 Elijah, have you ever failed an exam in PA school? Not yet. We've had a couple exams now and undergrad a lot. You fail it. No big deal. Where you just figure out what you did wrong and just take it from there. Everybody fails one or two or 10. Hey guys, my name is Boris. I'm a position assistant and I'm Elijah. I'm a first year PA student over at Rutgers. Where are you right now, man? You look like you're in jail. Yeah, it's the apartment, man. Is it the wall? Yeah, I'll move over a little. I don't know what it is. It's like the exposed stone that's just like neutral colored. It's the apartment. The first day we moved in here, we were like, whoa, this is scary. A little bit. Yeah, I don't know what it is. It's just like the prison aesthetic. Yeah, and I don't have any decorations or paintings set up yet, so it's kind of, it's not as homey yet. Yeah, that would make a difference. You want some of mine? I'm actually moving out in 12 hours. Yes, send it over. Yeah, you're going to have that one. That'll make it a lot more homey. God, I was going to say something about jail and now I can't remember. But anyway, guys, so the topic of this video, the topic of this video is failing an exam in PA school as a pre-PA in undergrad. Elijah, have you ever failed an exam? In PA school, not yet. We've had a couple exams now in undergrad a lot. Yeah, likewise, except I think I did fail at least one or two in PA school. Yeah, so just a little bit more context. So I graduated PA school about two years ago. Elijah is currently just getting started. He's in the midst. And in the midst of it, I've had two. I had one exam on my first day and another one recently, and I did really well on both. I got kind of the scores I wanted, but yeah. Yes. Doing it so far. I have another one in a couple days, so we'll see how the trend goes. But there were a couple people that have failed our first exam, and thankfully, it was just the midterm exam. So it's just something they're allowed to retake. Yeah. Well, I mean, first off, what I heard was Elijah is at 100% so far, 100% pass rate. So that's pretty damn good. Thank you. The second thing is this is something that if it was drilled into your head from a young age, that grades are important. You got to get straight A's. You'll never get into school. If you don't, that kind of sends shivers down your spine thinking about failing an exam. A lot of people were not raised that way like me. And it's just like, oh, whatever. It's just a C. It's just that fail that who cares. I'm still going to graduate. And unfortunately, that kind of attitude does not get you into like top tier graduate programs like basically any PA school. And also in PA school, if you get anything below like a 70, I believe, or in my program, I think it was an 80, you're out. You know, not right away, but if you fail enough and fail, it means under 80%, you're out. You're out of the program, all your hard work, all that sacrifice you got just to get in there, you're done. You're out of the program. So failing is definitely very scary to people who take their grades seriously and their career seriously. So that being said, can you imagine being one of those people that your very first exam in PA school, you finally got in, your life is all making sense. You're going to be a PA, you know, making great money, great family, great, whatever. And then boom, first exam failed. How does that feel? Yeah, I mean, it must be like heartbreaking, right? Because you did all that, like you said, you put in all that work. And you don't know, like you might have been applying for like three years, one year only. But regardless, it's a dream for most people. And to fail that first exam, like coming right out the gates, it can be really scary. And I'm not too sure about the students who did fail in my class, but I just want to let you guys know that first exam is okay. Like at least for my program, we, it's a midterm exam. So if you fail it, you're allowed to retake it as many times as you want. But that also eats into studying time like later, right into the semester. But there are some programs that will have those first like that first test that kind of like ease you into it. And that's kind of what our midterm exam did. If you fail it, like, don't worry, that just kind of like sets the pace for PA school, because each subsequent exam, like you're going to find your rhythm, you're going to find your groove, right? Like that first exam in PA school is going to be like, it's going to be super hard because you don't know how you want to study, you don't know how you want to manage your time. You just feel like you want to overload yourself that first week, right? Because all that information is coming to you. But you really just have to, it's really more of a test around that first exam. Like you got to kind of just like tread the waters and see like what works for you. Like for me, what works for me at least studying for my first exam was I wanted to overload, right? So I wanted to overload and then I dial it back based on how much time I wanted to spend with my family, how much time I wanted for myself. So what I did my first week was I actively listed in class. I made sure, like, whenever the professor was lecturing, I learned as I was in class, right? Because you want to grasp things in class that you can ask things then in there, or at least after lectures done, and then when I went home, I went over and reviewed those slides and made sure, like, okay, at least I have a good understanding of this topic. Let's move on to the next, right? Because some of you who fail are probably like are studying the right amount, but like, you're not studying the right way. Like, you're just like you're looking at all the info that's coming at you and you're not like really grasping it, you're getting overwhelmed. So