Second Year Student Blog: Marissa Mattys
One of my favorite pieces of advice I’ve received was one I overheard while teetering atop a model’s pedestal in a sculpture class at the storied New York Studio School. As a seasoned figure model, I had long been aware that much wisdom can be harvested by staying very still and listening, so I was well primed to catch the professor’s comment to the student:
“You don’t have to be touching the clay to be working.”
What I believe he meant here is that there is very serious work being done when we are looking at the subject at hand. As when I’m posing and listening for interesting professorial revelations, I appear inert, but something in my awareness or being may actually be shifting in a way that’s really meaningful to me. When we’re deep in the work—sculpting, modeling, whatever the work is at the moment—more is happening than what we can see with the observable measures of day to day productivity.
If we immerse ourselves fully into looking at the thing and making moves to interact with it, the work stays active—even when we walk away to grab dinner or meet a friend. You’ve got to be committed and sincere, and you have to put in the time, but something near alchemical is happening. The base starting materials are becoming something evolved and elevated. You have to look fiercely. You must continue to build and carve out new shapes. Perhaps most importantly, you have to surrender and let the work change you. When you leave the studio, the work must even be invited into your dreaming.
So... Why are all of these musings showing up here, on the Duke PA Program blog?
It’s because I want to chat to people who are applying to PA school and people who are in the middle of PA school and say,
You are working very hard. You are gazing diligently and diving deeply into pre-reqs and patient care hours, physical exam skills and pharmacology. Endeavoring to become a PA is a big deal, and you may be weighing the focus that’s required to achieve this goal against all the other delightful things you’re giving up in order to make the PA vision happen. You may be asking yourself, Am I even making progress in this labor of learning? You may be wondering if it’s worth it.
The truth is, I’m not a PA yet, so in that sense, I don’t really know if being a PA is “worth it.”
What I do know is that you are very much the sculptor shaping something right now. You are making purposeful choices to translate an idea into physical reality. And all this work requires a tremendous amount of passion. I maintain that passion never leads you astray. It keeps you honest. If you listen to the inklings and curiosities of your passion, you’re listening to a visceral part of you that’s incapable of lying. Of course if you listen to the inklings and curiosities of your passions, you may end up with a résumé like mine, which, yes, is broader and more bizarre than a hyperkalemic QRS complex. But all that following-the-passion and all those varied experiences are exercises in fidelity—they represent you being faithful to yourself and pursuing things that feel like truth. (Plus who doesn’t love a bon vivant?)
All that to say, I think it’s a worthy investment of trust to believe that some kind of intriguing transfiguration is happening. I am confident that you and I would not have gotten this far into the whole PA thing without passion on our side. And passion doesn’t lend its verve to false projects or dead ends. My next thought may sound lofty and whimsical (but if you’re still with me, you can’t hate the whimsy too much), but
I think that if you’re here and you’re doing it and you’re in the throes of it, it’s because you’re supposed to be.
No matter the outcome, the truthful-curious-visceral-passionate part of you has provided the energy and focus to carry you through. Surrender to the experience of being in the work. Know that something is happening, that you are building and learning even if you can’t observe the progress yet. Out on the other side of this experience is an outcome that, no matter its shape, will be compelling because it was born out of you being compelled to create it. Let the experience of the work transform you.
And geeze, go eat a sandwich. Go hug a friend and get a little lost in the woods. It’s okay.
You don’t have to be actively memorizing mechanisms of action to be working.
Marissa Mattys is a second-year student with the Duke Physician Assistant Program. Email marissa.mattys@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.