I’ve noticed in others and in myself that I think have helped and things that haven’t helped.

Being okay without structure is helpful.

So what I mean is that in Undergrad you have your lectures and they tell you what everything you need to know. In McMaster’s PA Program, it’s not like that at all. It’s more of, “this is the topic you need to know about. Go and learn about the topic.”

It’s definitely a transition putting all of your learning into your own hands. Not having the lectures to rely on, it’s your own notes completely. That kind of takes a certain type of person to accept that responsibility and accept that stress.

You’ll do better in the PA program if you do well with stress. So, I think especially in the PA program and you have the stress of knowing enough that you can use it, because we’re not learning this content to just do well on a test. We are learning it to help people one day

There’s also the stress of being an advocate for a PA because a lot of people don’t know what a PA is and you have to explain that a lot of times. Your elevator speech becomes pristine after  a couple of months of being a PA/PA Student and you have to be okay with advocating for something that people don’t know about. People question people, sometimes underappreciate, or they just don’t know enough because it’s not as well-known as other professions in Canada.

So you have to be okay with being that voice and sometimes that can be stressful, but sometimes, you know, it becomes a joy or you will, I enjoy advocating for it, but I do feel, you know, when there are seven people around me and they all don’t know what a PA is and I have to explain to all of them and it’s the fourth time I’ve done it, it, it can kind of take a little bit of a toll.

Other than that, I think versatility is definitely something that helps being able to jump from one specialty to another really quickly, cause we spend about a month and a half, to a month, maybe two months on, on each unit. So you are doing, you know, cardiology for a month and a half and you’re switching right to respiratory, then you’re the other way around, but, or then you’re going to hematology and you’re kind of going through content very quickly and you have to be okay with that, that you’re not spending a whole week on one disease; you’re spending like a few days on it and you’re moving on. And then at the end you’re kind of amalgamating everything into this clinical picture or clinical understanding.

Being able to critically think and use problem solving is definitely a good skill to have because the tests aren’t just multiple choice recognition, just like, memorization. It’s like, here’s another problem, solve the problem. So you have to be able to think outside the box. You have to be able to apply the content you’ve learned.

Being an excellent communicator is essential – and this is a skill you can work on, but there is a certain factor that kind of – some people have it, some people don’t. And I don’t want to discourage anyone, but I think you can work on it.

I’ve noticed that everyone in the program I’ve seen just has a certain way about them, a certain presentation when they talk to patients and they just know how to talk to them. They know how to show genuine empathy to someone who’s going through something hard and they can take it seriously. Even though when they know it’s not a real patient, they still feel for them because they know that like this could be real one day.

So being able to do that, being able to assume that role and relate to someone that you’ve never met before is another skill. So, if you’re not good at awkward silences then that’s something to work on. If you’re not good at seeing someone cry or break down in front of you, it’s something to work on. But being able to do that, to stay professional but also empathetic – it is a tough balance, but it’s important to PA role.

PA Admissions Tips

McMaster PA Supplemental Application Process

Some of the most common questions I get from Pre-PAs are usually around PA Admissions. So, questions like, what does the application process include.

In McMaster’s PA Program, the first step is to send in your transcript. McMaster does not require a reference letter or CV. Then if you make the 3.0 GPA out of 4.0 cut off, then you’re provided the email with a link to the supplementary application.

The McMaster PA Supplemental Application is a video/written interview that you do online at home, in the year that I applied. It consists of two video questions and two written questions. You watch a video of someone asking a question, and then you record a video of yourself answering that question within a time limit.

In the two written questions, you read each question and then type your answer out within a time limit.

My advice is to practice methods and ideas of answering supplementary application or interview style, MMI style questions or CASPer which is something that people write for medical and nursing admissions.

Learning about medical ethics and the four pillars of medical ethics is important – such as autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.

Also, practice talking. Just practice speaking out loud to a camera because that’s a very unnatural thing, even though I’m doing right now, but it’s something you have to get used to, something you have to get comfortable with. And when you’re comfortable, you come across as confident, and you can be in any situation and not falter because as much as the supplementary application is looking at what you say, they’re looking at how you say it.

So, if you are really uncomfortable or if you stammering or stuttering or saying “ums or ahs” or have a “deer in the headlights reaction” then that’s not a good sign.

I think recording yourself, watching for those little things in your demeanour and your posture and your facial expression, and then teasing those things out. Taking “umms, and ahh’s” out of your vocabulary, which is one of the hardest things to do, it’s something to work on, especially because it’s a video interview and you’re not talking to a human – you’re literally talking to a camera and that feels very different than talking to a person.

The Multi-Mini Interview for McMaster’s PA Program

If you pass the supplementary application, next is the MMI or multiple mini interview, and that is basically 12 stations with two rest stations. 2 of the 12 are rest stations.

So you have 10 questions, you’ve got two minutes to read the question and then six minutes to answer.

