-: My name is Randy Howl.
I am a physician assistant.
I'm also faculty at Jefferson College of Health Sciences,
in the PA program, and also on the interprofessional faculty
for Virginia Tech School of Medicine.
So PAs are licensed healthcare providers
that practice medicine.
We work in collaboration and with physicians.
You'll hear different terms, like collaborating physicians,
supervising physicians, so on and so forth.
The real fact of the matter of the matter is that PAs,
we have either a physician or a group of physicians
that we work with as part of a team.
I mean, it really is varied.
I can see everything from a twisted ankle
all the way up to a heart attack.
I can see everything from an ear infection to
someone that is in septic shock.
I mean, it's a very broad spectrum of patients that we see.
One of the things that I really am grateful for is that,
working with the physicians and the nurses
and the rest of the folks that are on our team,
it really is a collaborative effort to make sure
that we're giving the very best patient care that we can.
It doesn't matter if it's a twisted ankle
or if it's a heart attack,
we take care of patients one at a time,
and we try to do the right thing every single time.
-: Let's say I'm going to work a seven to five shift
on our trauma overflow pod.
I'll show up at seven,
I'll see who our attending physician is.
At our facility, we have residents.
We have lots of learners.
We have resident physicians,
we have med students, PA students, we have
PA and NP fellows that are there.
The first thing I would do is
see who my team was for the day,
and then look at the board, and see where we're at.
How many patients are in the waiting room,
which patients are where, the acuity level of the patients,
and then we divvy up the work and we get to it.
My particular circumstance is a little bit unique,
because in addition to working clinically as a PA,
my job, I split it into thirds.
About a third of my job, I'm actually the director for the
Emergency Medicine Fellowship for PAs and NPs
at Carilion, so about a third of my week is toward that.
About a third of my week is clinical work,
actually working clinically,
and then about a third of my week is teaching at the college
and at the med school through the interprofessional program.