I'm excited to be here with Dylan new come today and we're going to be talking about embodiment. I know a lot of you who are watching or listening have at least heard of embodiment, if not your practice, some aspect of embodiment. And Dylan has created a new. Well, not new anymore. It's been two decades but anyway, we're going to get into all this I'm excited. Dylan welcome. Good to have you here. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so let me just kind of share your official bio with everybody. And then we'll get into the conversation so Dylan new come is the founder and lead trainer of us a zoo embodied intelligence that spelled you z a z you and I'm going to have you explain that Dylan later. So it was a zoo embodied intelligence. It's it. Dylan is also an embodiment based coach for helping professionals and cultural creatives and is a researcher of the of all this stuff too. So Dylan has a background. He was trained in the Juilliard School, Juilliard School, you know famous for music and performance. And he was trained there in dance performance and music composition. He dance in the Netherlands dance theater for eight years was a multi award winning choreographer and composer in that country for over a decade. And for about the last two decades, he has been developing and leading this thing called as a zoo embodied intelligence, which is a personal growth modality that empowers people to identify and shift their internal state from deregulation and stress to balance and empowerment. So Dylan I'm going to stop there with the visual bio because I think we're going to we're going to get into a lot of the stuff so the first question. I want to ask you to kind of place us a zoo in a greater context is, you know, the word embodiment, you know, to be honest, I mean I've heard about it for for many years, but it really hasn't come into my, the forefront of my experience in until the last couple years. And I'm, you know, since you have been working in this field for so long now I wonder, could you give us that's that bigger context of you know there used to be mind body, you know now it's embodiment. How do those relate. I'm going to give us your take on that. Yeah, yeah. There's, when I was growing up. I'm 50 now so I guess I was growing up in the 80s ish mind body was more the term. And so yoga was a mind body practice, Tai Chi, Chigong, these types of things. And, and the sense was with that that I gathered from it was it was mind body because it was conscious movement. Right, we were, we weren't just doing it for the physical gains or the physical skill. We were doing it to shift our energy to shift our mood which would clarify our thinking was sort of like active meditation was another term right walking meditation moving meditation. I'm going to interrupt you for sex sorry about that but it's so interesting because when I thought of mind body I simply thought that they were trying to make the connection that there is a there is a connection between the mind and body. Absolutely, you're actually taking it to the level of practice now and which is which is great. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, very true. Very true mind body was also just trying to trying to put on on the people's cognitive map like it's a it's a both way connection. Yes, at the mind affects the body the body affects my because that was not a given 30 years ago for shocking right but no I mean to us it's normal today but that was like a kind of out there alternative constant. That's right. And then of course naturally. Well if there's a connection how do we live. How then do shall we live it's like well there's we can we can practice something. There are different modalities but yeah go ahead. Yeah. So, go ahead to embodiment define that from a circle back and fill in. Yeah, that's great. Different people it's a very broad term, and it's and it's a newly in, you know, trending term it's, it's, it's trending massively in the last few years, particularly the last three years, which is great. You know when I used to go around 15 years ago saying I do embodiment I got much more puzzled looks that I do now, which is great. I hold it embodiment. There is the sense of return to the, to the body, right this body like well what, what is being embodied and who is embodying it. Right, like, so embodiment, as we use it in culture tends to have two different facets to it one is more internal one is more external. The internal is like, Oh, I now have more and more conscious awareness of my feelings of my energy of where I can feel stuff of where I'm numb so I'm aware of where I'm not aware. I'm aware of how I'm reacting in the moment, and increasingly as you get into that I'm aware of how all of that is influencing my thoughts my feelings my actions. And then the next level of skill after that is I can start to, I can start to exercise some conscious will in that I can go oh I am I'm noticing that upset I'm noticing that anxiety, and with a breath and a relaxation downwards. You know, cut that in half and just two or three breaths and carry on in a more calm way and my conversation with George in this podcast or I noticed that edge of nervousness and I can take that moment to shift my state. Right, or I'm noticing I'm a little bit back here. Oh, I can shift into more comfort. That's the internal game of embodiment. Yes, and if anyone happens to be listening instead of watching, I do recommend that you actually watch this video because Dylan lives the stuff and you can tell by the way that he is presenting to us that he is, you know, this is very. Yeah, it's it's it's integrated it's integrated in your way of expression. Locally, we also are familiar with, oh he really embodies virtue or he embodies the, the Icelandic aesthetic or, you know, or Bjork's work embodies the, the Icelandic spirit right so it sort of is a living manifested example of in the world.  So the other part of it is, and this flows from from the internal yin to the external young of it is that. And this is for me that the full promise of embodiment and why it's becoming so popular. We can shift that state into the place that really not only helps us feel more regulated and connected and empowered, but is it is the kind of state that is a good fit for the moment for what's for how we're needing to show up to connect to actually publish that blog article to stand to our truth to whatever it is right. There are states that serve that whatever type of behavior and states that might in and of themselves like if you were in a meditation session or something be a great state, but it's not the state it's not the energetic vibe right that you need for that moment. So, if you can shift your internal state into the state that will serve you in that moment you can not only have, you know skillful internal environment but you can embody something in the world. You can be that that doer that not just that beer, but also that. It's so interesting. I feel like I've kind of intuitively sensed into that over the years. I talk about this thing I call joyful productivity which is essentially embodied embodied values in our day to day moments of work. And that's kind of what you do and I you and I do focus made sessions together sometimes I see you do some movement to be able to kind of bring this bring the the moment, you know bring bring your intention into the moment center. So, embodiment you've done a fantastic job of explaining that what what that means now. Let's go into was a zoo if it feels right now. So you've developed this this technique your researcher of embodiment you've developed this technique called us a zoo. UZ AZ you so couple things one is why is it called that. And what is it. Yeah, yeah. And I think that the more slightly more deluxe explanation of us as you is good to circle back on how did I transition from being a dancer choreographer to what I do now, because the answer to that question is in there. Yes. So my first piece in the ecology of this I grew up with singing and dancing my mother's a dancer. I actually grew up with West African dance that's my mom's was my mom's obsession, all when I was growing up. So my pathway into dance was through through American contra dancing and folk dancing and West African dancing. So I went to modern and then ballet and then went to Julia already got into a ballet companies was a very and then got into puto and contact improv and so like I've run the gamut in terms of movement which has been wonderful. But another thread for me was meditation. When I was 12, I, my parents weren't into it necessarily I just, I just identified Japanese culture and Zen, particularly when I was 12 became obsessed with it and started meditating. And then when I was 18 I got into the passion Buddhism insight meditation and went really deep into that for about eight years. To the point where when I was about 26 2728 I was really torn between do I go to a monastery, or do I live this, you know, non monk life, and risk, you know getting caught up in illusion and samsara and craving in a version. You know, make it through and still, you know, get enlightened or be here, or, you know, reach, whatever in the answer is authentic marketing. Oh is it. But no it's brilliant and I love that your history includes both. Well and you know the dance and choreography and performance is almost like the development of consciousness through active expression. It's really the meditation and the Zen and the compassion as like development of consciousness through stillness. Yeah, exactly. One felt very in the body very visceral whether it was the sensual aesthetics of sound and movement. Yes. And also I, you know I got to do that in a dance studio with other people and on stage and so. My life wasn't like that necessarily like my relationship to finances wasn't a joyous sensual dance, my relationship with my significant other was not well a string of breakups wasn't like that. How can I, how can I integrate this more you know I've learned so much through meditation in these states but they're not integrating into the moments where I most want them, or if they are there. They're in it but in a way that is removing me from it, like my sex life was messed up because I just felt like kind of in and out of it like I wasn't able to integrate that non attachment with enjoying sex. So I decided well I feel like underneath sound and movement is energy is just like conscious energy integrating into the flow of life. And how can I research that and understand like take what I'm learning and weave it together in a way that I can explore how things want to move in these other contexts. So I got a grant from the Dutch government to research the effect of vowel sounds on thought emotion and behavior, which is where I thought that's where it's concrete it's it's researchable and it's where sound and movement and awareness come together. We had hundreds of people for three years come into the studio, and it was a large grant, and make vowel sounds and chant them and then just close their eyes and intuitively move. And we documented 40 different vowel sounds with multiple cultures and genders and patterns very clear patterns started to emerge of how the body moved, depending on how the mouth was and what feeling states. Very importantly, and this was sort of the unexpected gift where people were loving certain vowel sounds and feelings and where people were very uncomfortable with them. So some people like really liked you give them an eye and say go play for 10 minutes with that.  