just taking it day by day and just making sure like you look at the content and really like put your time and effort into understanding it. And if you don't have like, you know, if you have a lot of questions or you're not really getting anything, understanding anything, a lot of your programs will have like tutoring, office hours with your professors and I believe PA professors at least teach for the PA programs have more office hours and they're more, I guess, accessible than when you're an undergrad. So just reach out to someone, reach out to a classmate, reach out to faculty because they're there to help you. They're there to make sure that you succeed. They got you into your program, into their program, and they're not going to want like sit like idly by and watch you fail. They're going to want to push you to the next step. So that's at least kind of my advice for, you know, your first exam, whether or not you fail or you do well, you know, it's not the end of the world, even though me feel like it, but it's more of like a way to get into the group of things. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. One thing that Elijah brought up that I really like is the fact that all of your faculty are very, very much invested in you getting through the program, you know, because they're all choosing to teach, they're all choosing to instead of going clinical practice or management, they're all choosing the education route. So their careers are very much linked to your success. And so if their program has a lot of people dropping out, failing out, that looks very bad on them, that looks bad on the program, it could be bad for the future of the program. So all of your faculty, all the way up and down the chain, you know, from the professors to the dean to everybody, they're very, very invested in your success. So if you're struggling even a little bit, don't hesitate to ask them, they're literally there to help. That's what they're there for, is to help you learn everything you need to learn, become the best new PA you could be, and to get through the program. They're very interested in you getting through it. All right, so never think that it's a bother, never think that it's like, that you shouldn't talk to them, they're literally there for that reason. Okay, so very, very good point by Elijah there. The other point is, yeah, the first exam is, it's not a weed out thing, it's more of just like getting in the groove of things. If you fail it, no big deal, readjust, figure out what you did wrong, and just take it from there. Everybody fails one or two or 10, get up to the program, lots of you. I certainly, I'm trying to remember, I think I remediated, I remediated one exam in PA school, and it was pharmacology, because I've also heard of people failing the pants, the physician assistant national certifying exam, the thing that you actually need to pass at the end, after you've graduated to even be able to get your license in practice. I've heard of people failing that. So I mean, compared to failing the pants, failing your first little trial exam is just in context, it's not a huge deal. And then people still, they study up, they use resources, they get better, and then they pass the pants on their second try or their third try. So in context, it's not the biggest deal in the world. Take it as a sign that you need to adjust a little bit, and then set yourself up for success in the rest of PA school. Elijah's speechless, because... Yeah, that first exam, it's really a big icebreaker, it's how it sets off the rest of your first semester. I guess one of my biggest advice, is to, you want to aim high so that you have room for mistakes. That's how I wanted to take my first week and my first exam. So you're in PA school, yes. And technically, if you pass, you'll get through, right? But wouldn't you want to shine, right? Wouldn't you want to grasp as much material as you can? You want to shine. Yes. I love that, that's a good quote, man. But you want to, you don't want to be competent in just knowing things, you want to understand things. Because now that I'm getting this graduate level of learning, even if though it's a topic I hate, right, like biochem, the way I see how things are actually tied into clinical practice or healthcare or science in general, now it's everything, right? So you want to, it's important to aim high so that you can grasp as much as you can from all these different classes you're taking your first semester, so that you have room for mistakes. For me, I want to try to get 100. And if I don't get it, then I missed probably a couple. And that's what I did on my first two exams. I studied up, I made sure I knew absolutely everything. And if I didn't remember something, then it's probably because of test anxiety. And so I left some room for mistakes, so I ended up with like a 90%. But that's what you want to do, right? Like if your past rate, or if your past condition is like a 70%, right? Because if you get less than that, you fail. Aim for like an 80, right? To give yourself a little bit of wiggle room or aim for, aim for 100. So then it's like a lot of wiggle room. Just saying shoot for the moon so that if you fall, you land among the stars. Exactly. And you know what? My faculty, they emphasize that, yeah, you just have to pass to get through. We're going to make sure like we do no matter what to, you know, get you guys through, right? Because they really pride themselves on their high past rate. But at the same time, are you really like okay with just passing? Like you want to understand these things because as a clinician, like you're going to want to be able to pull knowledge back from the past. And be like, oh, I remember that during school or during PA school, sorry. Like, oh, I remember that during school. Or like, oh, like