Fall 2015 Perspectives

22 • NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY FORT MYERS Walking through the doors of a high school on a Saturday morning in April gave me a flashback to my high school days. On this day, however, I was there with a new purpose—to help the students by using my physical examination skills while receiving support from my profes- sors and doctors from the community. The class of 2016 Fort Myers physician assistant students went to three high schools in Naples, where hundreds of middle and high school students gathered to receive exams required before they could participate in a variety of sports. We were all excited to be able to use our equip- ment and examine real patients, but we were also a little nervous as we haven’t had much experience, especially with teenagers. Within 30 minutes of our arrival, the doors were opened to a horde of potential young athletes who were chattering nervously with their cell phones in hand. We had to improvise and create exam tables from library tables, as well as figure out how to protect the modesty of the students and make them feel comfortable in a group- exam setting. The students were screened in either the gym or cafeteria and then sent to individual stations for vital signs reviews and examinations. At Naples High School, our professor, Janet Sparker, PA-C, did the cardiac exams while we checked the students’ vital signs and conducted the abdominal, lung, and ENT exams. Our medical director, Frederick Paola, M.D., and Nelson Guzman, PA-C, kept us organized and rechecked any abnormal findings we discovered. Somehow, we managed to be efficient and systematically do a complete physical on several hundred students in a few hours. Performing high school physicals was a great patient care experience prior to beginning our clinical year. We felt connected to the local community, where many of our preceptors are located, and we were grateful for the opportunity to give something back to the community that supports us in our clinical year. We were also appre- ciative of the well-timed boost to our self-confidence as health care providers—right before we embarked on the second half of our training. n Class of 2016 Conducts High School Sports Physicals BY JENNIFER KAY, PA STUDENT, CLASS OF 2016