Other people are like become really self conscious. Right. That's a little too out there. Other people you give them an ooh, they're like, ooh, this is intimate and sensual and grounded gets me into it somebody else like this feels stuck. This feels limited this feels like. It started to become this language where somebody would even walk into the studio you look at their body language you go, and be able to make a pretty good prediction of what types of movements and qualities and sounds would be would be a fit for their natural tenancy. So, fast forward 20 that was 20 years ago fast forward 20 years ago this is evolved into a very sophisticated modality of understanding different states. What are these states good for, so to speak from a sort of practical point of view. And what vowel sounds breaths and body postures and imagery help people activate these states, and then another layer of how to work through any resistance or trauma, or limiting beliefs that might be presenting them, preventing them from activating and utilizing these states in a in a constructive way, where their system isn't going. It's not safe for me to feel this it's not safe for me to be this way in the world. But I, you know, it's so powerful because you're integrating so much of the human experience. You know, not not not just movement not just thought, both the movement thought and expression, both, you know vocal and bodily expression into into something that's practical and that you can actually use on a day to day basis. So what do you use when we when we do focus made session you're just you're you're working but you're also embody that so that you can you can bring a more powerful, more purposeful states so that's that's amazing so we're already flying by so fast but I want to I want to wait a minute, do we have left roughly. Well we have we have. Yeah, we have like seven or eight minutes left. Okay. So I definitely want people to know how to how to learn more about this obviously we're going to have all the links below but I would say let me ask you this one question. You've noticed, what kinds of changes have you noticed within students or practitioners of the Zazu and I know you've done this for so many years or so many people that it's hard to pick out. But if you're any general patterns you've noticed what tends to happen to somebody as they practice this. Yeah, and they practice it correctly track. Yeah, sure. So the word that comes to me as less reactivity. It's like, imagine, I like to think of it as as a as a full color palette. Zazu is a model, there's different ways you could slice and dice it but it's a very full spectrum color palette of the different states that we go through neurologically and relationally by systematically routinely going through the mall. Like imagine if your spine you can bend this way and this way but a lot of people they get really stiff this way because they don't use it that much. It's like recovering those degrees of freedom. So that when life is asking you to move this way your system sure right now like oh I can't move that way. I'm sort of externalizing the metaphor here to make it. Yeah, it's like if you the more powerfully flexible you are, the more you can flow with the callings of life, instead of break because yeah. Right so like the shift from assertiveness to empathy and back again that's a really good one that can be really hard right like oh I need to be assertive but now I need to just drop that and empathize with the other person's point of view. The system is freaked out to do that no it's not safe to give up my own point of view because I blah blah blah. Right then that stress that's a form of stress and strain on yourself on the relationship. So that not that greatly reduced reactivity, much more sense of flow. Right because as you can imagine then it's like, Oh, okay, like what is the moment asking of me. Great, let's do it. And then being able to enjoy that more.  But your body mind. Yeah, so and then the next thing I would say is energy, just much more energy because all of that resistance costs energy. Right. Yes. Right. And so when when you're not only not losing energy to resistance and sort of friction, but you're actually starting to gain energy like yeah. Oh, I like that. Oh, I like that too. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Well, the last few minutes I want to just how what is what are the next steps for somebody who's interested to learn more. Yeah, let me just frame that first by saying we've evolved is also really over the last 10 years I focused on a sort of a bifurcation of our customer segments, which is personal and professional. Okay, so I am certain and some months and some years I'll focus more on on serving the personal use side of a Zazu because it's really important to me that this is, you know, it has such such power I really want to give that as a gift to the world that we use this so we have like a one day online training that you know that you can get that just teaches you all the basics of it. We have a personal assessment that's for free, the embodied intelligence self assessment, which you just answer these questions about your life and it, it sort of deduces therefore which types of balanced and imbalanced states, you frequent more and helps you understand the ecology of those states which has really helped that sort of the starting point in what states are going on right now and then you know which ones do you want to target to work on. So it can be both a general practice and very much a specific practice because everybody's different in their pattern right. So that's personal use. It's like I do a coaching program now if somebody wants to go in a longer personal growth journey with that. And then there's the professional side which is for coaches and therapists and other helping professionals. So we have a three day training for them we have a nine month certification training. So it's pretty much a balance of psychotherapists or therapists and coaches which I really like. I teach together with a psychotherapist who's trained in somatic psychotherapy and trauma therapy, and somatic is another word somatic is another word that's been become it's been trending over the last probably decade or more. Yeah, which is related which is, you know, somebody. Thank you so much Dylan for this amazing work. I see so much potential in it, and grateful that you, you brought this out into the world based on research. And of course, decades of practice and with so many students and professionals doing this so those of you who are interested. So, you know, we'll we'll we'll link to the assessment will link to sort of the personal training was well as a professional. And maybe there's is there any kind of send us off with with some some encouragement or some insight or anything you want to you want to share here. Just to take those moments to pause. When you're like sitting down at your computer about to engage in a new or a next task, or about to go off to an appointment, and just inquire into okay that that situation or endeavor. Okay, there's that. There's my state here. How aligned do they feel. Right, not just in isolation how do I feel right now but how do I feel relative to the task at hand. And is there anything and then it was also of course equips you with how to, but already just intuitively asking that question and then is there anything that wants to happen right now that I can do just with with breath or a shift or some movement that would help me feel ready and aligned to go into this. Just taking that moment can make all the difference. Excellent, excellent. Thank you so much for your work and I hope folks who are watching or listening will check out the links below and follow up with this powerful method. Thank you George for for this interview and I want to take a moment to thank you for your something about your, your quality of, of gentle strength and compassion that for someone being in the marketing world is is just such a reassuring anchor to know that those qualities can be held in this space. It's a, it's a gift to people like me, who are often asking ourselves, can we market effectively with integrity and compassion. Well, it is certainly a mutual admiration society here. Thank you Dylan. Yeah, thank you for your work. Thank you.


58-year-old white female, history of melanoma, incidental renal mass identified on staging evaluation, history of hypertension, hepatitis B, had a cholecystectomy, a hysterectomy, and a CT chest was performed, which was negative. It's too bad, Chapin left, this is his case. Here's the mass, Dr. Delacroix. That is an atypical appearing mass in the left kidney. You can see that it looks different than a lot of the other masses that we've seen today. It's not round. It almost looks like you've poured water into the kidney, and it's just sitting there. You see it? Yeah. So on this, I would definitely do a biopsy to help guide what I was going to do. So my first step, because I think it's atypical, is I would biopsy this mass. Dr. Koran, what are your thoughts? I agree with Dr. Delacroix. 