So, the question is on a door, you read the question for two minutes, think about it and knock on the door, walk in, discuss your answer and then the six minute buzzer goes off, you get to go the next door and then repeat the process.

My advice for preparing for the MMI would be to use the same preparation as the supplementary application. It’s a game of communication. Work on communicating an idea and skills in problem solving.

I would say it’s more about – can you approach a situation and consider all perspectives and see the positives and negatives of the choice that you make. So, structuring your answer and finding a kind of a skeleton that works for multiple questions.

It’s definitely something I would recommend and doing that requires research. So, look into YouTube and just look at videos of people answering questions or giving advice on how to answer an MMI question because, and look at lots of them, but in the end, don’t just take one and use it. Make your own.

Practice and  see what works, adjust to what doesn’t work and what does, and make your own unique skeleton or a structure to an answer and bring a unique perspective to it because you’re interviewing against people and you don’t want to, you don’t want to blend in, you want to stand out.

Finding that unique voice is definitely really important and that just requires practice. So, talk to your friend, ask them to find a list of MMI questions. You can find them easily online and then just give the question to your friend and then have them ask you a question, thinking about it and then answer the question and they’ll give you feedback right on the spot right there. And people who have gone through it are definitely helpful to give you feedback.

Also be genuine, be a human. Don’t become a really professional robot because that’s not who people are. Patients don’t want a robot. They want someone who cares, a person who is advocating for them.

How I developed strong Communication skills

To develop strong communication skills, I practiced. My trajectory in life has allowed me to practice a lot. From grade nine, I was a drama student – I loved drama. The aspect of Drama that I liked the most was Improvisation and that’s where the teacher gives you a scenario, gives you who you are and where you are, and then you go and you just start making up a scene on the spot. And it’s a hard thing to do because not only are you saying things and someone with you is saying something too,  but you also have to react to them and it’s a “yes and” game and you’re just adding together and that requires a certain part of your brain to come up with things to say on the spot.

And it’s hard. But I loved it and I enjoyed it because it’s a lot of humor involved, a lot of thinking on your feet, which is a skill. But since I liked it, it was easy to continue doing and I got better at it over time and we had improv competitions and I just, it was a great time.

And I had some significant roles in the plays and that kind of took away a little bit of the stage fright that you have of performance because performance is everywhere. In the interview, you are performing, you are presenting yourself and so performance in any regard improves how you will know how you will perform in other regards.

So even in dance, I danced in front of people and that that takes a certain type of confidence to do because you are being judged by all of these people and in an interview you’re being judged by one or like three people or something like that, right?

Being okay with being judged and being confident in your own ability is something that I had to work on and you only do that by stepping out of your comfort zone and like forcing yourself to do that. For me – I took roles in plays, I was the Valedictorian in high school and so I gave a speech at a Grad breakfast to run for it. And I enjoyed it, had fun.

In university I continued Improv. I also was the valedictorian for kinesiology, and again, that’s probably just because I was valedictorian in my high school and people knew that so they just put me there.

I’m confident in speaking in front of people, but I’m also not, there’s also obviously nerves that come along with that, but I pushed through it and I forced myself to become uncomfortable because the more I do that, the window of uncomfortableness will shrink. And my window of being comfortable in certain situations increases. And when it’s this, when it gets big enough, there’ll be comfortable in almost any situation including interviews. So being comfortable immediately connects to communication and also just talking to people. Like, one of my favorite things to do in life is just talk one-on-one, or like one on one with people who are interested or who are willing to just talk about like why super speed is the best superpower. Like just having a two-hour conversation about that and seeing where it goes and just being able to like relate to someone is something that I enjoy and that I’m naturally drawn towards. So, because I kept doing that throughout my life, I’ve gotten better at communicating my ideas and yeah, and just being self critical too at times when you need to be. So if it’s for an interview, you have to be, okay, where do my weaknesses lie and what do I need to improve on?

Tips for Introverts on Communication

If you have a friend that you are comfortable with, talk to them and, and have a conversation that you aren’t very knowledgeable about, for example. Or we’re just having a, but like putting aside time, like we’re going to have a conversation about this and just feeling a little bit uncomfortable because you don’t know the topic well.

Like I mentioned before, recording yourself and seeing what you look like as you think, as you talk, as you see what it looks like from someone else’s point of view is huge because you don’t see yourself when you’re talking.

Also use your resources, watching YouTube videos on MMI, using your resources, watching YouTube, and also just getting advice from people who are comfortable with talking and find out what’s worked for them.

I think growth in any sense is found in the discomfort zone. When you are not comfortable, that’s when you grow. Whether you’re extroverted or introverted in either sense.  I feel like I’m slightly extroverted, but I still push myself to become uncomfortable in certain scenarios. So, move out of your comfort zone in the communication sense.

And you’ll see improvement over a long period of time but it requires work.

PA School is not a stepping stone to Medical School

Another common question was that I got when I came into the, into the physician assistant program was, “What are you going to do after the PA Program? Are you going to go to med school after PA? Or are you going to go to Grad school after?”

