A Note to the PA Class of 2012

UPDATE: Spouses need a little love, too.

For those that don't know, my wife is studying here to be a physician assistant. Many of the students will wake up, get out of bed, and go to school 39 more times this semester, including Saturdays and Sundays. A lot can happen in 39 days. It's about half the length of an NHL or NBA playoff season. Then there's a year of rotations before graduation in May of 2012. They haven't asked me to speak at commencement yet, but we all know that's coming shortly. Here, I offer my hypothetical words of questionable wisdom.

Tell people to wear sunscreen.

You will have more theoretically important roles in your careers. Some of you will slice and dice in neuro surgery. Others will happily work with underserved populations or with children. Whatever the case and whatever the job, wearing sunscreen is just good advice. It's cheap and we know the benefits are numerous. Tell people to wear sunscreen.

Beyond that, I don't have much technical advice for the PA Class of 2012. You have probably already gotten more than enough of that from your instructors. But what your instructors can only try to impart to you is what it feels like to be a patient. You're all special. We know that. Many of you were EMTs or paramedics or worked in a doctor's office before coming to school. Most of your patients did not do that. We will be, to be honest, a little nervous to be sitting in your office. That's just how we roll. There's plenty to be afraid of in a hospital or a clinic, as you now know.

Warm up that stethoscope, please.

We don't do this stuff every day, most of us patients. We don't generally have people prodding around inside our genitals with tools. Again, please find some way to warm them up. The tools, that is. Not the genitals. Turn your head and cough. Again. Again. Again. Again, this is not normal behavior. Please remember that.

Remember where you were a year ago, as first-year students. You'd be there on a perfectly good weekday, sitting there at school. If it weren't for school, you'd be eating bacon-covered doughnuts and drinking mimosas. Thank God for you. I mean that quite literally. In the last year, you've looked at multiple dead human bodies, live, as it were, and in the flesh. You've had your hand up a man's ass. There is no delicate way to put that. A doctor's office is a horror show waiting to happen for us. Be professional, but be a human being.

Of course, 15 years from now, it's entirely possible you'll forget any advice, simply because you already know everything there is to know. I, your patient, would appreciate it if you at least humor me and my bizarre theories as to why my knee hurts. I think it has something to do with me trying to quit my knee-cracking habit. And of course the current level of humidity. Not really. That's just the bizarre things we'll say to you. I'm sure there's a message board on the Internet somewhere dedicated to stupid things patients say. There is dumber stuff out there.

Remember when you were a first-year student? You didn't have a time for such frivolous pursuits. Your noses were in the books or in a small group, quizzing each other. Most of you gave up a lot to be sitting there, complaining about school. There's the obvious financial toll, but we all know the money numbers are just pretend money. Monopoly stuff. You gave up your time as you studied. You gave up your careers to go back to a life of poverty.

Some of you were marketing directors. There's a former ski patroller — the boss, in fact — amongst you. A former clinical director is wearing yoga pants and no makeup. These people don't have to be here. They could be socking money away in their 401Ks and skiing in Europe for a week every winter. Instead they're looking at six-figure debt and learning new words that mean "red." Erythematosus. Everybody else can Google it.

You came from Tennessee, Michigan, Colorado, California and New Mexico. There's even a student from the Other Portland. They told you it was going to be hard and they didn't lie. They didn't tell you how hard it was going to be on you and people around you emotionally. Marriages and relationships were strained as you studied constantly. Speaking for the spouses, most of us aren't going to look back on this as the best two years of our lives. But it'll be worth it. We know that.

All this while, as you toiled in the library or studied in your room with your headphones on, the rest of us go on with our lives. We run to the store and do our grocery shopping. We take the dog for a jog. We don't need you. Yet.

We don't need you right now. But we're going to need you. Because that pain in my knee is getting worse and I don't think I can keep ignoring it. I know school beat you down. But it's going to be worth it. Your family and friends are waiting to celebrate that with you. We thank you for going to school, in fact. My knee thanks you.

And tell people about the sunscreen.
This idea borrowed from: Here.