these, like how do these pathways work? Like the specific sciences of things. I'm going to compare Elijah's strategy to the human body. Ready for this? So there's a lot of redundancy in the human body, right? We have two kidneys, two lungs. Our liver is way bigger than it needs to be. You only need like 8% of your liver to function fully. Don't quote me on that. But you need a very small part of your liver. You only need one lung. You only need one kidney. And you can live a totally normal life. But you know, we have two. Because if something fails, we always have another one. Or we always have more. So what Elijah's saying is like, you never want to shoot for just barely passing. Let's say 80% is passing. And you think, okay, I've learned 80% of the material. Something is always going to go wrong. Murphy's law, something will always go wrong to where it'll get you below that 80 and make you at like 78. And then you're frustrated. Damn, I only failed by 2%. Like, yeah, you only feel by 2%. But you could have studied for more than that, you know, 80%. You could have studied up to 85, 90%. And then you'd have a little bit more wiggle room for something that inevitably will go wrong. Let's say, I don't know, you zone out, you take a little more time and now you don't have time for all the questions. Or your professor like worded something in a funny way, which will happen every freaking time. Or like whatever happens, like your stomach hurts that day, you're nauseous. There's every excuse under the sun that will happen. And if you don't have that little bit of wiggle room to do a little better than you really need to, you know, you're going to end up failing. That's just one thing that I learned. Because like I used to be a C, you know, BC student kind of guy barely scraping a 3.0 GPA. And I was thinking like, I got the gist, I know enough, I've got enough to like pass the test, and I'm fine. And then things would happen and I wouldn't be fine. And then it's only when I started really shooting for that 4.0, trying to get into PA school like with all my might that I realized like, no, I need not just every point, but I need every quarter of a point. I need to be one of those annoying people in class that's like trying to get every little possible thing. And then the results speak for themselves. I remember arguing with my my molecular biology. No, bacteriology and immunology or something like that in my post back. And this lady was like a professor at Cornell. She was the biggest nerd on the face of the planet in the best way possible. And she's telling me like, dude, chill out. This is like half a point. And I was like, no doctor, I'm not going to call her out, but no Dr. D. Dr. D, I'm not going to chill out because I need this. I need this half a point. And she gave it to me and whatever the rest is history. But like, you got to be that guy right now, every point matters. You know, leisure time with family diet, exercise, sleep. They don't matter. All right, get those points. That's the third, fourth and fifth priority. After that is everything else. All right, you can sleep when you're done. Yep. I completely agree with that. And you can handle more than you think you can, I promise. Yeah, it really like PA school, at least the first couple of weeks, it really tests you, right? Really teaches you how to manage your time. What's important? What's not important? You know, going on, do not disturb is a big thing for me. Yeah. Studying when I know I'm effective and when I'm not effective is a big thing for me. True. And those are like just study tips that we can like give you later on in this video. But yeah, like you want to shoot for the stars. I mean, you want to be a great clinician, you want to help people in the future, you're helping people, right? You don't want to be like, I don't want to say an average provider, but you don't want to, you want to do the best you can now, serve your patients in the future, right? Because this is for you, yes, through your career, but also you're in such an honorable like career, like to be, to have the opportunity and like the privilege to help people is such a big thing and you want to do the best for them, right? Yeah. As someone who's actually doing that, like in practice every day, I definitely will agree. Like you take it for granted, especially if you're in kind of a high-paced, what would you call it practice or field, like I'm in urgent care right now. So like everybody who comes in, it's like, get them out, get them out, get them out. Like, hurry up. So you kind of lose yourself in that and you kind of don't take, what am I trying to say? Not don't take advantage, but like, you don't appreciate what you're actually doing for these people because to you, it's 10 minute patient interaction, two minute documentation onto the next. You know, to you, it's a very small part of your day. This person you're seeing has been suffering with this for hours, days, weeks, sometimes years. And now they're ready to solve it in your little 10 minute session. And sometimes you can actually do that. Sometimes it's like, all right, this is chronic. I'm sorry, I can't do much for you. But sometimes you can. Like, even if it's not like a medication or a procedure, it's just like a little bit of advice. Like, hey, by the way, if you stop drinking six cups of coffee and having carbonated things and having a bunch of spicy food, you will not be waking up 10 times a day to pee or 10 times a night to pee because you won't have overactive bladder as bad. Try to, you know, drink water. I was your primary. I could prescribe something a little bit more chronic, but I can't. But like my point is someone who's suffering for years and years or weeks and weeks or hours and hours, you can fix that in just a little bit based on what you're learning in school