 Alright, so a lot of you have seen my last video that I put out on Wednesday and I was talking about just the job perspective for the PA profession over the course of the next 10 years and I wanted you guys to just kind of take a really good look at that statistic that they were throwing out there just so that you can be making the most informed decision when it comes to the career that you're trying to get into. I had a question from that video and I wanted to touch on that because it specifically talks about job satisfaction and you know what's going on in the PA profession. So I will talk to you about that from my perspective in this video. What's up you guys? This is Adana. Welcome back to my channel. Okay, thank you guys so much for joining me again. If you are new to my channel, I make PA related videos amongst other videos just about my life as a mom, wife, and PA. So if you're interested in that, take a look around. If you like what you see, go ahead and subscribe, okay? I have this comment that was made by Courtney Foster and she said, I've been having a bit of a crisis because all of the PA's I work with and follow are saying that they are extremely overwhelmed and burnt out and it's making me wonder if this field is something I want to do and is worth it or if people reach their career goals and realize that things aren't not quite what they had hoped. I also cannot tell how much of this is work-life balance in general or COVID related. Do you have any input on that? Thank you so much for your videos. All right, Courtney, so yes, I do have some input on that and I mean I just want to start off by saying like honestly it's not just PA's like the physicians are burnt out, the nurses are burnt out, the techs are burnt out, like legit everybody in healthcare is burnt out. And I think that it's largely because of COVID. So I know when I first started it was in 2020, kind of really at the height of COVID, I started in like April of 2020 and it was bad and when I'm telling you bad it was just like there were not as many providers working like in hospital. We had to cover so many different service lines. It was really just like overwhelming first and foremost as a new grad PA but also just as a PA going into a new specialty that you weren't necessarily really familiar with. It was super just overwhelming and inundating the amount of work that we had to do. And at the same time, you know, you are fighting off this virus that you are still trying to figure out like how it works and you know what works in terms of treatment and all of that stuff. So it was pretty bad. Now obviously a year later it's a little bit better in terms of what we know about the virus and how it works and therefore when treating patients with COVID it's a lot less stressful I guess you can say. However, it's still, there's still a lot of like build over or like spill over I guess you can say from 2020 in terms of just how tired people are, okay. Like my nurses, I have nurses that every week that I go to work it's like oh somebody news quitting just because it's they're tired you know they're being asked to do a lot and it's the same from the PA perspective. They're putting a lot on us as you know APPs and I don't know if we're always like as appreciated and I think that's part of what the issue is in healthcare in general like be it from the physicians or the PAs or the nurses that feel like they're burnt out. I think a lot of it stems from a lack of feeling like they are appreciated you know if you get like thank yous and things like that from your higher ups your bosses or hey you know you guys are doing a good job we understand that this is not easy but we appreciate you all I think those that goes a long way you know just a little sign of appreciation so that is my thoughts with respect to if it's COVID related or work life balance I mean I think as PAs we really have the opportunity to truly have a good work life balance and if you don't have a good work life balance I think that's kind of on you like you can decide the type of job that you want the type of hours that you want there's so many different job structures and hour structures be it 4-10s or 3-12s or 3-24s in two weeks which is what I do or you know you're working five days a week eight hours a day or you're working five on or six on and seven off or whatever the case may be like there are structures that you can choose so that you're able to actually fulfill that work life balance and so if you're not feeling like your work life balance is where it needs to be then that is something that you can take a really good look at and can change now in terms of them being overwhelmed like I said I think it's a lot of it has to do with COVID but honestly like when you get into I've had some friends some people that have said you know like the PA profession is not necessarily what they thought that they would were getting into I guess you could say you know like they they want something where they feel like they're making a difference in terms of like the long run and then there are others that are like this is absolutely what I wanted to do which is me you know like I'm happy seeing patients I'm happy you know treating patients I think that it's something that I've wanted to do for a while and obviously you know I'm not necessarily in the specialty that I thought that I wanted to be in originally but I'm having a great time being a trauma PA I'm learning a lot and I'm very excited that I'm afforded the opportunity to be in this field and be in this specialty and learn all the various different procedures and and advanced practice skills that I'm allowed you know to learn through this specialty so I think it just depends on you and the specialty that you want to get into be it you know primary care or a surgical subspecialty or something different like pediatrics whatever it may be you can make that decision and I think that is the beauty of you know the APP model especially when you have this this way of kind of doing this lateral movement if you get into something that you don't really like that you're not really feeling so if you know you were in urgent care and you're like nah I'm not feeling this or and let me go to primary care or vice versa you can and you don't have to get a new certification and you literally just have to look for a job and be like hey let me interview and you know hopefully you get the job and so I think that is that's something that can help stem some of this like oh I don't know if this is what it was all cracked up to be or if it's as fulfilling as I want it to be because if you want to follow patients long term then you know get into Peds and see them until they're 21 if you want to not follow patients at all then you know get into emergency medicine or urgent care and and just kind of treat them acutely but there is a space for you and there's an opportunity for you to kind of look into all of that and just get what's best for you so hopefully this answers your question Courtney I mean I again I think that different strokes for different folks right you know there are different things that may be kind of fueling this overwhelmed feeling but I think overall it's COVID related so have no fear just keep pushing through keep asking questions to various different PAs and get all of their input and then see what that means for you and your future and then make your decision based on that okay thank you guys so much for watching thank you Courtney for this question if you guys have any other questions for me please leave them in comment section below go ahead and like this video I still have a little something in my throat you guys but go ahead and like this video subscribe to my channel and follow me on Instagram and on the PA and on Instagram and get that C University thank you guys so much for watching I will talk to you guys next time