The city of brotherly love

This time last year I was a 3rd year p.a. student. I was also president of our student society, which among other pro's and con's, bought me a free ticket to our national conference in San Fransisco. Being the big homo that I am, I was pretty thrilled it was in the city by the bay; especially since I had (have) dreams of living there. I went with a few other classmates and it was the first time in my academic life as a budding young p.a. that I was able to sit and listen to people lecture about medical topics without furiously taking notes; second pass. I'd heard all of this before at least once and now larger bits and pieces were starting to sink in as I sat, willingly, lecture after lecture, learning about heart failure, the dental emergency and 10 things you need to know about diarrhea (lol).

It was luxurious. We stayed in a 4 star hotel, ate out breakfast, lunch and dinner, heard all these great lectures, and walked every inch of San Fransisco. In fact my good friend D and I would eat in a new neighborhood every night for dinner, then walk home from it after. It's a wonderful city if you ever get the chance to go, and go again; I would.

This year, I am a nationally certified P.A. and the conference is practically next door to my home in Philly. I have a little pocket CME money from my job that paid for the hefty registration fee. Aside from that, it's piecemeal this year. I have to work fri, sun, mon and I'm going to the conference around that work schedule; sat, tue and wed. I'm borrowing a car to come back and forth and while I thought I'd spoil myself and stay the one night on Tuesday, I had to cancel that for other obligations here in the city that evening. So it will be a bit more like work, than play; but I'm still excited.

I love what I do and I feel as though the folks that make the effort to go to these things also love what they do. I think I will feel more at ease mingling and talking shop with other P.A.'s instead of last year when I felt like an imposter. In fact this year I forked over another 250 myself to take some workshops on reading x-rays and EKG's and my favorite - suturing. I'd like to get back to the ER someday soon, and maybe this will launch me in that endeavor.

I always love a good opportunity to nerd out~