right now, which is amazing. Like that's a privilege. What other career can you do that? Right. Stockbroker like, okay, you made some money. Cool. But you didn't fix their suffering. So like it is an amazing career. That being said, I just put a bunch of pressure on you. I made you like see that your career is going to be awesome. But I also put a lot of pressure on you. And I want to kind of relinquish that because in my school, my favorite professor, Dr. Jay, had this one thing that he would say. He's like, this is important. This is important. Everything's important. Dr. Jay, like we get it that you're very smart. You've been, you know, practicing medicine for 40 years. We can't learn all of that in one hour. I'm sorry. Like that's too much pressure. So I want to say that, yes, it's all important. But no, you don't have to learn all of medicine right this minute. It's impossible. Please take it one step at a time, one exam at a time, just this chunk of material. And that's, don't worry about all of medicine. All right, you'll get there. I promise. But well, you'll never get there. You'll never know all of medicine, but you'll learn all these things as time goes on. Right now, it's only this exam. It's only these pages in your book, this chunk of material. It's not all of it. Please take the pressure off yourself. You don't have to learn everything right now. Just this little bit, get it really good, pass your test, move on. Bear? I like it. Good. That's going to be a short. We're going to click that out. Anyway, y'all. So I think I forgot to say this in the beginning, but this is mostly responding to a comment I got on TikTok on the video I made that basically says like it feels hopeless studying. I'm tired. It's four in the morning. I don't feel like I'm learning anything. And it's just basically the messages keep going because you never know what's going to stick. So go watch that video. I'll link it in the information for this video. But this person said like I really needed this. I failed this exam in PA school. I'm terrified. We're basically responding to that. It's okay. You're not the only one who did. I failed. Elijah's failed in the past. You'll get through it. You're not the only one. And I just want to, I just want to touch up on that specific like comment, right? Because that already provides us with so much info and like a scenario to work with. So I don't know if you want to like put it up here somewhere like in the video, but what's that the comment? Yeah. Yeah. The comment on TikTok. Yeah. It's like let's sit here somewhere if you have time. It'll be like right here. Yeah. There. So walking the comment will be right here. I don't know if it's about me. I don't know where it is. I don't know. Actually that's going to be up to zoom. We'll figure it out. So I, what you're saying provides a lot of context, right? You're sleeping at 4am or not grass or anything. I am guilty of that. Yes, I've slept at 3am, but that's because that's what works for me. I'm a night owl, right? So there's a couple like study tips that I'm going to give you with regards to the transparency of how I study. If I'm feeling tired, like even slightly and I'm reading a page over and over again, I'm going to take a break. I'm going to go on my phone or I'm going to take a nap, right? Because if you're wasting time, for example, you could have gotten like two hour nap or like an eight hour sleep, right? And then just wake up like refreshed and then you're studying the graphs, the knowledge right away. That's way more efficient than trying to stay up till 4am. And it's not working for you because you're at that point you might as well just be sitting in like in a room and doing nothing, right? So my advice for you is that if you're staying up till 4am and you don't work that way, some sleep, study in the morning. I tried that for the first time for my first exam. I was like, oh gosh, I'm so tired. I was just working on my lecture notes. I just finished the quiz and I still have to study for this exam. What I'm going to do now is I'm so beat and tired. I'm going to sleep. I don't know everything right now, but when I wake up, I'm going to give myself like two or three hours right before the exam and just like try to like photograph and remember everything like with a fresh mind. And when I did that, oh my God, like I did so well on that exam. I thought I got like a 70, but I got like a 90, right? So and the way I used to do it in college was like how you did it or whoever posted that comment. I stayed up till 4am or I pulled those all nighters, right? And I'm dead tired. I'm dead tired. I didn't get any breakfast, I didn't get any sleep. I'm cranky. I'm running on energy drinks. You're not going to be at your best performance if you do that. And so just get your sleep and study when it works for you. For me, if I work better at night, but if I can't work anymore, I'll go to sleep. Like if I'm more transparent with you throughout my day, most of the time throughout my day, I'm like on my phone games. I'm watching like YouTube PA videos. Like YouTube PA videos. Yes. YouTube PA videos. Keep watching like what your colleagues are making. But yeah, I watch a lot of YouTube videos to like get my mind off of it. If I'm not studying. And then I really like crack down during nighttime because that's when I feel like I'm able to retain the most. But if you're the opposite, if you work better during the morning or during the daytime, then dial in dial in during those hours and then at nighttime shut off. Because you need time to shut off as well. Yeah, I disagree. I disagree with that statement because you will shut off. Like your body will shut you off. You know, and I am a proponent of reaching your limit and pushing past your limit because you never know what your limit is. And I don't