 So can you tell me what the training is like? I think it's about a two-year program, right? It is a two-year program. So the first year is didactic. It's all coursework. I had 18 credit hours every semester. Fun. So it's three semesters. You don't get a break. So it's nonstop for two years. Summer, spring, fall, like everything. It's a lot of classes. It was a lot of work, a lot of late nights. But the prize is the second year. And the second year is one complete year of clinical rotation. You rotate through different places and where you rotate is dependent on where you go to school at. So each university has their own clinical partners and they all have their own different way of doing this clinical year. So in didactic year, like you said, it's a ton of late nights. It's a lot of work because you're learning anatomy at a very, very high level. Probably more, go ahead. It is not just anatomy. So a lot of what we're learning is pathology. So we are learning pathology, applied pathology, gross pathology. There's a lot of different angles coming at pathology. So you have to go through every organ system. You have to learn what's normal. You have to learn what's just benign. What does the healing process look like in this organ? Versus, yeah. And then what does cancer look like in this organ? Because you could have, you know, carcinoma in different organs, right? But it looks different in each organ. So what you're basically trained to do is to know the entire body anatomically, all of the disease processes that every organ system can have and what they look like at every stage of the disease and every stage of healing. And the reason for that is because a specimen comes to your bench, you have to know exactly where that came from, what you're looking at, and basically to help make a diagnosis that way. Yeah, so we have to learn about differential diagnosis, right? Yeah. So we have to know, okay, what commonly happens in this organ? Is it an infectious process? What are the common infections of this organ? Like specifically about lung? Oh, no, I don't wanna talk specifically about lung. Uh. We could do specifically gallbladder. Or yeah, gallbladder. I mean, I feel like gallbladder has something more of a growth tech would do and not necessarily appear. Oh, no. Okay. But it's a good example because people know what gallbladders are. Exactly. So a specific example, let's say you get a gallbladder on your bench and you basically have to know what's normal for a gallbladder to look like, what's not normal, what could be going on with this person and you also get their symptoms and like what they said they were feeling and the imaging and you have to make that final diagnosis based on what it looks like. We're not a diagnosis because PAs don't make diagnosis but we do steer the pathologist in a direction based on, you know, describing what we see. So in a gallbladder, we do know what normal looks like. Very commonly it will have cholesterolosis. Colesicitis is usually why it's being taken out. We look for stones. And if you have large stones they can even erode through the gallbladder. So that's something important to note in your dictation. So all of these things like we've discussed before we are the eyes and the hands of the pathologist and the pathologist needs to know all of this even though they're not in a seated gallbladder. Right. So you're training to basically know what every single part of the body looks like normal and abnormal with all the common diseases that that part gets. And best of all you only get one year to learn all that so I could see why there's so many late nights. Yes, it feels like a tidal wave of information just coming at you. What's with all the water metaphors because medical school and PA school like physician assistant school they always say fire hose or fire hydrant of information. You got a tidal wave. That's even more dramatic. Yeah. Yeah, because you're just washing it coming at you and somehow a lot of it's sticking but you just don't get to sit there and appreciate how much you've learned because there's always more stuff to learn. There is. Ooh, I have another way of explaining it too. So first year the didactic year is like you're in a tornado full of like book pages and you're in the middle of the tornado just trying to grab onto whatever book page that you need to know or retain. I love all these dramatic metaphors but that's true because like it feels like you're in, like you said, a tornado. You don't know which way is up and down and you realize that you have to know all this stuff and it's all around you, but there's so much of it. It's really chaotic. First year in PA school is really chaotic. I think that the gift is the second year and that's when you get to apply all this stuff and go, holy crap, I actually know a lot. You do. Do you surprise yourself because you know more than you think. Right. You get to make those connections, right? Oh, I read about this, but now I'm actually seeing it. So now that starts to lock information in. Yeah, that's, I mean, from my own experience as well, that's probably the most gratifying thing is like you read about something, you might even see a bunch of pictures of it, but until you actually see it and touch it and know exactly what color it is in real life, you don't really truly appreciate it that then once you see that, you're hooked. Yeah. It's so cool. So then, so first year is just a ton of information, learning all the stuff we just talked about. Second year is different clinical rotations in various kinds of pathology labs. And how many of those are there? You said you get a whole year. It's a full year in that how many you have is really dependent on your program and how they manage their students. I know that some places you could have a full year rotation at one place. Really? That's possible because that one place does everything. Frozen section, autopsy, large complex cases as well as smaller cases. So a student can rotate at one place for the full year if their rotation site can provide all of that. I think most places you're gonna rotate at least four different institutions. So you'd have three month blocks. And I know that at least some programs you will rotate through an Emmy's office. So you will get your autopsy training at an Emmy's office because it's really hard to get autopsy training at a hospital when they only have maybe one a week and you're only there for a few months. So it's easier to get your autopsy training at an Emmy's office where it's all day back to back to back to back. Makes sense. And it sounds like whatever accreditation body gives you your certification, they have requirements of like you have to have a certain number of autopsies, a certain number of this kind of specimen, certain number of that. And so you need your rotation sites to help you meet all those things. So the accrediting body for the schools is NACLs and then our NACLs, N-A-A-C-L-S. NACLs, okay. And our certification is through the ASCP. You can insert in later what that stands for. I think it's the American Society of Ethologists. Okay. Something kind of like a pathologist. We'll Google it. Yeah. So that certification through the ASCP is national and well it's good in the US and Canada and in US territories. Okay, so you could practice in the US, Canada and any US territory with that one certification? With the certification through the ASCP. That's awesome. Now, in addition to that, some states require licensure. California, New York. So basically you take your certification from the ASCP. You say here's state of California. Look, I really got my certification and then you pay some money and then you're also licensed. So it's just paperwork and money to get your license in California, New York. I think there's a few other states that require a license as well. But the vast majority, they only need your certification. Makes sense. Yeah, I know California and New York really like their paperwork and their money. So I've definitely had experience with that. But so at the end of this training, you've gone through your didactic year, you've passed all your exams, you've done everything you had to do, you went through clinicals, then is there a final certifying exam? Yes, so after you graduate, you qualify for the ASCP certification exam and then you'll schedule your exam. It is a adaptive test. What does that mean? Is that the right word? Adaptive? I think that it's, so it's an adaptive exam, meaning if you get one question right, the next question will be harder. Oh yeah. Until you get, you're just at hard questions. So I've been told that if you feel really bad when you leave, it's because you were answering a lot of questions right. Well, that's good. Stressful, but good. Yeah. Okay. So there is a final certifying exam, you sit for that and then you become a licensed PA and you can practice. A certified PA. A certified PA and you can practice. Yes.