100%. I would do a biopsy. This does not look like a regular, so to speak, kidney cancer. Dr. Mateen. I think it's fine. She has no disease elsewhere, right? Correct. Yeah, so the concern is maybe that it's the melanoma, and melanoma can't do this. I guess I would talk to the person who treated her for it to see that if it was melanoma, if it would make a difference or not. Because typically, those aren't managed by surgery anyway, unless they're metastatic. So I would consider maybe just doing the ultimate biopsy and putting that in a bucket. Yeah, I think, actually, I agree with you. Because if she has no other evidence of metastatic disease, regardless of what this is, melanoma or renal cell carcinoma, the primary treatment would be surgery. Just like Dr. Mateen mentioned, the key is to talk to the melanoma doctor, not just to take the patient on our own without discussing this with the primary oncologist who treated the patient for melanoma. Sometimes they can use the tumor to make vaccines from it for melanoma. So it's always good to coordinate efforts with our colleagues who treat the main primary disease. So the patient underwent a biopsy of the renal mass, and it turned out to be clear cell renal cell carcinoma. They underwent a left radical nephrectomy, spared the left adrenal gland. You can see the pathology was T3A, Furman's grade four. Postoperative recovery is uneventful. She returned six weeks post-op with imaging. And now the imaging, unfortunately, these images are not that great. But basically what it shows is she has new tumors present. Here's one very central. New tumors present in the right kidney. This is also thought to be an enhancing mass here. And there's also an enhancing mass associated with this cyst. So three different masses that are all intraparenchymal associated with the right kidney. And some very tiny indeterminate nodules present in the chest. Dr. Mateen, what do you want to do? I'd call up one of these two guys, but only because I think just to have a discussion, that the problem with these findings in the lung is that it's this quandary we're in between with CT scans that we see when lesions are that small. They're too small to do anything about. I'm guessing that's about half a centimeter. Oh, yeah. They're too small to biopsy. They're too small to biopsy. But you know there's something there, and patients always want to do something. But there's really nothing you can do except the risk of a needle in the lung. So basically, I would just, a short answer is I would probably look at her, do another set of scans in two or three months. Not three, probably two. What about the lesions in a right kidney? Yeah, I mean, the problem with that is that if she's developing metastatic disease and we're overly aggressive with those lesions in the kidney, it's what we talked about. God forbid she has a bad complication. Meantime, she's sitting in the ICU in a rehab facility recovering from those complications and the metastatic sites are growing and we can't do anything about it. So that's where we run the risk of causing harm, which is. The only challenge is that the radiologist is saying that these lesions appeared in this kidney over the last, basically, two months. So if you wait another two months, are you going to have a kidney? You know, and you will have a kidney and the treatment may be more difficult. And I think it's balancing those different risks. The same could be said about her metastatic disease in terms of things rapidly progressing. If it's metastatic. So I think it's difficult to have a pure win-win situation here. Dr. Crum, what are your thoughts? I would follow the patient for more time in a few weeks. If the patient has more metastatic disease, then that tells me that we shouldn't really operate on the right kidney at all. Dr. Delacro? I agree. If you had a gerontuximab trial, this may be a role, a place where you could utilize it to characterize those lesions in the lung rather than sticking a needle in them. Would you like to elaborate that for us? Everyone knows about PET scans. It's advertised. Well, most PET scans are based on something called FDG, which is where we radio label a glucose. There are other ways to do a PET scan that are not FDG. And there's one marker that's specific to clear cell renal cell carcinoma actually associated with a tumor marker, carbonic anhydrase 9. It's something that's not currently approved in the United States, but it may be something that will allow us in the future to determine if suspicious lesions in the lung or even primary tumors are actually clear cell rather than sticking needles in them. So when we look at these very small renal masses, I mean, these very small lung masses, the interventional radiologists here are good, but those are very, very small to be sticking needles into. So if potentially the gerontuximab scan was approved, you may be a role for it. And if it was positive, you'd know that this patient has metastatic disease, and the patient could go ahead and start systemic therapy. I don't think that it'd be any role in treating the primary tumor here. You would just start systemic therapy. So in the absence of that, so without the... In the absence of that, I'm ready to throw that in there, I would re-scan this patient in six to eight weeks. I would not go, unless you had a clinical trial, I would not do anything else. Okay, I would agree. And just so you know that that gerontuximab, the company, it's been made by a company called Wilex and the FDA has mandated that they have to do another clinical trial before it can get approved. So it's probably many years down the line before we're gonna have that. All right, one more case. So what happened? Update on that patient. I wish Dr. Chapin were here because he asked me to put that case in. He's currently debating what he's going to do. What would you do? I'm sorry? What would you do? I told him to wait. I said wait six to eight weeks and get another scan. And if those nodules in the lung are bigger, you have your answer and you haven't... Because I don't think he can do a partial nephrectomy on that right side. She would render the patient an effort. So let's say in six to eight weeks the lung nodules have not increased. They're the same. Then I take a look at the right kidney. If the right kidney hasn't changed, then I'd say, well, let's wait another couple of months. I mean, I think the only reason to operate on that right kidney is to cure. And if you can't cure her, then you have not done her any favors. Isn't your suspicion high that what this lady has is, I forgot if it's a female. Female. She has metastasis to the kidney, to the right kidney with three lesions. They could be suspicious lesions in the lung. So this could be metastatic disease. It could be metastatic disease. I mean, I don't think we can make that determination. I'm not sure it's to be candid. I don't think it's relevant whether those are met or primary tumors. The fact is that they're there. And the real issue is, does she have metastatic disease elsewhere? If she has metastatic disease elsewhere, then operating on that kidney is not gonna be helpful. And in fact, it might likely be harmful by rendering her dialysis dependent. No, what I'm thinking, my alternative is how I may provide an alternative view is that what she has is metastatic disease.  So, you know, I mean, you can make the case that she should not have surgery even if those things in the lungs are staying the same because she has three leashes in the right kidney. These are metastases and therefore, she is not gonna be... So, would you treat her with the information we have? I would treat her. I mean, that's an alternative. Michael, would you? I probably wouldn't treat her. I'd probably watch for a little while since we don't know what's going on. Would you do a biopsy to improve recurrence? Suppose she came back and the nodules in the lungs stayed the same, but the tumors in the kidney increased. What would you do? Dr. Delacroix? Why did she believe he could get it first? That'd be very difficult to add. I think I'd try to treat her with systemic, or refer to my colleagues for systemic treatment because I still think, I mean, looking at the CT scan of the chest, even if those pulmonary meds or pulmonary lesions don't show any growth in six weeks and the primary tumor or the tumor in the right kidney shows a small increase, I would still either watch her or send her down to medical oncology because I think I'm almost pretty sure that those are gonna be metastasis in the lung. I would get a biopsy because she has a history of melanoma. So we have to make sure, before we start systemic therapy, to know what we're dealing with. Biopsy of... The right, one of those three lesions in the right kidney because the lungs and nodules are too small to biopsy to give you a yield. And again, if she didn't have melanoma, I would say, well, there is overwhelming evidence that or probability that this is going to be renal cell. But with the history of melanoma, you wanna make sure you're treating the right tumor. So I would get a biopsy. If it's melanoma, then she will be obviously sent to the melanoma people to treat her. And if it is RCC, I would treat her with systemic therapy. So I know a little bit more. Brian had actually asked me to look at her kidney and see if we can appellate all those three lesions in the kidney. And I think it's doable, but I was worried about the extent of the, one of the larger tumors, one of the larger of the tree extended behind one of the cysts. So that's why we went for the biopsy. And the biopsy was actually RCC, great for, nuclear great for. The question is, should we do an appellation? And I, technically feasible, challenging in a solitary kidney, but we haven't reached an agreement yet. Yeah, I think he's going, I think though he's going to watch her because with the nodules in the lung, those nodules in the lung would really suspicious to me. All right. One more.


And I was always a people person, always knew I wanted to do something with people. So I kind of all mesh together. I also, my parents are both in medicine. My dad is a physician and my mom was a traveling nurse for a really long time. I got in. Oh, shoot. Okay. So maybe it wasn't as bad as he thought. 3.8 GPA, I don't know, 1500 PCE hours, 3000 by the time I matriculate. Excellent experience, double minor, neuroscience major, dad's a doctor, mom's a nurse, applied to 12 schools, by the way, not one, not to 12, only got five interview invites. And so now what you got an interview. What do you do now? Freak out. After that, helping others is a calling. It's not a job. Hey guys, my name is Boris. I'm a physician assistant and joining me today is I'm Grace. I am a student to be a physician assistant student in June.  