PA-S Interview

Here's another interview from last year with PA-S Elaine Brown from UTSW. She has a lot of great advise, be sure to read it all!

How many schools did you apply to?

I think it was 7. I applied to every school in Texas except Pan America. I did not apply to any out of state schools.

What helped you stand out? Did your interviewers tell you why you were chosen?

I haven’t heard of anything that interviewers thought stood out about me but I can give you a few things I think might have been it. I was excepted to every school I interviewed at less than a week after I interviewed.
There are a few things:
I had very competitive stats. My overall GPA was a 3.92 with a science GPA somewhere around a 3.7 and a pre-rec GPA of about 3.8. My GRE was only a 1050 if I remember correctly.
I was very well rounded. I had lots of extra-curricular activities and several of them I had been involved in for multiple years while in college. (I took piano lessons for 4 years, I played in the orchestra for 3 years, I tutored high school students for 3 years, I was involved in a club gymnastics team for 1 year, I went on 2 spring break mission trips, I studied abroad one semester in Europe and did 2 summers in Guatemala at a language school). Basically I had a life outside of school that I was committed to enjoying and I was able to balance that life with school and still do well.
I had some community service stuff but honestly it wasn’t over the top. I was involved in a weekend campaign group at ACU and we did service projects once a month in different cities. I did that my freshman year. I went on two spring break mission trips. I did some weekend volunteer stuff. I drove for meals on wheels one semester. The idea here is to find a service organization that you enjoy volunteering for and do it because you enjoy it and not because you need something to put on your resume. I didn’t do anything in college just because I needed to fill a spot in my resume. I genuinely enjoyed everything I did and it was all a part of my personality and showed a different side of who I am. Then if any of that came up in an interview I was able to talk about it with real passion because I was doing something I loved, not something I did just to get in to PA school.
Healthcare experience. Not sure how much this helped me. I got my EMT-B certification while a senior in high school. I had done one summer as a Jump Start Intern at Children’s Medical Center and one summer as an OT Tech at Zale-Lipshey hospital. Then I shadowed a few PA’s for several weeks, just 4 or 5 hours a week. Honestly, in Texas you can get by with very little hands on experience. Shadowing is really enough but working in a doctor’s office or something would definitely be a plus. I would recommend that freshman and sophomores especially, try and get a summer job as a PT or OT tech. It’s an easy way to get hands on pt care experience and it doesn’t take any training. It’s real pt care and it looks great on a resume. Being a CNA or something like that is a good option too, it just takes time to get certified and then you have the whole “work and school” at the same time. I honestly didn’t do much of that. I would recommend trying to shadow a PA on a regular basis for a few weeks. Set up a time to go say twice a week for 6-8 weeks for 3-4 hours at a time, or whatever works in your schedule.
Personal statement. Spend some real time on this!!! This is how they get to know the real you. I worked on my personal statement for about 2 months before I got the final copy. I think I wrote 5 different versions of it before I got the one I liked. I started by just writing everything I could think of about why I chose PA school, the experiences I had that shaped my decision. I didn’t worry about the length. Once I got all my thoughts down I was able to piece together what worked. Then I had multiple people read it for grammar, spelling, flow, etc. I can tell you mine centered around my experiences in Guatemala and how that was a very life changing experience for me. It changed the way I view the world. I had already decided on PA school before I went to Guatemala but as my view of the world changed that changed the way I thought about people in general and thus the way I thought about my patients. I incorporated all of that into my personal statement so ended up saying not only a lot about why I wanted to be a PA but also spoke to the kind of person I am and the way that I think.
Recommendation letters. Get to know your professors!!! I had 3 professors write mine. One does have an MD from China but I’m not sure if he ever indicated that on his LOR. The point is, these 3 people knew me very well both inside and outside of the class room and they could speak of not only my academic ability but also about who I am as a person and why that is going to make me a good PA. (I’m assuming all of that of course, I never saw their recommendations). But get to know the people who are going to write your letters and more importantly let them get to know you. They need to really know you before they can really write you an outstanding recommendation.
Interviews. I personally love interviewing, I think it’s kind of fun. I did not prep for any of my interviews. Didn’t try to prepare any answers, I just went in and was myself. I figured if they didn’t want the real me then I didn’t want to be a part of their program. For all the interviews except UTSW it was your very traditional one-on-one sit down interview where they ask you questions and you respond. Some of them were the typical “why do you want to be a PA?” “what do you see the job of a PA as?” “What do you think the typical PA-patient encounter would look like?” “Tell me about a time when you felt overwhelmed and were able to overcome it.” That sort of thing. I just tried to be honest and tell them what I really thought and what I’d really do instead of telling them what I thought they wanted to hear. The interviewers do this all the time and the rehearsed answers are very easy to spot and get very boring very quickly. Tell them something unique that shows a bit of your personality. A personal example:


