Hello and welcome to episode 142 of the Physician Assistant Exam Review podcast. My name is Brian Wallace.

I'm the host and creator here at Physician Assistant Exam Review. And I've been, since we finished

up the blueprint, I've taken some time to go back through some interviews I've done with students

talking about how they were able to change some things that they were doing in order to bring about great success.

We've had people who were, over the last couple of weeks, we've had people who were

asked to start over or decelerate. We've had people who failed anatomy classes. We had people

who failed in a rotation exams. We had people who, and today we're going to bring someone who

failed the pants. But all of these stories are so common. They're ones I hear. And that's what I want you to know. When I'm hearing from students, when I'm reading things online, I'm seeing how lonely people feel, how much they feel like it's just them, that everyone else is smart. Let me promise you, that's not the case. It's one of the reasons why I built this platform is to demonstrate to you that's 100% not the case. There's maybe 5% of people who feel good throughout all of

PA school. I certainly wasn't one of them. I don't know many of them. Really, really not the case.

A couple weeks ago, we went through Mary's story. She was the valedictorian of her high school

graduated in three years with honors from her

undergrad degree. I just found out one of my coaches who just about failed out at PA school was on

the edge of failing out. And I worked with him and he wound up doing great, you know, a huge testament

to him and what he was able to do. He's come back to help us.

And I just found out the other night that he was in a workshop we were doing together,

that he was the valedictorian of his high school. So I want to be clear, this isn't about

brains. It's not about your capable. You're not capable. You're a good test.er, you're not, it's just a set of skills, right?

It's a set of ways you go about doing things. And the more I work with students, the more I see

that's the case. It's, yes, content material matters, but it's your approach to the content

material. It's your approach to it as though you are a test taker, not as though I have to learn

every single thing under the sun. I was talking with a student the other day, and I was trying to discuss with her about limiting how much she was studying. And one of the things she was saying is, is I can't because I don't feel like I'm going to be a good practitioner if I don't know every single thing. And one of the things I try to get across to the students I work with is that you can't know everything. It's really not possible. You also are only, once you graduate, are only going to be right on the edge of beginning what you're going to learn. I know that seems insane when you're in PA school because there's so much you're getting but I promise you you are getting a solid foundation

of medicine and a place to begin your learning about how you're going to be a practitioner that's really

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