 This Tuesday, I'm going to be breaking out exactly what it means by a 24-hour shift. Do I get to eat? Do I get to sleep? What are you doing at three o'clock in the morning? I'm going to be answering all of these questions and so much more. So be sure to come back on Tuesday for that video. Hello, going on over here at the channel. Welcome back to my channel. For those of you who are new, please go ahead, take a look around and subscribe. All right. So I am a sharer. That's why I have this YouTube channel. So I am sharing my life as an official PA with you guys. And now you guys, like legit, I am officially a PA because you know what? Everything is on me. I have started my 24-hour shifts where it is me on my own, no longer shadowing with somebody there, like that is actually, I guess, directing the care per se and putting everything in, although we were getting used to that and like putting orders in. Now it's on me. And so I wanted to share that experience with you because I've officially started 24-hour shifts. So I've been already doing 12-hour shifts, so I'm three-twelves a week. But with the 24s now, what we do is we will actually have six shifts a month or three shifts in the pay period. So to me, that sounds amazing because you work for a day. You may be off for three days, off for four days, and then you come back and you work for another day. You're off for two and you work for the last day. That sounds great to me, right? Because I have more time with my family and you all know that I am a family person. And so that is what we're going to be doing basically for the next foreseeable future for the rest of my life as a drama PA, general surgery PA. So I keep saying we because there were two other PA's that started with me, so we're all kind of now transitioning into this 24-hour shift. But I was really nervous, you all. You know that I've been talking to you guys about my first days as being a PA in general surgery and trauma. And so typically we will start the day very early, maybe around 6.30. We'll do our typical sign out and get to know the patients. And obviously that's a lot easier when you're seeing the patients three days out of the week. You kind of already get a feel of who they are. You know what they came in for, what their various different issues may be that they are currently battling with respect to trying to get up out of the hospital and get into recovery. And so you're very familiar with the patients. But for the 24s now, like it's going to be a little bit more hard. You know, it's going to be a little bit more difficult because you're off for four days. So you have no idea who these patients are. So that was kind of like one of the obstacles having to overcome. Because yes, you have your colleague that is giving you a sign out and telling you like, this is the patient. This is what they came in for. No acute events overnight or whatever the case may be. This is all you necessarily need to do or manage. Like you're still like, who is this patient, right? So that was me kind of sort of because I wasn't I had worked maybe two days prior, but not like immediately proceeding my first 24. So I was nervous, you guys. Like I was like sweating bullets and walk up in there like still happy. I'm still excited to be there. But like legit, like my teeth are chattering on the inside. I'm like, F, like I am literally about to be the person, right? And now mind you during the day, there are residents that are on the general surgery and trauma services. So you have health. Obviously there are two other trauma PAs that are there with me as well. The residents are typically the ones kind of directing the care of the patient throughout the day. When they're not in surgery, then we're the ones that are kind of just kind of following up with things. But you know, this is what they're doing. And then they might go into surgery and then we're doing it again. But they leave at five. And so after five, like it's you, it's me, right? So and honestly, when the sun goes down, that's like when all the foolishness happens. So so I was really nervous about that. But you know, five o'clock came the residents left and it was me and one other PA that, you know, we were, we came in together. A couple level ones came in and level two traumas, meaning like, hey, gunshot stabbings for level ones and level twos are typically like your motor vehicle accent and falls, that kind of stuff. So those came in. We went down to help. We went to the OR and we helped with one of the level ones that came in, which was like just kind of cool to see the process and get in there and see like kind of what we might do. Um, when level ones come in at night. So that was something that was like cool to see. And then after that, like I went to check on my patients. So what I have decided that I will do is actually go and check on my patients like three times over the night period. So, um, I decided that I will go at like eight o'clock, right? So essentially like right before I'm ready to kind of like die down a little. Um, so I want to go at eight. Um, then I was going to go at 12 and then at four, um, just to see kind of like how they did over the night. And so that's, that was, that was what I decided to do. Now with that being said, like those are the things that I did, like my patients were pretty, like thank the Lord very easy, um, to deal with overnight. Uh, there weren't really any, like any serious things that I had to do. I got like a consult for, uh, thoracic case, which was pretty cool. Um, because I did a CT surgery rotation when I was a student. Um, and so that is like something that you should really like just take into consideration depending on like what field you want to go to into as a PA, make sure that you do a rotation in that because you never know like what you're going to be called on to do. And like, I had no idea obviously that I would be doing like thoracic and vascular, but you know, that is something that I have to cover overnight. And so I'm glad that I did a CT surgery rotation, but I got a console for that. I was able to actually go and do the console and, you know, fix whatever the issue was, which it wasn't really anything serious. It was just like a chest tube thing. Apart from that, I got a couple calls on some of my patients, but it was just kind of like managing like pain and things like that. And so ultimately it was not like the scariest thing. And obviously there are going to be moments where I am slammed. Um, I did get to like take like a really quick nap, maybe like two hours before I got another call for a patient that I had to go see and then like another two hours overnight. But I mean, like who can complain about, you know, getting a nap when you are, you know, on, on your 24 hour call. Like that is like a blessing. I cannot complain about that. And so I am preparing myself for the moments where I will not be able to take a nap or sleep or whatever the case may be for an extended period of time because, you know, trauma one and trauma two are getting slammed with a level one and level two traumas. Or we have a lot of gen surge patients on our list. But right now, you know, it's, it was okay. And I am okay with that. But even if you all like, even if I get slammed, like at the end of the day, like I realized like, look, I'm here for 24 hours and then I don't have to see this place again for another two to three days. And so I'm very, very excited about that. I still am doing a lot of studying and sorry, speaking of studying, I know that you all have been like asking me when are my sessions open or like where can I go to for sessions? So again, you guys, I have sessions open for the month of June. You can go to my website at www.donaldpa.com, sign up for your sessions. Very, very limited because again, I'm starting these 24 hours. So I want to give myself enough time to like get used to it. So I only have one day a week that I'm offering them. Okay. So just go ahead and do that. But I'm back to me. I'm still studying. I'm still looking up things. You know, even when you get calls, like if you don't know it right away, look it up. And then you always have like that backup person to call on. And obviously you're going to speak to your attending as well as if it's a consult to let them know, hey, this patient is, you know, tachycardic. And I don't know like why what would you like me to do? You can always like do that. But for me, I want to make sure that like I have all of the information first before I bring this to my attending. So that was kind of like my whole 24 hour shift. I got several calls. I think my last call was at like 4 30, which was fine because I wanted to go see my patients around that time anyway. So I went and I checked in on them, made sure that they were all doing well. And then after that, like I stayed up and I was just kind of chart checking the whole time and preparing myself so that I can give sign out to the next PA coming on. But it was not like significantly like as scary as I thought it was going to be. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to have like this nervous feeling for a very like a fairly long time, maybe these next couple weeks as I do this on my own. And I will tell you all about all of those situations, you know, with of course within reason, but I am excited to share this moment in this journey with you guys. I'm so grateful for you guys for joining me on this journey. If you have not done so please follow me on Instagram. I'm going to start, you know, doing more pictures and stuff on that a lot more because I have the time to do so. So I'm really excited about that. If you have any questions for me on this 24 hour shift or any other 24 hour shift or what I learned on my 12 hour shifts, please leave them in the comment section below. Thank you guys so much for watching. I will talk to you guys next time. Bye.