“Name a time when you felt overwhelmed.” I described the semester when I took 19 hours of upper level science and during the first week of that semester my mom had emergency surgery, my brother and sister-in-law were involved in a roll over MVC after which my brother required surgery and I realized I was going to have to lay out a year before applying to PA school. I had to learn how to break days down into 1 hour intervals. It’s 8:00 am, what do I have to do to get to 9:00 am? That taught me how to stay focused and take things one step at a time.



Why did you pick UTSW?

There were several things that went in to my decision to go to UTSW. I was accepted at UNT, San Antonio, and Tx Tech as well. I had narrowed it down to UNT and UTSW (mostly because of location but also quality of the program. I really liked Tx Tech but I didn’t like where they were located and didn’t feel I would get the best clinical experience there. I was worried about the pass record on the PANCE that San Antonio had had the year before I applied and when I interviewed, just didn’t fell like it was a very good fit for me.)

It goes without saying that UTSW has an outstanding reputation. They have exceptional first time pass rates on the PANCE. They have excellent facilities and you rotate at large teaching hospitals. So the quality of the program was never a question. I felt the quality of the program at UNT was also very good. They have great first time pass rates on the PANCE and they also rotate at large teaching hospitals. UTSW has the better reputation than UNT but as far as how good their programs are, I felt I would get an excellent education at either one.

So between UNT and UTSW,
I really liked the small class size of UTSW. UTSW takes 36 and I think UNT is taking around 50 now.
The big thing for me however was a.) UTSW has 3 semesters of medical Spanish b.) They have more small group classes c.) Their physical exam class uses real patients, you’re not just learning how to perform physical exam on your classmates d.) The option to do a clinical rotation abroad.
For me, I am considering spending some time in Central America doing medical missions so I wanted a school with medical Spanish and I want the option of doing one of my rotations in Central America. UNT did not offer either of these. For me, and my personal goals as a PA, UNT just didn’t have what I needed. Being on rotations now, I can tell you that if you don’t speak at least some Spanish, your rotations will be a bit difficult at times. I am currently on my ER rotation and I have at least 1 or 2 patients a day that speak no English whatsoever. I know the OB/GYN and pediatric rotations at UTSW are also heavy on the Spanish speaking only populations. Being able to ask simple questions in Spanish and being able to perform a physical exam in Spanish are essential in my mind, at least for getting through your rotations. Once you get into private practice you can try to go somewhere where Spanish will not be needed.
Small groups: I didn’t know this so much at the time but having completed the didactic portion of the program there are two classes that really stick out in my mind that make UTSW a great program. They are the patient evaluation and physical exam courses. Both courses meet once a week for 2 hours but they make a huge difference. Pt. eval meets on Tuesday mornings and there are 12 students per group. This is where you learn how to take a history, write a clinic or SOAP note. There is one faculty member per group and they act as the patient while as a group you act as the PA eliciting the history. SOAP note stands for Subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan. So you start with the Subjective portion of the interview (onset of symptoms, location of symptoms, duration, character, aggravators, relievers, treatments tried, other Symptoms. OLDCARTS) You learn how to follow the OLDCARTS method of eliciting the subjective portion. The faculty member helps guide your questions. Then you move into the Objective portion, we as a group ask the faculty member what we find on physical exam. Then we discuss how a case like that would really present. The faculty member helps you review what you’ve been learning in clinical medicine and how that really manifests in a patient. Then we quickly go over our assessment and plan. Then for homework you write a clinic note including everything you found out during the “interview.” You’re never given the real diagnosis, you have to come up with that on your own while writing the assessment and plan. These scenarios line up with whatever you’re studying in clinical medicine at the time. (If we’re in cardio block the scenario might be about a pt with decompensated heart failure or new onset chest pain.)



