{"id":12429,"date":"2018-08-15T09:18:09","date_gmt":"2018-08-15T16:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/medex\/?p=12429"},"modified":"2018-08-15T09:18:09","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T16:18:09","slug":"flourishing-in-family-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/test\/flourishing-in-family-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Flourishing in Family Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"dropcap\">N<\/span><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\">icole Bazar speaks fondly<\/span><\/strong> of the 4-month family medicine preceptorship that came at the start of her clinical year with MEDEX Northwest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would call it somewhat of cowboy medicine,\u201d she says of her four months at <em>Peninsula Community Health Services<\/em> in Bremerton, Washington. PCHS is a community health clinic, so most of the patients are Medicare, Medicaid, uninsured, or underinsured. \u201cWe worked with a lot of minority and non-English speaking populations, and that was 95% of the patients that I interacted with there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Consequently, providers had to do a lot of improvising in the way patients were treated. \u201cYou have to find what is realistic for the patient and what is practical for them,\u201d Nicole explains.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes this would stand in contrast to what was taught in the MEDEX Northwest classroom.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe learned the standard of medical practice during our didactic year,\u201d she says. \u201cA patient would come in with a complaint and you have been trained to follow a general treatment plan. But that patient might be paying out of pocket and can&#8217;t afford the medication. They can&#8217;t afford to get the labs that you want. So, instead there&#8217;s a lot of compromise and education that is replaced in this situation. You follow your patients a little closer than what you might in an area that has a higher socioeconomic status.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Nicole Bazar MEDEX Seattle Class 50\" width=\"1020\" height=\"574\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QJPfSZgih10?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"dropcap\">G<\/span><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\">rowing up on the Kitsap Peninsula<\/span><\/strong> in Poulsbo, WA, Nicole developed an early sense of service through volunteer work with her dad. \u201cHe provided my first exposures to giving back to the community,\u201d she says. \u201cHe has always been passionate about giving back to his community as he was the son of an army soldier and German immigrant. He grew up with little to nothing and made a life for himself. His goal was always to pay it forward and it\u2019s something I have adopted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While Nicole was still in elementary school, they worked together on the <em>Courage Classic<\/em>, an annual bike race for <em>Seattle Children\u2019s Hospital<\/em>. And there were experiences at the local food bank and serving food to the homeless population.<\/p>\n<p>In junior high, Nicole volunteered in special-needs classes, reading to students. Later she joined an honors program and tutored her peers requiring help in school. This escalated in her college years as she became involved in different clubs.<\/p>\n<p>By all rights, Nicole should have gone into business. After all, that was her family\u2019s focus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI actually went to college to declare a degree in business management, because that&#8217;s what my father did, that&#8217;s what my sister did,\u201d Nicole says. \u201cNo one in my family is in medicine. I just never had a lot of personal exposure to it besides my own doctor&#8217;s appointments.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>[smartslider3 slider=178]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"dropcap\">L<\/span><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\">ooking back at her childhood<\/span><\/strong>, Nicole recognizes the role that service work and science classes played in her adult career direction. \u201cYou put those two things together, and that\u2019s medicine,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>One of her undergraduate prerequisite courses at <em>Western Washington University<\/em> was in psychology. As Nicole explains it, \u201cThis was a top failed class by freshmen, but I flourished in it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her professor approached her, asking what kind of degree she had in mind. \u00a0\u201cI told him business management,\u201d she says. His response was, &#8220;No, I want you to look into the behavioral neuroscience program.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/medex\/wp-content\/uploads\/VERT2-Nicole-Bazar.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-12454\" src=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/medex\/wp-content\/uploads\/VERT2-Nicole-Bazar-167x250.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"167\" height=\"250\" \/><\/a>It took Nicole a total of five minutes to read up on the subject and decide, &#8220;Yeah, this is for me. I&#8217;m on the wrong path.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She started researching how a major in behavioral neuroscience might translate into a career.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAmongst all of my other classmates, some people were doing research, some were going to be dentists, some were planning on becoming physicians,\u201d she tells us. \u201cI thought my personal passions and my skill set best fell into being a doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the time, Nicole wanted to be a neurosurgeon because she was studying neuroscience. She began to check off all the boxes for pre-med, including volunteering at a hospital and shadowing physicians. She worked with two doctors and a team of four physician assistants.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI ended up spending more time with the PAs than I did the physicians,\u201d she says. It was her first exposure to physician assistants, so she asked the PAs a lot of questions about their career path, exploring the difference between PAs and doctors<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn&#8217;t know any of this,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen I started to realize my own provider was actually a nurse practitioner. I had been seeing physician assistants all the time. I just never paid attention to the badge or the credentials following their name. That&#8217;s when I realized that the PA profession was a better fit with who I was as an individual.