Everything You Need to Know About the PANCE

Anyone preparing career as a physician assistant will need to pass PANCE in order to be certified to practice. PANCE stands for Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam is a computer-based test administered by National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants taken by physicians in United States. The test consist of practical medical and surgical questions with five 60-minute, 60-question blocks, 300 MCQ in total and must be taken before a PA licensing. You are provided 5 hours including 45 minutes between each block for break. Some of the guidelines to PANCE are:

• To sit for the PANCE, you must graduate from a program that was accredited at the time of your matriculation
• You are eligible to take the PANCE 6 times or up to 6 years after completing the requirements for graduation, whichever comes first.
• You must submit an application in advance. You can schedule your exam anytime depending on testing availability at a Pearson VUE testing center.
• You cannot submit an application to test until 90 days prior to your expected program completion date. You are eligible to sit for the PANCE 7 days after the completion of your program. You can only take the PANCE once in any 90-day period or 3-times per calendar year.
• It can take up to 2 weeks to receive your PANCE scores.
• A PANCE score of 350+ is generally accepted as “passing,” however, passing scores can and do range from 350-392 depending on the Form (though passing scores are no longer published)
• You can use the following formula to predict your PANCE scores
• PANCE = [PACKRAT x 5.74] - 287.47
• The highest score attainable is an 800

Here are some of the best PANCE test prep resources for PAs and future PAs preparing for the PANCE provided by Dr. Seheult (medical instructor with 20 years of experience). MedCram prioritize the most important concepts for medical test preparation and for clinical practice. We offer medical test preparation material and online medical training courses for medical students and practitioners.

Also read: Things You Really Have to Know as a Medical Student

Shock and Sepsis Explained Clearly Series

If you are going through an infection you can be attacked by a septic Shock. It usually happens when organ injury or damage in response to infection, leads to dangerously low blood pressure and abnormalities in cellular metabolism. Many of the physicians see it as a three-stage syndrome, starting with sepsis, severe sepsis and progressing to septic shocks. It is a systematic response to infection.

Well any type of infection can lead to sepsis but the most likely are

• Pneumonia
• Abdominal infection
• Kidney infection
• Bloodstream infection (bacteremia)

Since past few days, incidents of sepsis appear to be increasing in the United States for different reasons.

• Americans are living longer and have population more of people older than 65, which is swelling the ranks of the highest risk age group.
• Another factor is the drug resistant bacteria.  Bacteria can transform themselves and resist the effects of antibiotics that once killed them. These antibiotic-resistant bacteria are often the root cause of the infections that trigger sepsis.
• And last, the most common cause of the illness is weak immune systems, which leads to infection-prone body type. Hence leads to Septic shocks.

More detailed study of the subject is available at Shock and Sepsis Explained Clearly Series provided by MedCram which is precisely to the point and helpful for medical students, nurses, physicians, and other healthcare professionals to continue medical education. Understand Shock and Sepsis causes, diagnosis, and treatment with this easy to follow medical review by Dr. Seheult.

MedCram is providing medical online learning and education for medical students, physicians, nurses, PAs, respiratory therapists, paramedics, and other healthcare professionals with free educational medical videos, illustrations and lectures. All MedCram materials including medical videos, notes, quizzes, tests, discussions, and other information cannot be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Also, Read Overview of Online Medical Education

Things You Really Have To Know As a Medical Student

Being a medical student is a long going process and involves many myths. Hard work becomes the daily routine. Even if you are the dearest child in your family and you never did a single job on your own. Medical education involves working harder but it also involves more fun that you ever had before. If we keep the thought aside, reality is interesting and highly rewarding. Here are described the things you should learn being a medical student.

Life time achievement: Going ahead with the medical career is like creating a milestone.  You are going to use what you have learned today for your entire life. Many of the courses people studying are just for passing the examination and the information they tried to learn so hard, becomes useless. This is very much not in the case of medical education. Study areas include testing, diagnosing, understanding and treating a disease. Everything you do becomes a practice in a clinical situation.

Hard Work: It's important to be flexible when there is need of extra efforts. Not all the time you can face the struggle while studying. Hence it is important to be flexible with how you work and appreciate that sometimes you will have to put in a long stint of work in order to have the time off when you need it.

Medicine can be challenging: Yes, it's true but you still have enough time to make things possible and learn accordingly. Make time for other activities. Guide yourself to improve the skills of time management. Don't just become a book worm; you can never learn if you attempt to rote it. Instead, make it interesting and try different learning hacks and strategies.

Studying anatomy: Getting involved with a scalpel is an unpleasant task. Having a practical course in anatomy means getting involved in real human scalpel. Don't panic! Try to calm yourself and get over the fear of seeing naked human body while you learn the structures. Meditation will help you to control over anxiety and embarrassment. Keep in mind you are not the only one facing the situation. Take a deep breath and calm yourself down, after all, this will pay you off at the end.

Get Notes done: A better source of information is always helpful. Create or look for good notes and study material and then making good use will boost your performance to the new level. Don't shy to ask the seniors for lecture notes and workbooks. Clear medical lectures and illustrations will clarify key points.

Study Online: There is no need to say that studying medical education seems like you struck between working and having a life. But you can still enjoy the music while writing a test. Go for online medical education courses. There are many online websites providing readymade stuff and course material that you can directly fetch and download to and use further. Online medical videos also prioritize the most important concepts for medical test preparation and for clinical practice and most importantly available anywhere. No need to carry onerous books, just connect the internet and seize the opportunity even out of your study room.