Because part of this video is kind of a reveal where Grace decided to pursue her PA education and it was a tough battle to figure out which one, which for a lot of you watching my channel who want to get into PA school, it's kind of a good problem to have, right, having to decide between schools versus like just hoping and praying that I'm going to get in. So anyway, I thought it would be valuable to bring on somebody that just got in, figure out how she got there, her background, her grades, pick her brain a little bit, see if she has advice for you, and then finally reveal where Grace is going to PA school. Sound good? Sounds great to me. Excellent. So let's start with Grace's journey to PA school. First off, why medicine in general? Why'd you want to practice medicine? Yeah. I think I figured that out pretty early on. And high school probably is when I really figured it out. I was taking my anatomy courses for the first time. And I was always a people person, always knew I wanted to do something with people. So I kind of all mesh together. I also, my parents are both in medicine, my dad is a physician, and my mom was a traveling nurse for a really long time. So I was always kind of surrounded by it. It was pretty obvious to me that I wanted to go into the medical field pretty early. And yeah, here I am. I always find that interesting because I feel like doctors, kids go in like two polar opposite directions. Like some just say, I have to practice medicine. It's what my family does. And some go like, I will do anything but practice medicine. I have siblings. I have three siblings. And half and half completely. Yeah. How many siblings do you have? You said three siblings. Four of y'all siblings. Yeah. There's four of them. Size of four, two and two, two went medicine, two went non-medicine. Yeah. What is your other sibling who is doing medicine? What are they doing?  She basically, she works in an emergency room and basically does a lot of mindfulness activities with the kids and helps them cope with hard topics. So it's really cool how she is able to be there for their mental well-being, their physical well-being, that kind of stuff. It kind of ties all of that in. Is that like a social worker or a psychologist? Like what's the training for that? It's in between. It's a really growing field. It's very new. It's, they have child life specialist master's programs, a couple of them throughout the country. And it's very new again. But so it's kind of in between social and medical. So it's not like straight medical, what she's doing, but kind of like an in-between type thing. She's there when a kid has to get stitches. She's there to distract them with games or like iPad. And then she's also there for really hard times when maybe a kid passes away and she's there for the siblings and as well as the parents and that kind of stuff. So she's a good in-between person, because she knew she didn't want to do straight medicine, but she wanted to be in that environment more than what a social worker would be. So it's perfect for her. That sounds like what a social worker or even a psychologist used to be. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it sounded like when she was first describing it to me. I thought it was really interesting. I didn't really understand what it was at first. And then she explained that. And I was like, isn't that what a social worker does? And she was like, no, they're pretty much more behind the scenes now. Yeah. Yeah. They're the expert of connecting people with resources and like filling out paperwork and like kind of quarterbacking that whole thing, but they're not actually doing that as much, which I'm sure they wish they were. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I have like a billion questions about this. This is not the topic of the video. So we'll have to like talk about this offline or if she would want to talk to me, I would love to know more about this. I've never even heard of it. Yeah. I'll totally ask her about it. She would love to. It's very new. She got her masters in May. So she's been working since like June. So she's very good at it still, but she loves what she does so far. So yeah, I'll talk to her about it for sure. Please do. Because I would love to have her on as like a healthcare career highlight, like lesser known health careers that people don't know about. Yeah. Oh, that would be so cool. She would love that. I would be so stoked because that like, you can tell I'm like full of questions about this because I love healthcare, but like anything like that, it just sounds awesome. But anyway, guys, sorry for the tangent. We're going to get back on to why you actually clicked on this video, but I'm very, very stoked about this. Very interested in stuff like that. But anyway, okay. So Grace's siblings, half and half, half went medicine, PA, child life specialists. The other two, what are they like rock musicians or like bricklayers or something? So my brother, he went into, oh gosh, environmental economics. I don't have a good answer for exactly what he does. And then my little sister is in college. She's still figuring everything out, but doesn't want to do anything with medicine exactly. She's thinking speech pathology. So I guess it is kind of medicine. So maybe it's not so half and half, but. Nope. 25, 75. Literally, you guys are all going to work at the same ER together. No. Okay. So basically, it's a family affair. Dad's a doc. Mom's a nurse. That's why you want it to go in. But like specifically, like logically, okay, like I've been around it my whole life. I get it. What was that one moment where you were like, this is what I want to do? I think it was probably anatomy. I think in high school that was introduced at my school, either sophomore or junior year. And I mean, you've always learned about like the basic anatomy and that kind of stuff, but it was the first time we were really getting in depth into the systems. And I was like, I've been waiting for a subject like this to make me want to learn more since I started going to school in kindergarten or preschool. And it was just, it's like clicked for sure. I was like, all right, this is what I'm interested in. This is challenging, but I need it to be challenging because I want to know more. So it was definitely starting to take those kinds of classes. And then further, like, then I was so interested in everything that we were learning that I was looking things up outside of school. And so it was, it was obvious that it was medicine for me. Would you say it just kind of clicked? Yeah, I think so. I don't know like the exact, exact moment, but that class, I just remember finally feeling like I'm super interested in something. And it wasn't fun all the time. I can't use that word. But it was something that I wanted to do more. Instead of like my math classes where I was just going through them or something like that. So. That makes sense. Because I'm sure like growing up from like day one, mom and dad were talking about medicine. They were probably using anatomical terms and they were joking about it. And you were like, now I finally get to learn this stuff, like get to be part of it. My dad's side of his conversations with patients on my way home from dance class when he was giving me a record, like every single time. So my siblings and I always talk about how we have like it's not normal that kids have heard those terms from such an early age. But we're like, this is so normal to us that hearing our dad like have a conversation about medicine is something you need to our experience as like a doctor's kid. But it's something so normal to us. And it was just kind of a seamless transition for me anyway. Makes a lot of sense. Maybe like for you, I can see it as just kind of being like part of your nature, part of your upbringing. And it just kind of clicked for like me who obviously did not grow up with medical parents. I like had to experience something very, very, I would say like impactful, like emotionally impactful to go like, that's what I want to do. I want to be that. But for you, you just kind of always knew. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty simple answer. Yeah, I just want to know. I wish I had a better story, but it was just that's a good story. But it's not anything super duper exciting, but it makes a whole lot of sense. Like this has just been part of my upbringing. It's like in my DNA. This is what I do. It's just like, you can't argue with that. Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. I'm also just kind of thinking on an aside, am I going to screw my kids up by using terms like STEMI and we're back. Okay, so last time we lost power right in the middle of our conversation. That's why we had an outfit change. And I promise we didn't coordinate this to both be wearing black, but I guess we're both just in that mood right now where we want to wear black. So that's what she got. Anyway, so I think last time we covered pretty well why Grace decided to practice medicine. Dad's a doctor, mom's a nurse. It's just always been kind of in the family, in the blood that she just wants to practice medicine. Is there anything you want to add to that, Grace? I think we pretty much covered it last time when we were talking about it. Yeah, it was always like, I was always a people person. I knew I wanted to do something with people. And then it kind of just turned into medicine with my family, with the classes I liked. So yeah, we covered it pretty much, I think. I think so. I remember specifically she said like anatomy was the first class that she took where everything just kind of just kind of felt right. Yeah. Yeah. I know a lot of people don't have like a true moment like that with what they want to do. So I was very lucky in that sense, I think. I feel like everybody does. I feel like everyone who wants to do something as hard as medicine really does have that one moment where they're like, this is it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think they do eventually. I think I guess I'm just lucky that it happened early for me. 100%. I would just say for most people, anatomy is more like a necessary evil.  