Undergraduate / Monitoring clinical research trials is'nt what I want for rest of my life; PA - PS [4]

My PA essay (Prompt: Personal Statement/Narrative. Please describe your motivation towards becoming a PA ), in a somewhat rough draft goes as follows - I still am working on adding a closing paragraph, but would love any feedback, positive and negative, about it so far:

Monitoring clinical research trials is not what I want to the rest of my life, but it has given me valuable exposure to the clinics from a nontraditional viewpoint that helped me decide to pursue a career practicing medicine as a PA. After discussing protocols with hundreds of doctors, nurses and PAs I feel comfortably engaged in such discussions, but something is missing ï the patient interactions. Among other things, I've concluded this from the satisfaction and self-worth I get from the medical mission trips I have been a part of, clinics I have visited and the time spent with patients while shadowing health care professions.

Originally, I set my aim for medical school, for many of the same reasons I desire to become a PA. Getting to share health knowledge and advice to those temporarily and/or permanently less fortunate than I is where I get my kicks from. It was instilled in me from a young age that giving back is much more rewarding than taking from others. As it is what drives me to volunteer for countless hours at local Special Olympic events, food banks for the impoverished, and mission trips outside of the local community for victims of hurricanes and diseases so prevalent in the 3rd world.

The field of medicine is ever changing, and it draws my attention at its every advancement, which is another challenge competent PAs must tackle. I have researched for numerous hours on PubMed and the like to understand such diseases as a friend's Ulcerative Colitis to better understand how I can help guide his medical choices and lifestyle changes in coping with the disease. Working directly with an OCD individual for over a year, I was able to approach the many strenuous situations he faced daily from a variety of new angles, producing many positive responses as a result of the research I had found. For me, the challenge to maintain a grasp on new discoveries and incorporate them into traditional medicine is a significant portion of what makes this career path so exciting to me.

To me there is a difference besides the pay scale and level of responsibility. From experiences both as a patient and a shadowing student, I see that PAs are more involved with their patients, engaged on a level that most physicians almost never are. Being a PA, is being the patient advocate, that bedside friend who has a firm understanding of the procedures, prescriptions, and prognosis that are often so confusing and discomforting to the patients. Connecting with patients, being down to earth and being their to comfort them is something I strived at and was hard for me to give up at the end of every mission trip or shift spent in a clinic.

Being able to process the immense amount of information memorized in a PA school and apply it on the spot tactfully and efficiently to each patient's ailment takes a certain set of skills that have compoundedly improved upon over many years. Even with my limited medial knowledge as college undergraduate at Georgia Tech, I eagerly and skillfully attacked the medical based problems presented in multiple courses in my young career as a Biomedical Engineering. Problems based on common and unusual medical ailments, I excelled at researching how a stroke patient can regain control of his eyelids lose control using small electrically controlled magnets and just how complicating such a disability can be.