Is there a great excuse in there? No... but it is the one you're getting.
Professional update: Four years past graduation and I've been certified long enough to have gone through recertification. I have a ridiculously high level of job satisfaction. I love grossing! And, not to toot my own horn (as I'm sure some horribly complex specimen will come along soon to keep me humble) but I like to think I'm good at it. My pathologists are happy anyway.
I am on my second job as a PA! I was at my first one for two and half years but the commute was killing me and I never liked SC. My parents had settled there and my husband's job was there so we had ties that bound us. My parents moved to be closer to my sister (9 hours away instead of 2), my dad (who you may remember from when he lived with me during grad school to help take care of the kids) had a hemorrhagic stroke resulting in paralysis, and I thought I'd try being a traveling PA so I could have more time off to help my mom out.
I failed as a traveling PA... but in the best way possible? I only traveled to one place. I really liked it and they liked me... enough to create a PA supervisory position to entice me to stay. I'm four hours away from my parents, which is close enough to go up once (sometimes twice) a month to give my mom a weekend off. My husband resigned from his job of ten years and the whole family moved up last summer. I love our new state. I'm happy to be out of the heat of the south! Of course, I still go back to Durham now and then! Up until I moved, it was every month or so now it is every three months or so. The town has changed a lot and new things are happening all the time. I should go back to visit Duke some time but it is someone else's time there now and there are fewer familiar faces.
Now I'm in charge of two other PAs, one OJT PA and one from the Canadian program. We have four lab assistants and eight pathologists. I think we'll break 28,000 specimens this year. Autopsies vary but we do a few a year. Never been my strong point... I think it wasn't to my benefit that most of mine during grad school were with residents instead of the autopsy PAs. I'm not as confident at as I am with surgical pathology and we eviscerate differently than we did at Duke but it also happens with a lot less staff. It isn't bad though.
That's it for now! I'm really glad I became a PA and while school was grueling, it is now over and done and I couldn't be more pleased with my profession.
