Physician Assistant

>> -- is Andrew Hodge, I am a physician assistant in a plastic and reconstructive surgery office. A physician assistant is a medical provider that is educated and trained and licensed to practice medicine under the supervision of a physician. We come out of school where we are sort of trained as generalist to practice medicine in a number of different environments but our education and training is ongoing after school, on the job training if you will. With the physician or surgeon that we're working with. So depending on the environment you're in, your experiences and training and breadth of knowledge is different and changes. We operate very routinely with other surgeons because a lot of what we do is cancer related and reconstructive and so we're having to tie our schedule to theirs. Which means we don't have a set Monday is operating day, Tuesday is clinic, Wednesday is operating, it has to ebb and flow, be very flexible. So every week is different we may be in the operating room all day on a Monday and just to squeeze patients in we may see some patients in the afternoon. Then say on Tuesday we will be seeing postoperative patients or new patients in the office. Maybe even do procedures in the office. Maybe even squeeze in a small surgery and then Wednesday sort of the same routine, so every day is a little bit different. Every week is a little bit different. I'll use an example of say a breast cancer patient. A breast cancer patient is referred to our office after having a diagnosis and then seeing a breast surgeon and they come to us for the first time to talk about after their breast surgery what kind of reconstructive methods might be available to them. So they come in and see us for the first time here in our office, we discuss their background history, where they are medically up to that point. And then kind of what our suggestions will be and our plan will be for them. We have the operative date, we go to surgery, the patient is using the hospital for at least a day or two. So usually either myself or Dr. Del Corral, the surgeon I work with, will go see that patient while they're in the hospital, checking on them every day. Then they'll go home and they'll come back to see us in our office again for postoperative visits, which may range anywhere from two to five visits spread out over a number of weeks to make sure they've healed well and there's no complications. That's for surgical patients.