But it's like what I have to do to get to where I want to go, Grace is like, no, this is it. I love it. Yeah. Love anatomy. Okay, cool. So that's why medicine. YPA. Why not nurse doctor RTYPA? So I think I always I kind of thought I would go to med school at first back in high school when I liked my anatomy class, that kind of stuff. I think it was just a thing that I thought I was like, Oh, I think I want to do medicine. But like, so I'm going to go to med school. But it just didn't really feel right ever. I don't think I think it was just something that I thought my head. So I was actually a patient in an emergency room, my sophomore year of high school. And that was the first time that I had really been introduced to the position of a PA, because one of my main providers that I was seeing a lot was a PA. And so after that, I kind of did some more research on it, talked to my parents about it, talked to my dad a lot about if he works with PAs and stuff like that, because I had never really heard him talk about that part of it. And it was kind of just it checked off so many boxes for me right away. And it continued to do so. So I kind of went in that direction. But I really liked how they can work really closely with physicians, but still have individuality in their practice and stuff like that. That's huge for me. Another thing that's huge is how you can switch up your specialty throughout your career, because I have a lot of interests and I get bored easily. So I think that I can see myself potentially practicing multiple specialties throughout my career. Or I mean, I'm happy if I find one specialty that I end up loving and just doing that. I'm not too picky either way, but I like having the option. So that was another huge thing for me. Would you say you kind of like being a student and not an expert? Yeah, I love being a student. I always say that I have said that since like, I don't even know the beginning of college, like I love being a student, I really do. And so I really do think I chose a profession where I'll always be a student, which I love. I feel like that's the biggest difference is like as a PA you're constantly, constantly learning. I'm sure if you practice in the same specialty and you kind of like, I don't want to say, but almost pigeonhole yourself into kind of one corner and you're very good at that corner. Yes. But the profession is designed to kind of spread out the knowledge and to kind of constantly be learning from when you're 25 and you start practicing all the way to 75. And you know, you're done practicing. You're just there's always stuff you don't know because that's the nature of the profession. And some people hate that some people like it. I love it. I just want to constantly learn. Yeah. Yeah. So people who are kind of choosing PA versus MD, DO that might be one thing that you want to consider as your personality. Do you want to keep learning or do you want to be like top dog, the buck stops with me, I know everything, or more or less like everyone comes to me. Whereas like as a PA, it's like, no, that's that might be that case in like a small corner of your profession. But usually you just like you want to collaborate with other people and keep learning. So something to think about. So I always said, actually, he's a DO and he said when I was kind of deciding what I was going to do and everything like that, he was like, he always said to me, do you want to be the period at the end of the sentence? How important is that to you? Because that like if that's what you need, go for DO, MD, whatever. But he was like, if you don't need that, and if you are happy to have all of the flexibility that you would have with a PA or as a PA, then go that route. And he was he's very, very supportive of the PA profession. He's very happy that I'm going that route. So definitely matches with my personality, definitely was a good match of a profession. And also being on a medical team, I love it. I love being able to collaborate with other people. So that's always going to be a part of my profession as a PA. So that's another point too. I love that your dad said that I've never thought of it the period at the end of the sentence. Or do you want to like, be the sentence or be part of the sentence? Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly how he would explain it. And he was like, for me, I was working really hard. And I needed to be the period at the end that at the end of the sentence.  So yeah, I love that he said that, but also that he's open minded enough to like, understand that you might be a different person than he is.  We're getting into the metaphor here. But I just really love that doctors that support PAs, not thinking that we're encroaching on their practice or whatever. We just want to help you guys and work with you. If we don't know something, we want to come to you and we're glad you're there. You know, it's like, I just, I don't, I'm glad that it's not adversarial with some doctors and they want to use us as much as they do. Yeah, he loves his PAs. He can't talk enough about them. He always says I could not do my job without my PAs. So yeah, very, very important job. Love him.   And it's like what the, you know, DOs and MDs that are just like very insecure, I want to say, call PAs and NPs. They think that we're encroaching.  Like we're all here. We're all in this together. We all want to like help patients. Let's just work together. But anyway, I'll get off my soapbox about that. This is about Grace. This is not about responding to hate comments on TikTok. But anyway, that's why Grace chose PA. She doesn't want to be the period at the end of the sentence. She loves medicine and she just wants to keep switching and learning and all of that, which I totally agree with. So since you decided you wanted to do medicine, you wanted to do PA, now we understand why now is the long, arduous process of actually filling out the application, becoming one, becoming a good student to get in there. If you don't mind, if you're comfortable, do you mind sharing your stats, GPA, PCE? Yeah, totally. I graduated with a 3.8 GPA and so my hours by the time I submitted my application, I had a little under 1500 and I am currently on a gap here. So I calculated all of that out to see how many I would have towards the end. And I will have a little over for this year. I'll have a little over 1500. So total I'll have 3,000 PCE hours, excuse me, at the time of matriculation. At time of matriculation, 3,000-ish, at time of application, 1,500-ish. Yes. And 3.8 GPA, what was your major? I majored in neuroscience and double-minored in biology and psychology. Wow. That's a lot of work. Yeah, it was a lot of work, but it was fun. Yeah, it was fun. She's wiping the sweat off her face. It was so much fun, the most fun I never want to have again. Although you'll have just as much fun if not more in PA school, but yeah, more on that later. It's worth it, I promise. It's really worth it at the end. And I bet you with those majors and minors, I bet you got basically all your prereqs just like kind of baked into the cake. You didn't have to do anything extra. Totally, totally. So that's smart. Who, who advised you to do it that way and set it up smartly like that? I guess I don't even, my freshman year advisor and then it switches, it switched at my school, but I had an advisor who was a neuroscience professor at our school, neuroscience psychology professor. And yeah, no, he was like, very chill about it. He was like, you're on the right track. He chose a good major if you want to go to PA school. I was like, okay. And it kind of just worked out. But at my school, they made it very easy to fit that kind of stuff in. So I was lucky. Gotcha. Did your family like mom's dad or did they like set you up with a PA or something to kind of push you in the right direction initially? Or you just kind of figured it out yourself? I think it was mostly kind of figured out myself. I, I'm very much like I'm going to do all my research. I'm going to know everything about everything that I need to get done. Just I'm a planner. That's what I that's just how I am. So I think I was looking into my like senior year schedule. I was looking in that far and like freshman year, I was like figuring everything out. That's just me. But yeah, in high school or in college? No, in college. Okay, that's a little bit more normal. Had a list of all of the classes I was going to take each semester and had a momentary freak out sophomore year that I was never going to get it done.  It was yeah, I stress myself out a lot more than I that I needed to in the end. But well, I mean, what you just demonstrated is you have the personality that literally everybody who's a provider has PA MD and the same personality. Yeah, yeah, anybody who makes it very, very type a very, very like get it done planner things don't go according to plan. That's fine. But like just there always has to be a plan we're always working towards it. Never stop working type a yep. Absolutely true. You basically just demonstrated you have the providers like DNA. You know, that's just how it is. What I was a little scared about is when you said you had your classes for senior year planned out freshman year, I was thinking high school. I was thinking you're like this at 13. That's scary. No, that's a little okay. Yeah, yeah, already as an adult. Yeah, now at 13 year old doing that, I'd be looking at a psychologist. Concerned. Concerned possibly in a good way, but also like, I don't know, they're either going to be like Elon Musk or they're going to be like Jeffrey Dahmer. There's no in between. Yeah, there's no in between. No, either good genius or well, never mind, we're not arguing about this. Okay, anyway, so that's Grace's stats.  Yeah, overwhelming.  Yeah, any tips or suggestions for someone who's just like looking at Caspa and going, what do I do with this? Start early. If you think you're starting early enough, start earlier. There's because there's so many little things with Caspa that you don't realize until you're actually sitting down and doing it. And for me, I started filling out applications on Caspa, my junior year of college, because I thought I wanted to go straight through that was part of my plan. So I had an interesting experience where by the time I was actually doing my applications, it was halfway done already. But anyway, start early, there's a lot of little things for sure. And honestly, because it takes so long to research schools to for me, I didn't know if I wanted to stay close to family or to go travel and be in a new place for two years at first. So I had no idea what schools I was going to apply to. But I found out pretty quickly that every school has different requirements. So just the research going into finding out which schools you can apply to that you could have a chance of getting into it took me so long because I was looking at so many schools. And I had a big huge list of them crossing them out when I knew I didn't have a requirement for one of them stuff like that. So a lot of little things that they take their time consuming. So starting early is super important. And then keeping yourself organized because for me, I had so many schools in a revolving loop in my head because I was looking literally everywhere. And so keeping myself organized was super, super important. Excel sheets help a lot. And I had a major excel sheet with like, which schools require like with how many hours they require, if they require the GRE, all that kind of stuff. So highly suggest that because that kept me very organized throughout it and saved me a lot of stress, I think. Did you take the GRE? I did. Yeah. I didn't actually end up having that many schools that I applied to require it. But yeah, I think less and less schools are actually requiring it. Did the school you ended up choosing, which we'll reveal later, did you did that one require the GRE or no? No. Okay. So that's one thing that a lot of people kind of freak out about also, it's like, I need to study for the GRE and do all the stuff. A lot of times you really don't. Yeah, if you plan it out, my school didn't require it. Yeah, a lot. I think I only ended up applying to two schools that required it. And I found since I