Yesterday was the annual spine conference where all the big wig spine and neurosurgeons get to together to swap techniques and present difficult patient situations. It was a curious feeling to be surrounded by people whose average income is 800,000 and have pieces of surgical hardware named after them. I was not really nervous, or silenced as I would have been a few months ago. In the past I would have sat back in my chair and marveled at how smart these men were, and how powerful and important they seemed. Yesterday, I saw them as humans, as real people who make mistakes and challenge themselves to continue learning new techniques. One of these men challenged himself to research the treatment of sacral chondromas, a rare malignant tumor that dissolves the lower portion of your spine. He wrote a few papers and all of a sudden people from all over the world came out of the wood-work to see this doctor who had a 1 in 4 chance of saving their life, and maybe their ability to walk. I have had a real change in perspective.

It seems to me this change in perspective may be just the tip of the iceberg, the small conscious ego with the enormous id below, follow me? What has changed within me? Maybe the fact that I am finally answering the questions that have sat dormant in my brain's terrain? I am finding out what I want, what I TRULY want in life.

Yesterday a PA friend of mine leaned over and asked me a critical question that has echoed in my brain ever since, "Are you going to be bored as a PA?" I turn to look a her, she explains "I just thought maybe you are too smart. Have you thought about going back to medical school?"

First of all, I do not think anyone chooses PA school because they feel they just can't hack med school. I would really like to believe we all chose the school because of our love of the PA profession and its mission. You are a part of the solution to inadequate, incomplete medical care- you are the arms of the profession, the person who reaches into communities that cannot gain adequate treatment. But perhaps there are facets of this degree that I did not consider early on... maybe my naive optimistic outlook on the medical world limited my understanding.

Am I going to be bored?
Can treating unique patients with different problems ever get boring? Will the breaking point be the limited scope of practice?