I’m going to let you in on a secret: being a PA student at Duke probably isn’t what you’re thinking it is.
When you picture Blue Devils, does your brain immediately conjure an image of a student nose-deep in textbooks, pushing up their reading glasses? How about a stadium overflowing with dark blue, cheering on our infamous basketball team?
While these are all undoubtedly pieces of the DPAP (Duke PA Program) experience, they can’t lead you all the way to an accurate picture.
Duke is an incredible, complex enigma made of the most unbelievable, interwoven stories you can imagine.
Your classmates will astound you – my peers are hall-of-fame shot-putters, trilingual interpreters and published researchers. They’ve built rafts out of balsa wood and floated them down rivers (stocked with animals that eat humans). They’re the first in their families to have an education past middle school. They’ve overcome incredible odds and traveled the world to be sitting next to you, studying microbiology. It’s not uncommon to find yourself wondering, “How did I get here, and now what do I do?”
A little rewind: my pre-PA background was…let’s say…”unconventional.” I was a Jane-of-all-trades and managed my own businesses, doing everything from edible landscaping to traditional bookbinding. I lived off the grid, coordinated high-end destination weddings and volunteered for the fire department. At first, it was hard to see how my story fit into my classmates’ stories of highly focused mega-achievers – my interests were so varied that sometimes it felt difficult to piece them into an intelligible narrative. How did I belong? What was the common thread, the secret superpower, that I could flip into high gear now that I was here?
Planning.
That’s right. Some heroes can fly, some can time-travel – I can rock an Excel spreadsheet, delegate tasks, and apply strategy to coordinate large-scale events and projects. I even scheduled my final PA interviews in the midst of a cross-country bike tour from California to Florida, completing the interviews in well-lit private hotel bathrooms with the background on blur. (Special shoutout to the Marriott Bonvoy chain for the incredible lighting – I partially credit my acceptance to you!).
All jokes aside, I began to understand this attribute was what I could offer back to the greater Duke community. This was my key to engaging not only with my class, but with students of all professions in the School of Medicine – a chance to meaningfully weave my own story into the larger tapestry of our campus. Over the last two years, I’ve gotten to have a hand in a number of memorable projects that have elevated my PA student experience…don’t worry; I’ve narrowed the full list down to my personal top three (each of which could be a blog post in and of themselves!):
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Stead Diversity Block Party
The Diversity/Equity/Inclusion subgroup of our class’s governing body, Stead Society, envisioned a ‘90s-themed Block Party to celebrate all the unique qualities and stories of our class. For various reasons, it wasn’t an option to host this event on school grounds, so we cast a broader net into the community. One of my personal favorite study spaces is a café called Anissa’s Spot on NC-55 – not only do they have the low-key best acai bowls in town, but the business is also female- and black-owned, operated since its inception by a local Durham family.
Support black business *and* throw a party to remember? You can count DPAP in.
The party was a celebration in every sense of the word – with a Family-Feud style game run by Lalita Ford to a 90’s-themed photo booth decked with props by Nishat Hossain, the whole team brought their unique flair to an event that was absolutely unforgettable. (And let’s not forget our core organizer and DJ, Yasmin Wells!). Probably the most incredible experience of the day, though, was realizing that one of our classmates and co-organizers, Gabrielle Aiden, was actually related to the owner! It’s hard to express the joy and amazement we all got to share together in that moment realizing just how small of a world we live in. Our Duke family extends farther than even we might imagine!
(Right photo) Gabby Aiden (far right) with her newfound local family at Anissa's Spot
Root Causes is an incubator for students interested in innovative interventions for social drivers of health. It has multiple programs that reduce barriers impacting access to healthy foods, housing, and environments, and also provides support for voter registration and safe exercise participation.
tl;dr – they are an incredible Duke organization with tons of ways to get involved.