started the application process, my junior year, when I was actually going through it again, my senior year, I found that a couple schools that required it the year before didn't require it anymore. So I think cutting back on it. Yeah. Interesting. What was I going to ask about the GRE? Oh, actually, okay, GRE is boring. Everyone knows what the GRE is. It's like basically an SAT for grad students. How many schools did you apply to? 12. Okay. The exact number that everybody always throws out apply to 12. Yeah, I don't know how that works out. But that was literally the exact number. So you applied to 12. How many did you get an interview offer at? Five. Five. And then you got into? Two. Two. Yeah. Okay. One of the interviews I did not go on. I didn't take. I only interview at three of them. Three of them? Yeah, three of them. Gotcha. But you were offered five. Okay. So I just want to pause there and just like, for a pre-PA student to hear those stats again, 3.8 GPA, 1,500 PCE hours, 3,000 by the time I matriculate, you know, excellent experience, double minor, neuroscience major, dad's a doctor, mom's a nurse, literally like all the little pieces and parts that should be ideal. I applied to 12 schools, by the way, not one, not two, 12, only got five interview invites. That means less than half, even with all those remarkable stats. So I mean, apply to enough schools, one, be competitive, two, just understand that even if you do have really, really good grades and you didn't get in, you're not the only one, Grace got rejected by seven schools. Just straight up, not even interview, just nope, not for us, you know, so. Well, some of them I just didn't hear back from because I pulled my applications. Oh, so those numbers might be different. So I got rejected by two. Okay. And I didn't hear back from five, before I pulled my applications. So. Okay. So potentially you would have gotten way more than five. Yeah, potentially, but I mean, I don't know, I didn't hear back from them and I applied in July, I think I submitted my applications, which I suggest applying before that I. Yes. Yeah. Not a good time to apply. No, for rolling schools, especially absolutely not. But I just wanted to say like, I'm not even applying. I've been practicing for tears for God's sake, but like I still got this like big relief, like off my chest when you said that because it's like, wait a minute, it's that competitive. Like, I got no chance. But yeah, if you pull your application from five schools, you probably would have gotten way more than five interview invites. Okay. Good.  It's it's competitive, but it's not that competitive. Okay. It's doable. Totally doable. That being said, yeah, if you're applying to rolling admission schools and you can find that out on their website, and if you can't call them, apply early, early, early, early, like April, like you should be done by April possibly. I was just going to say that like end of April, beginning of May, submit your applications, because I think in July was probably a big reason that I didn't hear back from some schools, because I was finding out that they were doing interviews and stuff before I even submitted my applications, which I didn't know until way later. And so I was like, oh, they probably literally already had a class before they even got to read my application. So yeah, so I only applied to two programs because I had to stay in Syracuse at the time upstate and Lemoine upstate was rolling. So when I applied, I want to say in June, maybe it was even July or August, I can't remember. No, I interviewed in August. So I applied in June. By the time I got to my interview, there was like only five out of the 25 seats left. Oh my gosh, like they were full. They were looking for like outstanding, which I guess I wasn't but they were looking, they're basically full. But if I had applied in April, I could have been one of those first few selected, like, oh, he's good enough. Let's just fill the seat. So that's for that. The other part of that advice is if your school is not rolling, and they collect all their applications at the end and they look at all of them like Lemoine did, Lemoine, the best, like Lemoine did, then you're actually beneficial to apply as late as possible, because then you have as much PCE as possible, you have more time, you know, so the strategy changes, it's kind of binary versus if it's a rolling admission school or not. So huge piece of advice for you guys.  She needs advice on how to study maybe, but definitely not a not any of that. So anyway, so Casper's overwhelming, start early. There's a lot of stuff that's unexpected that you're going to have to do. Any advice for the personal statement? Oh, personal statement. Start early with that too. If you're, if you haven't started with Casper and because you're overwhelmed, but you want to be starting something, start with your personal statement, figure out what you want to convey. And I think then figure out, like, because I feel like for some people, they have like something that they want to talk about. They know that they want to talk about it. And they're like, Okay, this is what I'm going to write about. For me, I was like, I don't really know. But so I had to do a little bit of a deep dive and be like, Okay, when did I find out like, what I wanted to be a PA? What was my process like? So I kind of just went back in my head and thought about like my journey and why I want to be going to PA school in the first place. And so then I told the story about when I was in the emergency room as a patient, that kind of stuff. So yeah, just kind of figure out what you want to be saying to them first. And then I did a lot of research on like tips for my personal statement, because I did like a rough draft and then I did some research about tips for it. And I found out that my rough draft sucked based on the tips that I was finding. So I went back, redid it.  And so definitely get Boris's help because they were a huge, huge help for me and my personal statement. I really ended up loving my personal statement by the end of it. And so yeah, just start early, figure out what you want to say and listen to the tips and tricks because they, like, if they read your personal statement and it's not great, then they're not going to look at the rest of your application. So be careful with your personal statement for sure. Yeah, I couldn't agree more, especially about getting me an Elijah's help and reading my book. Yes, literally wrote the book. I wish this wasn't blurry. There we go. It's going to be in the information for the video, but I literally wrote a book and I'm going to say the book on from the ground up from scratch, getting your personal statement done, as well as a bunch of CASB application tips, how to edit your own essay if you've already written it x, y and z. But if you don't want to do that, then of course there's, I mean, when I started giving advice on personal statements and applying, there was probably like 10 of us. Now there's literally hundreds. Like it seems like every PA student is like, I got in, let me help you. It's like, okay, cool. I have five years of experience. But anyway, the point is, the point is there's a lot of help out there. Screen your help out. If you want help from me personally, BoristhePA.com, or my buddy Elijah, who I feel like is better at this than I am. Like he's got so much experience with this kind of thing. But yeah, all of that. Get help, have a lot of people read it. Don't take their opinion as gospel, even if they have a lot of experience, even if they are a PA, a PA student, if their advice doesn't feel right for you, it doesn't have to be right. You know, it's not a math problem. There's no right answer. It's you. It's your personal statement.  You don't have to take it, but just make sure that you, what do you call it, crowdsource it. And buy the book. Totally. Buy the book. Get every single guest on this podcast to say buy the book. But anyway, Mimi was laughing her butt off when she had to say it. She was like, buy the book and the mug. I'm not holding you hostage, Mimi. You don't have to say anything. That's funny. I promise I didn't pay to say that. Pay grace to say that. Anyway, so yeah, so definitely start early, start early, start early. I wish they would put the personal statement first in CASPA instead of last, because making it last makes it feel like an afterthought. And I feel like it takes the most work, you know, putting in your grades, putting in your experience, it's pretty straightforward. The essay takes a lot of work and creativity. I wish it was first. So treat it like it's first. You know, it takes a while. So for sure. So that's CASPA. That's personal statement. So Grace obviously wrote an excellent personal statement with some people's help, some people's excellent help. And then she loved it. And then she got a bunch of interview invites. And so now what? You got an interview. What do you do now? Freak out. After that. After that, I just did a lot of research again about tips. I talked to you guys about it. We did the whole mock interview, which was really, really great help and experience. And a lot of interviews are going to be online, some are in person, not kind of stuff. Each school is doing it differently now. So prepare for both, for sure. And have answers to the questions you know you're going to be asked. But don't, don't prepare them too much, I say, because you don't want to sound like a robot. I did. I totally did sound like a robot in my first interview. I was practicing a lot. And I, yeah, it was just a very, it's a high anxiety situation. It really is. And some people are really chill and relaxed in interviews. I am not one of those people. So I had to talk myself down a lot beforehand. And just, just you have to be yourself. I know that everyone says that. And that's like a piece of advice that everyone's like, oh, great. Okay, I'll be myself, whatever that means. But yeah, they want to, they want to talk to people like they don't want to talk to robots. It's not fun for them.   So I can't remember. Did you do your mock interview with us before or after your first interview? Before. Before. Yeah. Because I remember, I can't remember if we did one or two, but I remember giving you that advice, not to be a robot, but to kind of just be more vulnerable, be more just human, you know, not trying to be as perfect. Yeah. No, yeah, we definitely did it before because I remember I was thinking that my first interview because I was like, oh, you are not doing that right now. But also I'm talking about about my first interview and that's the school I'm going to. So I got in. Oh, shoot. Okay. So maybe it wasn't as bad as he thought. I guess not. I guess not. It felt harder. Like, you know, the analogy with the duck, like it's kicking its feet like crazy, but above the water, it's like smooth. Maybe that's what it was. Yeah. I think so. I think so. And after that first interview, I was super relaxed in my other interviews and I felt really good about my other interviews after that. But the mock interview was definitely super, super helpful to get those jitters out of the way. It was just that first one. Sorry.  