Physical exam is the other big thing and really was the thing that tipped me over on deciding to go to UTSW. This again is a small group course. There are 6 students per group and you break off into 3 pairs. This course meets on Thursday nights in one of the orthopedic clinics at St. Paul. The school hires people to come in and be “patients” for us to practice on. The instructors are PAs from the community. There are 3 exam rooms that you rotate through during the night. Two are English speaking and one is Spanish speaking. The PA will generally go over the exam, ask if there are any questions and then you split into your partner groups and go practice the exam. You’re in professional dress with your lab coat in an actual clinic so it feels very real. You knock and enter the room, introduce yourself and do the exam. I think this is great because you get use to touching other people. You have to be serious and professional and it’s with people that you don’t know as opposed to your classmates so it feels like a real patient encounter. The “patients” then grade you on your skills and you get feedback on what you did well and what you could improve on. The PA rotates through the rooms answering questions and helping you with the exam. I just think this is an invaluable course because then when you get on rotations your use to doing physical exams on people you don’t know.



A few other program pearls: During first semester you do a project at a local assisted living place. You have a volunteer that you will do 3 interviews on during the semester. There is no physical exam, it’s just practice at taking a history. Again you’re in professional dress and your white coat (there’s just something about being in the white coat that makes you feel more official, lol.) and you take a past medical history one time, a family history one time and I don’t remember what the third interview is. Then at the end of the year the class does a big Christmas party for the entire assisted living place. It’s a lot of fun and good practice. You also do a one week phlebotomy rotation during your first summer so you interact with real patients almost immediately. During the third semester (the second summer semester) your physical exam class changes and you have what are called OSCEs (they are simulated clinic visits) and real hospital patients that you see and do write ups on. The thing I’m getting at here is that UTSW is very hands on from the beginning. You are interacting with patients every week almost from the start and that really helps bridge the gap when you start your rotations.




What was the interview process like? Any questions/style of interview methods that stood out?

I kind of eluded to this earlier but interviews are pretty typical one-on-one sit down sessions. General advice, know yourself and don’t be afraid to say what you really think. Genuine answers will get you further than rehearsed fake ones. Be polite, be courteous, be humble but be honest. Do some soul searching before you go, take a deep breath and have fun! A friend told me this before I interviewed and it really helped calm my nerves “Remember, they already like you and they already want you. Just go remind them of why.” When you interview, they’ve already seen something in you that makes them say “oh I want this one!” so rest assured in that. Be confident!!!!!! Interviewers are like horses, they can smell it when you’re scared.

As far as UTSW’s interview process, basically, they got tired of hearing the same old answers so they switched to this new “multi-mini interview format” and it is so much fun!!! I’m serious, it was the most fun I’ve ever had in an interview. There are 10 stations that you rotate through and each station has a short scenario taped to the door. (It’s also inside the door in case you need to finish reading or need to reference it again.) I can’t tell you what the scenarios are but they’re your typical “how would you react in this situation” type of questions or it’s simple “interpret this graph/chart/research project.” Basically, when you get your interview to UTSW they already know you’re smart, that you can deal with the course work and that people like you (ie: you had great recommendations.) But what they want to know is how do you react in different situations? How do you react under pressure? How do you interact with other people? There is absolutely no way to prep for this interview. They did that on purpose! Lol. You’ll walk into the room when your signaled to, introduce yourself to the interviewer and they’ll introduce themselves to you. The interviewer will ask if you had enough time to read the scenario and if you have any questions. And then you start discussing. It really is as simple as that. There is no right or wrong answer, it’s how you present yourself, how you justify your reasoning, your explanations that count. Their first year to use this format was the year I applied and they used it again this past year so it must be working.