I became active with Root Causes’s Healthy Harvest project during my clinical year of PA school. For those of you who don’t know what that means, here’s a translation: irregular and constantly changing schedules make consistent commitments very difficult. Still, I was determined to plug in and put my skill set to use – their mission is near and dear to my heart, and I knew I could find a way to make it work with a little help.
The project’s community garden, housed at the Church of Philadelphia, is centrally located to Duke’s campus and welcomes those in need to harvest freely from its beds. The one catch? No protected areas for starting vulnerable seedlings and protecting them from birds, slugs, and deer (oh my!) during their infancy.
Hemal Patel, a 3rd year medical student and lead coordinator of the Healthy Harvest project, became my ally. We met and discussed my background in landscape design and perennial food production and agreed I could be an important asset to the leadership team. Though my schedule didn’t dovetail with scheduled planting days and garden parties, I was able to enter the fold by helping to develop a planting schedule for the year and start seeds in a more protected home environment.
Seeding extra trays of summer squash, okra, and tomatoes was a natural extension of my own gardening plans and prior expertise (After moving to Durham, I transformed my front lawn into a food forest to feed my own community!). With Hemal’s help, I was able to take on a remote consultant role and help steer the garden’s productivity from the comfort of my home greenhouse.
This partnership opened my eyes to how creativity can play a major role in how one defines their academic career. With a little foresight and ingenuity, everyone can plug in to the big picture and contribute their unique shine regardless of their ability level (or even physical presence)!
Last, but certainly not least, is my engagement with Duke’s chapter of Medicine in Motion (MM), a nonprofit that reduces provider burnout through fitness, community, and philanthropy. One of Duke’s only truly interprofessional organizations, MM unites MD, PA, PT, OT, and Nursing students with pre-professional opportunities to collaborate and reduce stress with movement tailored to all ability levels.
When left to its own devices about ways to plug into Medicine in Motion, my brain jumped straight to Field Day! Let’s bring back recess and invite all our School of Medicine colleagues to participate in volleyball, spikeball, pickleball, and dodgeball tournaments with chances to win points and cash them in for prizes! (What could go wrong 😉?)
With the help of my colleagues at both MM and IPEC, the Interprofessional Center where I act on the Student Advisory Executive Committee, Field Day was an incredible success. Food trucks and ice cream stands lined the parking lot while students would stream in and out, dressed in colors to represent their programs and cheer for their friends from the stands. Participants could win branded New Balance gear, free climbing classes, and even a private portraiture session offered by a local photographer.
Our second annual Field Day, coming up on June 8th, promises to be bigger and better than ever with all the old favorites PLUS bubble soccer, morning yoga classes, capture the flag, and more. We’ll also invite our friends at UNC’s MedMotion chapter for some good old-fashioned rivalry with the (lesser) blue!
Helping to coordinate Field Day taught me that what you can dream at Duke, you can do. There is a world of support behind you if you are willing to ask for help and think big.
Some readers may have noticed a peculiar aspect about this blog post – perhaps a common thread throughout “linking” the various stories together. 😉
To me, this is Duke.
Absolutely chock-filled with incredible, meaning-driven organizations that are run by unforgettable individuals. So many diverse projects happening concurrently that there isn’t enough room on the page to really do each of them justice - and links become a necessary evil (I’m starting to really appreciate a well-placed footnote).
This is the Duke that you might not see on the news, the Duke that there’s no time to fully describe during interview season. So, here’s the secret they didn’t tell you: your time at Duke is anything you can dream it to be with opportunities to collaborate at every corner. It extends far beyond the classroom and will pull you to new heights if you say yes to the ride.
There is space for every story, for you and me, for weaving a stronger future together with threads we’ve each gathered along the way.
Jane Gray is a second-year student the Duke Physician Assistant Program. Email sylvia.gray@duke.edu with questions.
Editor’s note: Duke Physician Assistant Program students blog monthly. Blogs represent the opinion of the author, not the Duke Physician Assistant Program, the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, or Duke University.