And at first it, because I told my family and I told people around me that I was going for med school, I felt like a need to like say like, “Oh, you know what, maybe I will do med school after,” just because like I felt this kind of pressure because people were like, “Oh, physician assistant. Okay, well what about med school?” because that’s what people know.

So, it was tough, but I realized that, you know, a physician assistant program and the physician, the position itself is its own position. It is not a stepping stone into med school. It’s not a stepping stone to become a physician. It’s something that that should be valued, and it has its own role in healthcare.

Physician Assistants help patients, and they also directly help physicians by offloading some of their workload and they are important to the Canadian health system. And so, they should have the same or they should have a lot of value put towards them. It shouldn’t be something that, is seen as something to get experience and then to like use in an interview for med school because if you apply to the PA program and you aren’t actually interested in being a PA, then you’re taking away that opportunity for someone else who really wants to. And some people will apply to this program many times and who want to be a PA and don’t get in.

And you know, it’s really unfortunate for them when someone else who gets in who doesn’t really want to be a PA anyway takes that position and away from them. And maybe that cycle they would’ve got in if you didn’t accept or if you didn’t apply.

But again, at the end of the day, it’s, you have to do what’s best for you and you have to find what you love.

“If you don’t love what you’re doing, we have the luxury now of like finding something that we love, and that wasn’t always here. I feel that especially when I talked to my parents, they didn’t follow what they loved, they followed what would support the family. But now we have the privilege of following what we love. So, I’m trying to take full advantage of that. I think if one day I don’t love being a PA, then I have to re-evaluate things and I have to look at myself and ask myself, “What am I missing and how can I fill that gap?”

And at the end of the day, it is all about being honest with yourself. What do you want from life? Where do you see yourself in the future and is what you’re doing now helping that happen?

Talking to your Parents about becoming a PA

Personally I went through an experience where, I didn’t really like- it wasn’t a big conversation topic of PA school and it kind of just, med school was still like a thing that I was like, “That’s going to happen though one day,” and so it was hard to- for me to first stick to that and then also get my parents on board in the same way. So, I think there’s not one conversation that you can have. It’s many conversations over time and you showing your passion for it.

But you can start with explaining to your parents what a physician assistant is, maybe showing them a video of a physician assistant or showing them statistics of what they do or actual factual information.

If they’re resistant to the idea, instead of kind of fishing for why they’re against it, just asking them, you know, what, what is stopping you from accepting this? And then when they tell you, your parents can share their concerns and you can address it there.

But at the end of the day, it’s just, apply. Like- you don’t need parental permission on the, on the application. I think they, you have to live your own life and that’s something that’s hard for some people. Having a family that really cares about me and wants the best for me, I want to make them proud and I want them to be happy with what I’m doing with my life.

My parents came from a different country and they came here to give me a better opportunity and I want to use that to my fullest advantage. So, it’s a tough conversation because no one wants to disregard their parents.  I still value what my parents will say to me to the highest degree. But at the end of the day you have to live your life for yourself because your parents aren’t always going to be there telling you what to do with your life.  You’ll be living your own life.

At that point, when you look back at your decision to apply to med school, PA school, etc. you can ask yourself “What did I do this for? Did I do it for me? Did I do it from my parents?” If you’re not happy and you did it for your parents, then, you know, it’s, it’s a tough thing to face.

So, you might as well do what you find your love or passion or drive for in. And if you end up not liking it at the end, the only person you have to blame is yourself. That is better than blaming your parents because they have done a lot for you and want what’s best for you. But at this age when you’re, you’ve gone through life and you’ve kind of explored all options, you usually will know what’s best.

My Parents Acceptance after PA School

At the beginning, of course, because no one really knows what a physician assistant is, my parents initially weren’t overly supportive, but also because they weren’t aware of what a PA was.

And because I told them I was going to go to med school, they’re like, “Oh, okay. So, like, you’re going to do that after that,” which is, isn’t their fault in any way? It’s because it’s something that we’ve, we agreed upon or we talked about over time. So, but after me like being in the program, I’m telling them, oh, this is what they can do. The other day I did this, like I put stitches in someone, I’m seeing patients on my own and essentially providing health care, you are doing a lot of the things that a doctor does.

We all know, the term “Assistant” comes with a certain stereotype or a certain perspective on, on what assistant means. So especially when people don’t know what a Physician Assistant is at all, the word assistant just kind of stands out over the physician part.

So instead of your parents seeing just the word “Assistant”, they see it more as an actual profession. Over time, my parents now fully support everything, and you know, I owe everything to them still.

My parents are happy for my choice to pursue PA, continue to motivate me and are proud of me – and I feel that from them. So, it’s really good to have that support.

And because my parents are understanding people, it was my communication with them over time, helping to change their perspective on the PA position just as it changed mine. So, it’s a process, even for parents.