What has PA school been like so far? How is the adjustment to classes compared to your senior year?
PA school is very fast passed. I think we all described the first summer semester as being undergrad on steroids. In undergrad I took OCHEM during a summer course and that’s about the pace of all our classes. Honestly, it’s a bit of a shock at first but you settle into it and it’s not that bad. I’m someone who likes every day to look exactly the same and that’s not going to happen but I got into a pretty good schedule during didactic so my days did look pretty similar. A typical day for me looked like this: class from 8:00am-4:00pm (sometimes we got done at 2:00, sometimes 5:00 sometimes we had a random day off) then I’d go to the gym for as long as I could, usually about 90 minutes from when I walked in the door to when I walked out. And then I’d start studying around 7:00 or 7:30 and study until 10:00 or 11:00. Fridays end at noon. Thursdays start at 1:00pm and go until 8:30pm with a dinner break in between. I was still able to attend church every Sunday and went to lunch with friends or family every week. I tended to make Fridays just like a normal week day so I’d take a bit of a long lunch break, go to the gym a bit early, get a long workout in and then get 3-4 good hours of studying in that evening. That way I could either have a light Saturday or just take the whole day off all together if I wanted.

The curriculum is broken down into blocks according to what your studying in clinical medicine. So if you’re in cardiac block in clinical medicine then pt. eval, physical exam, Spanish and pharmacology are also focused on cardiac stuff. (Pathology is the only class that does not follow the block topics.) So honestly I felt like I had 3 courses I was taking: Clin med, Spanish and Pharmacology. (I didn’t go to the path lectures, I just studied in the library, but don’t tell anyone because technically attendance is mandatory. ;) ) For clin med you typically have 2-3 sometimes 4 lectures in one day and they are 1-2 hours in length. You get a power point copy and take notes on that or on your computer or whatever works best for you. There are reading assignments but I rarely did them, I just don’t learn that way. (I do read a lot more now that I’m on rotations but for didactic you’ll be find with just the power points for the most part.) You have objectives for each lecture so you know what to really focus on for a given lecture. I would just retype the power point lectures according to the objectives. So my “studying” at night was typically just me retyping the notes and looking up things I didn’t understand. Then a few days later I might type a lecture or two, get out a lecture I had typed 2 or 3 days before and go through my book and power point from class and hand write extra notes I needed. That way, I knew that anything typed was directly from what was presented in class and whatever was hand written was extra stuff I had looked up (that’s just me and how I study, it was a good rhythm for me and a good way to gage how well I was staying on top of the material. Everyone develops their own studying style. This isn’t how I studied in undergrad but there is just so much information thrown at you so quickly you need to find a way to stay on top of it. For me, I knew I had gone very slowly and carefully threw a lecture and looked up the stuff I didn’t know if it was typed. If it wasn’t typed, I hadn’t “studied” that material yet. If it had hand written notes I knew I had gone through that lecture at least twice so it wasn’t a priority at the moment. If it was a two hour lecture, it took me about two hours to type it. Not necessarily because of the length of the power point slides but because I had to make sure I was understanding everything as I went through it.) Then, about a week before a test I’d start really studying. That was your more typical, can I recite things, can I draw the anatomy, do I really understand how you get from A to B to C. Do I know what diagnostic tests to order for this, what therapy to do for this. More like my undergrad way of studying. I liked to go through lectures 3 times before a test and for the most part, if you study a little bit every night, that is totally doable. I’m pretty sure I study more than most of my classmates but I just have to see information a lot of times before I really feel comfortable with it.

Pharmacology is a pain and I never found a good way to study for it, lol. What was most helpful to me was to get a digital voice recorder and record myself reading my note cards (you have to make note cards for all the drugs.) That way I could constantly quiz myself without seeing the answers through the card. Just another studying idea, especially for people who may have a long commute. I’m also a very auditory learner so this helped. None of your lectures in the fall or spring are recorded but you can record them if you like.

