Grace Van Thuyne (BS ‘22)
Are you a student with your eyes on applying to a physician assistant (PA) program? If so, consider getting your undergraduate degree in Emergency Medicine at Pitt!
I graduated from the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (SHRS) Emergency Medicine program in spring 2022 and now work as a full-time paramedic. I am also certified as an emergency medical services (EMS) instructor and teach weekly emergency medical technician (EMT) labs as well as occasional paramedic labs at Pitt’s Center for Emergency Medicine. This winter I am applying to physician assistant programs so that I can begin my journey in PA school in fall 2023.
Personally, I believe I owe all of my success in the PA school application process to the Pitt Emergency Medicine program. The program initially caught my eye for the quality and quantity of patient care experience that students gain. Not many people realize that earning a paramedic license requires at least a full year of classroom training as well as extensive hours in pre-hospital and emergency department clinical rotations. In my first two years as an undergraduate biology major, I felt as if taking only traditional biology, chemistry and physics classes did not pique my interest or allow me to perform at my full potential as a student. Although these core science classes are very important prerequisites for PA school, I needed a major that was more clinically based and hands-on.
The Emergency Medicine program is an upper division program that begins in your junior year after completing the prerequisite courses. What I accomplished in the first year of the program sparked a lot of interest from faculty in my PA school interviews. It is saturated with classes like cardiology, pharmacology, pathophysiology and patient assessment all while completing your clinical hours. These are great courses for PA schools to see on your transcript and many other applicants aren't offered classes of this sort through a traditional undergraduate program.
You will learn and perform skills on patients like endotracheal intubation, intraosseous infusion and 12-lead EKG interpretation. These are all skills you will learn again in PA school so it is a great head start. You will also earn certifications like PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support) and ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support) that are requirements for graduating PA school. The PA programs you will be applying to love to see this and will be very interested in your strong foundation of clinical knowledge. After completing all my clinical rotations in my junior year, I had over 500 patient contact hours, which is the minimum hours required to apply to most PA programs.
Grace Van Thuyne (BS ‘22)
As a senior you have the freedom to make the year whatever you want it to be! You will be required to take 12 Emergency Medicine credits which will require courses like Critical Care (afterwards you can test for flight medic if you choose), Legal Issues in Health Care and Professional Issues in Health Care. You will also take Senior Internship where you will be able to complete any sort of additional experience to your resume (teaching, research, more clinical work, etc.)-- and receive credit for it! All of these classes fall on Tuesdays so you have your entire week to work as a medic, for instance, or to finish your other prerequisites for PA school.
Personally, I finished Organic Chemistry I and Microbiology over the summer before senior year and then took as many Emergency Medicine credits as I could during senior year, such as Issues in Health Care Education, and Anatomy and Physiology through Pitt's School of Nursing. The Emergency Medicine Senior Seminar class allowed me to publish my own research article to the Journal for Emergency Medical Services. In this process, I was able to independently research the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the opioid epidemic. I narrowed down my focus to the Philadelphia area, which is severely impacted by opioid drug use. This research sparked passion for me, as I grew up in the greater Philadelphia area and worked as an EMT on an ambulance in the city during the pandemic. The Emergency Medicine faculty gave students a great deal of freedom when choosing their Senior Seminar project, but always pushed the importance of finding passion for the work you were doing.
Overall, I cannot speak highly enough of this program and how well it has prepared me for my future as a physician assistant. Aside from how great your transcript will look and how unique of an experience you will have, the faculty of this program will work with you and push you to succeed. If your goal is PA school, they will help you in every way they can to get you there. You will get out of this program everything that you put into it.
------------
Grace Van Thuyne (BS ‘22) works full-time as a paramedic for Quality EMS, and is a part-time paramedic and volunteer at Monroeville Volunteer Fire Company #1. She also teaches weekly EMT classes at Pitt’s Center for Emergency Medicine and at UPMC’s Freedom House 2.0 program. Van Thuyne recently joined the American Heart Association on their Quality and Mission Lifeline Award team, which creates guidelines and protocols for pre-hospital STEMI and stroke care.
-------------
Emergency Medicine enrollment applications are due March 1, 2023. To learn more about the program, please visit our webpage or reach out to our Enrollment Specialists at enroll@shrs.pitt.edu!
---
Published January 23, 2023
Updated January 24, 2023