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>[smartslider3 slider=182]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"dropcap\">W<\/span><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\">ithin this hospital surgical setting<\/span><\/strong>, Nicole observed PAs, the way they interacted with patients and their personal work-life balance. In short, the profession was better aligned with her passion for medicine and her future plans for having a family.<\/p>\n<p>By the junior year of undergraduate college, Nicole knew that she wanted to become a PA.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had my Excel spreadsheet of all the different prerequisites I needed to meet to apply to PA school,\u201d she says. Nicole started attending information sessions about getting into PA school, and focused on fulfilling the requisite clinical hours. Upon graduating from college, Nicole became an EMT and a phlebotomist, and worked for another two years to acquire her patient contact hours.<\/p>\n<p>When it came time to apply to PA school, Nicole cast a wide net. \u201cI actually applied to 13 programs across the country,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wasn&#8217;t so sure where I fit in within PA schools, because I didn&#8217;t have a lot of mentors in medicine. I didn&#8217;t have family that knew how to navigate getting into medicine, so I had to figure this out on my own.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Because the application process starts earlier in the East Coast and the Central United States, Nicole began getting accepted into several programs. She put down a deposit for Midwestern University in Arizona, but then was offered an interview at MEDEX Northwest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI went to the MEDEX interview and was offered a position with incoming Seattle Class 50,\u201d she tells us. It was the only offer where Nicole cried with happiness. \u201cI just knew MEDEX was where I belonged, because this is where my family is, this is where my friends are, this is where my personality is. I want to be educated in a community where I plan to live for the rest of my life, and that\u2019s Seattle. The University of Washington MEDEX Northwest program has a great reputation for developing phenomenal providers, and it just seemed like the right fit.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>[smartslider3 slider=181]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"dropcap\">W<\/span><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\">hen we caught up with Nicole<\/span><\/strong> she was in her final rotation prior to graduation in late August.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m splitting my time between the Kaiser Permanente Downtown Clinic in family medicine, and the Kaiser Permanente Bellevue Family Medicine Clinic and Urgent Care.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nicole\u2019s preceptor at the Downtown Clinic is Melissa Szocik, PA-C, the local Medical Center Chief at Kaiser. Watching the two of them at work with a patient, it becomes clear that their styles are compatible.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the few weeks that I&#8217;ve had Nicole, I&#8217;ve found her to be poised, engaging and positive,\u201d says Melissa. \u201cNicole really listens to me, and is engaged in finding the answers. Patients have enjoyed talking to her, and the team members really like engaging with her as well. She\u2019s fit herself into our team very nicely in these weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_12453\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12453\" style=\"width: 167px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/medex\/wp-content\/uploads\/VERT-Nicole-Bazar.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-12453\" src=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/medex\/wp-content\/uploads\/VERT-Nicole-Bazar-167x250.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"167\" height=\"250\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-12453\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Melissa Szocik, PA-C with Nicole Bazar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Even before her studies at MEDEX have ended, Nicole has been offered a permanent position at Kaiser Permanente, conditional on passing the national certification exam.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll be a primary care PA,\u201d Nicole says. \u201cI won&#8217;t have my own panel of patients to start, but that will develop over my career. Within primary care, I have a personal passion for women&#8217;s health and reproductive health, so I hope to find a niche within family practice where I focus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nicole possesses personality traits that allow her to enjoy building relationships with individuals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI like getting to know patients long term\u2014 who they are, what they&#8217;re passionate about and what motivates them. And I have been repeatedly told that I have a capability of quickly making others feel important and heard. That fits into a primary care provider.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At 27 years, Nicole is the youngest in her class of MEDEX Seattle 50. \u201cYes, and they don\u2019t let me forget it,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n<p>But being so young in her new profession, Nicole feels like there\u2019s opportunity for growth to develop into the provider she hopes to be.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn past roles during my education and during previous jobs, I have found myself in leadership and teaching positions,\u201d she says. \u201cAs a PA, that may be 10, 15 years down the road for me, because I imagine a steep learning curve before I feel that I&#8217;ll be competent, efficient and truly know who I am as a primary care provider.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Destined to follow her family into business, Nicole Bazar discovered a capacity for service and science. She started on the educational path to behavioral neuroscience, which eventually gave way to the physician assistant profession. Now on the cusp of graduating from MEDEX Northwest, Nicole envisions a long career as a primary care provider.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clinical-experience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/test\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}