The mock interview got her to like here. And then after her first interview with a lot more practice, she got to like here. So that's, I mean, the mock interviews are good because of their feedback. Let's say somebody, you know, who's mock interviewed a few hundred people like me or Elijah, that's helpful. But even if what we say isn't helpful, just the going through the motions, waking up on time, getting dressed, getting your wifi connection, setting up your room so that it doesn't look distracting, just answering questions online that could be important. Just the practice of that alone. That's what I feel like is important in a mock interview. Yeah.  I had my friend interview me. I did a little too much because I ended up memorizing my answers. But yeah. Yeah. I always tell people you can't memorize answers to questions. You don't know, you know, the questions of what you're going to be asked. But you can memorize the answers to like five very basic questions. Why do you want to be a PA, the history of the PA profession, why medicine, you know, something about your PCE and like a weakness that you might have in a strength, like using those you can if you're creative enough, just you can, you can use those scripted answers pieces and parts of them to kind of get into anything. Yeah. You know, and that's as a as an interviewer doing mock interviews. That's like my favorite thing to hear is when someone goes, I ask a question and they're like, yeah, and they get all confident and they just know what they're going to say. That I really liked it. Yeah. You know, that just shows confidence. I've actually I've noticed, tell me if this is your experience to grace. I feel like a lot of providers specifically I can't talk today. I think I'm getting sick. That's why I'm drinking so much and I'm going to do a netting pot later. That's urgent care for you.  Let's see those tonsils.  They're those two weeks. Anyway, yeah, urgent care is fine. But anyway, I feel like that's the thing that a lot of providers specifically PAs and NPC is like anytime anytime you say something to them, they're like, yeah. And then they go. Yeah. Notice that it's like, yeah, actually, literally, literally right now. Yeah. No, it is, it is the PA that I work with. Um, she definitely does that literally all the time. Right. I feel like we all do it and then you find yourself doing it and you're like, huh, I'm one of them now. Yeah. That's crazy. It's just, it's funny. It's like what that communicates is I hear you and I already know what I'm going to do about it. It's just very confident. So I'm not going to say you should do that in your interview, but I'm also not going to say you shouldn't. Don't overdo it. If like, okay, if there's a group interview somewhere out there at a PA school and I hear like a chorus of yas at the same time, I'm going to be angry because don't take this advice too literally, but you know, pepper it in once in a while, you know, you get a question. Yeah. And then do an answer. What you don't want to do is say that and then sit there for 30 seconds thinking. Now we know you're faking. Yeah. So that's why I'm saying. If it feels right, do it because I know I did that in my interviews and for me it was, I totally did that in all of my interviews. What the yeah. Yeah. I did the yeah. I did the absolutely when they asked the question. Absolutely. It sounds confident though. If you start talking right away. It does and for me it gives me like half a second to breathe and to like think before I start. Okay. I'm a word runner and I will start and it's hard for me to stop and then I'm thinking about what I'm saying next, but I'm saying words and I'm like, oh my God, I don't even know what I'm saying. Oh, did you do that too? Yeah.  Yeah. Okay. If you want an example of that rewind this video 90 seconds and I literally did that really bad and I'm not cutting it out.  I want you guys to know that literally everybody who makes it into this profession, we all do that. All of our brains are too fast for our mouth and we just we do that and it's okay. It's okay when it happens. No one cares. It's fine. Yeah, it is fine. But that like first little word before I answered a question. I was saying it mostly to allow myself to breathe and gather my thoughts for half a second. I never thought of that. I thought it was more just like, yeah, I got this blah, blah, blah, but I didn't think that it was like an extra couple of seconds where you're saying, yeah, you know how to say that and then you're kind of thinking. I never thought about that. That's actually brilliant. Yeah, that's what it was for me, honestly. I think in the mock interview, I started doing that and I was like, what am I doing? I didn't know I was going to do that. But I ended up realizing I was like, oh, it's okay. It's given me a little bit of time. Yeah. So maybe try it. Maybe try it with a friend first. Try reversing it. You know, don't just like go into your interview doing something you're not used to doing. Yeah. But anyway, I digress. Okay, so those are some very, very solid interview tips. Anything else that you would say about the interview? I think we covered a good bit of it.  Like what are they doing? Whatever. So just don't compare yourself. Just go in there and show them who you are. Be really confident about why you want to be a PA, why you're going into this profession, because that's what they want to see. Just breathe. It'll be okay. If you got an interview, you already got an A. Just wanted to throw that out there. Like very arbitrary stats. I'm not going to say where I got them, but they're from pretty good personal experience. I'll go with. Schools interview about the top 10% of their applicants. Let's say they get 2000 applicants, they'll probably invite about 200 people to interview. Out of them, they accept about a quarter. So getting into those 200, you already are the top 10%, which means you've got at least a 90. You already have an A. You're already an A student. You deserve to be there. Two, you have just as good a chance at getting into the program as anybody else getting interviewed.  Now it's all personality. So one, you're already an A student. Breathe. Two, you already have just as equal a chance as anybody else. Breathe. It's all about the interview now. Don't worry about everybody else.  You're there for a reason. They think you're good enough. If your school thinks they're good enough, you're good enough. Okay. So you got to believe that too. So yeah, very solid interview tips. Any just general advice for prepaid applicants or you think we covered it? Kind of with the interview then also, if you don't get it in from your interview, it doesn't mean you did a terrible interview because you were just sharing the stats about how many people they are interviewing and they might be looking for a very specific applicant that fits into their class. And so don't be super disheartened if you don't get in after an interview and think, oh my God, what did I do wrong? I mean, try to think about what you could have done wrong. Obviously see what you can fix. But don't get super discouraged if you don't get in after an interview. It feels like a shot to the heart, but it doesn't define you and your experience. Yeah.  Excellent GPA, excellent PCE hours, blah, blah, blah, you know, very well spoken, and she got rejected. You know, but somebody who's nothing like her might have gotten in, it just depends on what that program wants, what that specific interviewer wanted. It's just like, they're so subjective. You might be an excellent applicant, you're going to make a great PA, it's just it was not your time or not your time at that particular school. So again, just breathe. If it's right, it'll happen, I promise. But yeah, any other advice to the nervous struggling pre PAs or are we pretty good? I think we covered a good bit of it. I think so. I definitely think so. So now you have done the work, you've got the classes, you got the grades, you got the PCE, you got the interview knocked out. Now you have an interview or not an at an interview, a school invite for a seat in their class. Now you might even be choosing like race between two specific programs or even more. What are the factors you consider when you're choosing a program? There's a lot of factors to think about cost. Number one, huge, because oh my gosh, the cost of PA school is large and rising for a lot of schools. So consider that and then obviously the area that it's in. For me, that wasn't too much. Well, I guess it was. So never mind, I take that back. So cost first. And then I did a deep dive into the programs and I looked into their curriculums and all that kind of stuff. It's all it's all very important to see if it aligns with how you learn as a student. Because that was something that was really important to me and how their classes are set up. And look at their, obviously their pants pass rate, their statistics like that. But yeah, I think for me it came down to you're going to have a feeling to like where you want to go. I chose between two amazing programs and I was super, super lucky to have that choice to make and it was a hard decision to make. Because I did get a really good feel for both of the programs. So it came down to also the area if you think you're going to be happy living towards a city or if you want to be in the middle of nowhere and have no abstractions and anything for during your two years of PA school. But yeah, look into the little things too. And I also got to speak to students at both of the programs. So if you have the opportunity, reach out and do that, because that was very valuable information that I found. How did you speak to students? Did you kind of like put yourself out there and just like random DM them on Instagram? Or did they have like a program where you talk to students? No, I just got lucky, honestly. I started DMing random people for my personal statement. That's how I found you guys. So do that. If you buy people, just do it. I DM so many people to get help with my personal statement. But with this, I was just lucky with connections. My dad is a preceptor for one of the schools that I was deciding between. And so he literally had students pouring out of him. So I talked to one of them. And then he also, well, I know someone in the program, in the other program, I know a first year student now. So I talked to them a lot. And I also talked to another student again, because of my dad's connections. So that was just luck for me. But if you have the opportunity, talk to students and go on tours because if they have them, because that was huge for me as well to actually physically be there and get some questions answered while you're actually talking to people and you're there. Yeah. I mean, if it's set up like my program was, which I bet you it is, you're not like, it's not like undergrad where your classes are scattered about campus and you're going from building to building. You're literally in one room for two years. Yeah. Like that's your home. You now live there.  