know, depends how smart you are. You know, I, I don't think that I'm very, very smart. I don't learn things quickly. Like I feel like I was definitely one of the dumber people in PA school, or at least one of the people who wasn't as like apt to grasp a lot of information quickly. I also wasn't on Adderall and almost everybody was. But that being said, my opinion is on Adderall. But that being said, like, I don't know, I think that you would be better off using these rare opportunities in life like graduate school, or like your first job, or like anything that's extra difficult to see what your limit is. Push past it. Like I'm so exhausted. I'm reading the same page. I don't feel like learning anything just like that video said. And then like you just keep doing it with faith saying like, all right, I know my brain's working. I know it's in there somewhere. I don't feel like I'm retaining, but I know that somewhere deep inside I am. And then boom, you get a 90 something on the exam when you don't feel like you know anything. It's like, wait, how did I do that? And then you start to have more confidence in your ability to learn and study and know things. But that's also just like me and my bias. That was a huge life changing moment for me. So I don't know if that's like all the stars lined up and like for whatever reason, my brain was retaining that hour at 4am. You know, and like this is this is a lot of like inside kind of information. If you've seen that video, it's not going to make sense. But the point is to do what works for you, you know, and do more than you think you can because PA school is going to push it. And it pushes everyone. It's not just you. It's hard for everybody. I promise. It's funny. It's when you said that, like, oh, I remember this during this hour because I was so exhausted. That actually happened to me in my first exam. I was like, oh my gosh, I remember this question because I was stuck on it for like, I was stuck on this topic for like half an hour. It just wasn't grasping it. But for some reason it came back to me during the test. So yeah, yeah, there's some like parts of that like I agree with you like pushing yourself because you are a sponge. Like, like you will retain as much information as you can. And then when the test happens, like sometimes you're just like, just let it spin it out. Yeah. Well, also the more you learn, the more it's like easy to learn. Well, my my favorite professor, like I keep mentioning Dr. Jay, he called it building a lattice. It's like a like an exo skeleton. It's like an endoskeleton. It's like the structure of your knowledge. Like right now, you might be a premed, you might be a biochem major, you think you know some stuff, you don't know anything about medicine, really. You haven't really learned medicine at a high rate, unless you're like a foreign medical grad, or you know, or you're a nurse for years or something. But like, you don't have that like providers medical knowledge yet. And everything just seems overwhelming. But once you start to learn a few different disease processes, how a clinician thinks about them, how the exam, like the physical exam ties in your treatment options, and you see that over and over again for different things. That's when you start kind of building that structure, and then learning more disease processes and treatment plans just kind of like add on top of that. And it's a lot easier. You know, some things are totally different. But some things it's like, Oh, I see how we're thinking about chest pain in this regard, or maybe kind of we're thinking about belly pain a little bit similar. And this is like, it's totally different diseases, but we're thinking about it similarly. And it's like, I've seen this before, I thought about it this way before. And now it's just stacking new facts on a lot of old facts, instead of just like overwhelmed, just trying to learn everything. Exactly. But the more you do it, the easier it gets, basically. That's what I'm saying. But anyway, on this topic, any last thoughts here before we move on to the next? There's different ways to approach it. Like me and Boris mentioned, Boris is very hardworking at it. I'm more of like, I don't know if it's because I'm still like fresh, but I'm more of like a do what fits for you kind of guy like wellness. But at the same time, whether or not you agree with me or Boris, you get this work, you have to put it work, right? It's a job. This is your job in your life. You got to push yourself now because if you don't push yourself now, then when, right? Yeah, if you're not pushing yourself in PA school, either you're extraordinarily smart, or you're going to fail. Like, I don't know, there was extraordinarily smart people like the kind of people that sat in front of the class and got straight A's since they were like in kindergarten. There was those people, and I saw them working their butts off. And then there was people who were literally physicians, like trained physicians from different countries, and they were working their butts off. PA school is hard no matter who you are, what we're doing. So you're not alone. It's hard, and you're going to have to just put in a lot of hard work. And we're here to support you and cheer you on from the sidelines. Do you have any questions just like comment? Yeah, my knowledge are here for you, man. We're very engaged with the community. We love helping. We love getting success stories, you know. And so we're very happy to help you out and cheer you on because we believe in you. The end. You guys got this, man. It's just PA school. We've all been there. It's only like the top 1% of the 1% get in, and most people do end up passing. But like, yeah, you guys got this. If you're in, you're in for a reason, you totally can do it, and you will. But yeah, anyway, next video topic.