I have been using twitter as my personal learning network. I have found that twitter seems to be the most easily accessible tool for sharing information because I can search keywords and hashtags that are related to physician assistant studies and the medical world. Twitter has been helpful because I have been able to easily find people to follow based on who else is retweeting and liking the posts I do. Searching keywords and and looking at who is tweeting about things related to healthcare and medicine allows me to best find scholars in my profession. Just by using twitter’s search tools I have been able to find doctors, physician assistants, and students to follow. All of which tweet and like posts which are similar to my interests. It is also easy to connect with scholars by commenting on tweets or even directly messaging them, and to share my knowledge, experiences, and ideas with scholars just by writing and posting a tweet. Before creating my twitter, I knew I didn’t want to be all that public, as I am used to having no social media at all. Now that I have been using twitter for a few months I realized I actually like it a lot more than I expected. Twitter allows me to be active throughout my week, as I am checking it daily. I am constantly finding posts in my profession that are interesting to me. The more posts I see, the more profiles I am finding and following as well. I will continue to use my twitter throughout this. semester on a weekly basis. My big goal is going to physician assistant school after graduating from Plymouth State and a lot of the accounts I follow are physician assistant programs or students currently attending them. This has allowed me to gain insight on what its like for those students and how they manage their time and schedules while in PA school. So far I am enjoying using twitter as my personal learning network. I find it to be an easily accessible network that allows for easy communication and sharing of ideas and knowledge between scholars.
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Pre Physician Assistant Studies Julia DeLotto The title of my program is pre physician assistant studies, designed for a bachelor’s degree of science in interdisciplinary studies. The program is a compilation of courses that can be found in the prerequisite lists in a majority of physician assistant programs. After graduating with my bachelor’s degree I want to attend a physician assistant program. The reason I decided to create my own pre physician assistant program was due to the fact that Plymouth State University does not have a major for the courses I need as prerequisites for PA school. The prerequisites for physician assistant programs are a mix of biology, chemistry, health, and psychology courses. Plymouth State University currently offers majors with some of the classes I would need but not all, and include many classes that would not be beneficial to my focus of study. Creating my own major will allow me to take the courses that will benefit me in the best way possible, while meeting the correct criteria for physician assistant programs.
Human Anatomy & Physiology I&II are essential to my major, as it will provide a baseline of knowledge of the cells, tissues, bones, muscles, organ systems that make up the human body and how they work together to allow the human body to function. Human Anatomy & Physiology Laboratory I&II are the labs that go hand in hand with human anatomy and physiology I and II, which will allow a further understanding of the content that I will be learning in lecture. General Chemistry I is an important part of my major because it provides an introduction to basic chemistry. Chemistry plays a key role in body functions, and is also the baseline for upper level chemistry classes. General Chemistry II gets more in depth on chemical reactions, many of which occur, in the human body. It also includes the molecules and other elements found in the body, which are involved in chemical rxus, and will also provide me with knowledge needed for biochemistry and organic chemistry. Microbiology is included in my contract because it will be beneficial when working with humans, as this class studies the functions of microorganisms and bacterias found in the body. Biochemistry is important as it studies chemical compounds that are found in living things, including the human body, and the reactions these chemical compounds go through. Organic Chemistry I: Organic chemistry focuses on organic compounds, which can be found in the human body, and also in pharmaceuticals, which will help give me an understanding of the makeup of the drugs prescribed to patients and how they will react with the compounds in their body. Kinesiology is a course that provides an in depth understanding of the joints in the body and the way in which the move when force acts upon them. Medical Sales: Lower Extremity Orthopedics studies the bones, ligaments, tendons, and muscles of the lower extremities. It focuses on common injuries to the lower extremities, how they are caused and also how to repair the injured joint or bone. Social Psychology is a course that will be helpful when working with patients. Patient contact is a big part of being a physician assistant and having a background of social behavior and will be beneficial to my job. Abnormal Psychology is also an important class to take for the profession I will be in because I will learn about diagnosis and treatments of mental illness. This information will come to use as I will be able to have baseline knowledge of recognizing disorders and understanding which treatments are available to my patients. Epidemiology & Evidence Based Medicine is added to my contract due to the fact that it focuses on diseases and how they are treated, specifically based on evidence. A large part of being a physician assistant is diagnosing and treating patients, this course discusses the history of disease and the process of using evidence based medicine. Applied Nutrition for Healthy Living goes in depth to discuss how nutrition can benefit human health and prevent diseases and offers information on healthy eating and a basic knowledge of how our body digests and uses the food we put into our body. Interdisciplinary studies can be defined as having knowledge in more than one academic subject area. The program I have created combines biology, chemistry, health and psychology courses. As a physician assistant I will be diagnosing and treating illness, performing patient assessments, assisting in surgery, and other assigned tasks. The classes I have chosen to put in my contract all offer knowledge that will be helpful to me when studying in physician assistant school. I used several physician assistant programs prerequisites to help build my contract and to ensure that I will be ready to apply to physician assistant school after completing my bachelors degree. 4 September 2019 Update: Looking back at my IDS application I feel really excited about it. This summer I took summer classes which helped me check off two more classes off my list of 'not yet taken' classes. I am still happy with all the classes included in my contract, although I may change out one or two courses. I have been doing a lot of research about which courses may benefit me the most and prepare me best for graduate school. All my current courses offer different aspects that will help further me as an academic and prepare me for what's to come next after graduating. After this semester I only have two more classes before graduating, and it is a little nerve-racking when I start thinking about the what comes next aspect. I am hoping that throughout this semester I will gradually become more prepared for life after Plymouth. Last semester in Intro to IDS, I wrote about my time at Plymouth and discovering Interdisciplinary as journey that I am on, and just because I am getting ready to graduate this year doesn't mean my journey will be ending. I learned last year about how interdisciplinary my field really is and I plan on continuing my interdisciplinary journey throughout my career. |