So like just imagine that being your home. Can you see yourself there? Do you like the surroundings? Do you like walk from the parking lot? I don't know. But just can you see yourself there? Use that gut feeling like Grace kind of said, assuming that all of the other stats are there. They have a decent first time pants pass rate. They're accredited. They're not at risk of losing their accreditation. All that stuff. Make sure that's all intact. If it is, then it's just kind of a gut feeling level type of thing. Yeah. Absolutely. What was I going to say? Oh, yeah. Before we reveal the two schools, Grace was choosing between. I wanted to piggyback on what she said about talking to current students. That is my biggest advice to incoming PA program students just like Grace. Talk to current students exactly how to succeed and specifically about every class because they're not going to want to like go into details. Be like Grace, make a checklist, make a Google doc, every single class that you're signed up for. Hey, so what did you do in this class? Where do they get their lecture materials for this class? Where do they get their exam materials? Do I have to buy the book? Do I not have to buy the book? What is this professor like? X, Y, and Z, all of that stuff. Make sure you specifically, specifically ask how to succeed in every single class. And that is the biggest like silver bullet to doing good first year. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a lot of those little things like that I got to know with talking to students. For me, it was how are the exams set up. That was big. Do they review the exams with you? Because some programs don't, and they just give you a grade to move on and they won't go over it. But some programs do do a really good job of reviewing exams is what I'm learning. I don't know. I'm not in there, so I guess I'll find out.  A lot of my classes actually didn't in college. But that was something that I didn't even think about until I was on the tours. And so I heard someone ask about it and was like, oh my gosh, I didn't even think about it. But then it was something that ended up helping me decide. It was a little thing because it came down to the little things for me. But yeah, just the little things that you gain. And if you go on a tour, talk to the students while you're there because they're most likely going to be, well, maybe not. I don't know. One of my tours was run by students. So that's that last one's a good point. Do they record their lectures? Because my school didn't. And I was just thinking about how helpful it would be if they did. They might still do it now. I'm not sure if they changed something. But like, so like back to what I was saying, like some classes, it's just straight up from the book, some it's from the lecture slides, the end, some classes, they literally will make questions based off stuff that was just set out loud and is not written down anywhere. You know, which to a guy like me that zones out is a nightmare.  So that's actually a really, really big deal, I think. Yeah, for me, it was it was huge because I know that I'm going to utilize that so much in my studying. When I'm going through my notes for the first time, I'm probably just going to play the lecture and make sure I have everything before I start really studying it. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good idea. I'm glad you brought that up. And so with all of that in mind, what were the schools you were choosing between? I was choosing between Penn State University and Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. PCOM. PCOM, yeah. Okay, Andy chose. I chose PCOM. PCOM. Is that where your dad went? Yeah. Oh shoot, that's so cool. And my cousin, actually, she also went there. She went to their DO program. So keep it in the family. Okay, cool. So you're like a legacy there? Yeah. Okay, so you're going to have like a parking spot and like a designated seat and all that stuff? I hope so. Really? No. No, you don't want that because people are going to be messing with you non-stop. No, I won't have any of that. But hoping for a scholarship, maybe we'll see. They have PA school scholarships? No. Yeah. That was also a joke. I don't think so. Where did we even leave off before we started talking about that? I don't know what we were talking about. But so, okay, so you chose PCOM. We were saying, you know, I have how my dad and my cousin went there. I'm keeping it in the family. Yeah. Yes. Okay, so that's probably one factor. It's just like he went to PCOM. She went to PCOM. So that was cool. But was there anything specifically about the school besides that it's your dad's alma mater? It was mostly, I don't even know. It came down to, again, it was all the little things that it was just, there were more pros on that side than Penn State. And because I had an excellent interview with Penn State. That was really, it was a really, really good. I had two interviews with them actually. And both of them were great. Everyone I met was great. I got such a good feel for the program. And my interview with PCOM went really not well. I thought, I thought, I guess it went well. So, and at first I did get waitlisted at Penn State. That's an interesting thing to put in there. I was waitlisted and they are a very small program. They only accept 30 students. And so I stayed on the waitlist. I pulled the rest of my applications. And so I was only with PCOM. I submitted my deposit to PCOM. And then I was waiting to hear back from Penn State just because I was curious to see how I would feel if I did get in. And then I did get in and I had this decision to make. But yeah, I felt really good about Penn State and that interview. And it, I don't know, it came down to, I think it was the area a lot for me as well. Because Penn State's program is in Hershey. And well, I mean, they have their hospital right on campus and stuff. And so they have a lot of really great things. And PCOM is in Philly. So I was kind of thinking about also after I graduate, but kind of where I want to end up in life and like area wise. And I live in Philly now. I love living in Philly. And I was thinking to myself, well, I'm probably going to want to continue to live in the Philly area. So I'm going to make so many more connections to hopefully aid in me getting a job after school around here. So that was a, that was another factor was the area for me and where I want to end up after school. That's actually, that's really smart. Because your first job, you almost always get it out of your rotations.  But it's by far the easiest to get your first job out of PA school through your rotations. So if you don't want to end up in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and you want to end up in Philly, it kind of makes sense to go to a school in Philly. That's where most of your rotations will be. Yeah, exactly. That's, that was a big thing for me. And just like with everything, Grace is organized about this and made the right choice, which is, I mean, that part's really cool. The other thing I just wanted to bring light to was the fact that she thought she did poorly in this interview. This is the school that she got into right away without the waitlist and the interview that she thought was excellent she got on the waitlist. Ended up getting in, but she was waitlisted.  Even like if the whole day you're feeling like crap, just think about Grace's story. She literally thought the whole day was a bad interview and she got in.  But give yourself some grace and just like understand that you might be doing better than you think. You might feel awkward, but you might be presenting yourself not awkward, or someone might like that you're awkward. You might like that you're like, you don't know everything. You're ready to be a student. You're ready to learn. You're not like God's gift to PA programs. You know what I mean? So no matter how you're feeling, you might be doing way better than you think. So just keep calm and carry on, as they said back in 2008. No, it's so true though, because I was a mess after my PCOM interview. I was crying to my mom. I was like, I blew it because PCOM was at the top of my list forever. And I was like, I can't believe it.  And I was very dramatic about it. But how it feels fine, what? That's how it feels. It is, it totally is. It's such like a soul crushing moment when you don't feel like you did as well as you could have done. But it's okay. It's really okay. I promise. Worked out in the end, right? All right. I mean, I can't think of a better way to end the video than that. And then on a high note, and also on kind of a cliffhanger, because we're going to want to know like how you're doing, how the program is, you know, how you're progressing. It's always cool to keep up with these folks. But yeah, congratulations. Awesome job. Thank you. If you see one for your help, I couldn't have done as well as I did without you guys and your help. So thank you guys. Yeah, absolutely. I wish Elijah was here, but it's Sunday morning. I think he's at church or something. I don't know. Like it's so hard to coordinate three schedules and then four. And so it's just, it is what it is. But Elijah's going to watch this. He watches all of our videos. So he's smiling out there somewhere from wherever the heck he is right now. Where is he? New Jersey? Yeah. Elijah, whenever you watch this, you know, shout out to Elijah. Because both me and Elijah looked at Grace's interview or her essay. We both gave advice and she did a mock interview with both of us. So Elijah was a huge instrumental part in Grace's success. So I just want to shout him out because I know he's going to watch this. So he's going to smile when he hears this. But yeah. So absolutely. Congratulations. You're very welcome. If anybody wants help in a very, very affordable way, read the book. If anybody wants, you know, one-on-one help from me or Elijah of BorisThePA.com. You guys have heard that enough. Grace, congratulations. Awesome job so far. Cannot wait to hear about more of your success. Thank you. You're welcome.