The key to PA school is DON’T GET BEHIND!!! If you do it’s very hard to catch up. It’s best to start kind of over kill and back off then to undershoot with your studying, fail a test and half to catch up.

I know 3 hours a night sounds like a lot, especially after you’ve been in class from 8:00- 4:00 most days but if you do that you’ll be more than golden. You have to find a balance. I worked out a lot and made church and family a priority. I never missed a Sunday morning at church and I went to lunch with my family at least twice a month. If you’re married and have a family, make a sit down dinner every night a priority or a family night once a week a priority and don’t let school get in the way of that. You have to be a master of time management if you want to keep a life outside of PA school but it is totally possible and all of my classmates and myself manage to do it. The first summer semester is the hardest because it’s so fast passed and it’d all new and you really do have to know everything. Things calm down just a tad once you get into the fall. You really do have a test a week, sometimes 2 and even 3 and those are the weeks you really do do nothing but study but an awful week like that is usually followed by 2 easier weeks so it makes up for it.

So the short answer to “how does it compare to undergrad” is, take the hardest course you had, the one you studied the most consistently for, imagine that class meeting every single day and that’s what PA school requires. It’s doable, you’ve already survived that “hardest course,” if you get into PA school, you did well in it so you have what it takes. It’s just a matter of getting it done.

I just finished my second rotation (surgery and now ER) and rotations are fun! Long hours in the hospital, lots of reading at home but you’ve already seen the material once, you’re seeing it in real patients in the hospital and you’re finally out of the classroom!!!


General Advice on Appling
Do it early!!!!!!! Like, June early. Interviews are given on a first-come first-qualified first-served basis. I submitted my application in early June and was interviewing in September. Remember, I was accepted within a week of each of my interviews so if you wait to submit your application until the deadline, or even a month before, some of the seats have already been given away before you even send in your application.
Start your application as soon as it opens because it’s going to take you weeks to get it done. It’s daunting and exhausting and you’ll need to take breaks so start your CASPA application early!
If you’re a freshman or sophomore (or anyone for that matter), start recording your service hours with the name and contact information of your supervisor now. Any one that you shadow or work for, keep the contact name (first and last) and their contact information because you will need this when you fill out your applications and it’s a pain to go back and try to remember all that stuff.
Check your spelling! I’m sure this e-mail is littered with mistakes but that’s a big problem on your application because they have nothing to base you on other than your writing. Make sure it’s perfect.
It’s physician assistant, not physician’s assistant. (I made that mistake and now it makes me cringe, lol.)
Wherever you choose to go to school (if it’s in Texas or another state) look at their first time pass rates on the PANCE, how long it takes for their graduates to find jobs, and where they do their clinical rotations. This last part is the most important in my book. Anyone can read and learn from a book but it’s your rotations that are going to hone your skills. Its best to be in a big city with large hospitals that see lots of patients and that are used to having students. Parkland is fantastic because you see diseases that you’d never see anywhere else which means you have experience in identifying different disease. Parkland patients also tend to present in much later stages of disease which is also a great learning experience. My concern with Tx Tech was that they rotate mostly in small west Texas towns. I shadowed in the ER in Abilene (one of the places you rotate if you go to Tech) and it was a great experience but having just finished my ER rotation at a level I trauma center in Dallas, I can tell you I saw and did a lot more here than I would have in Abilene.
General advise about medicine: make sure you understand the team aspect. Doctors, mid-levels (PAs and NPs), nurses, techs, they all have very important roles and they’re all a bit different. You need to understand that medicine is a team sport and you are choosing to play a specific position. You need to understand and be able to communicate why you have chosen this position. I really recommend shadowing in the hospital situation (ER is great) because you see how divided the roles are. Medicine is not at all like House or Grey’s Anatomy. You have a very specific role to fill and there are many other players that support you in that role and you in turn are supporting them in their role. You need to understand this and you need to try and make sure you convey that at some point in either your personal statement or your interview. But also you need to realize that for yourself so you make sure you’re choosing the right role. Your primary role will be that of a diagnostician. Make sure you understand what that means.