By MICHAEL HIDINGER
Staff Writer
College of Saint Rose alumna Rachael McCormick and research scientist Dr. Ellen Braun-Howland spoke to students at the Natural Science Association meeting on Wednesday about career possibilities and options for furthering their educations after graduating from Saint Rose.
McCormick is working at Saint Peter’s Hospital as a technician in the Emergency Room department and is in the process of applying to physician assistant schools.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and graduated with the Class of 2012. She said that she had been considering going to medical school but working at Saint Peter’s had changed her mind. The physician assistants seemed much happier than the doctors, she said.
“They get to have a life outside of work,” she said.
She backed up this observation by pointing out a CNN study on “The Best Jobs in America” that ranked physician assistant as the second best occupation in the country.
The process of applying to physician assistant schools and medical schools is similar and includes steps not found in applying for other programs of study. For example, both use a centralized application service and potential students must manually enter their own grades exactly from official transcripts.
Applicants to physician assistant schools use the Central Application Service for Physician Assistants to enter all their application information. Once finished, the applications are sent out to individual schools. The American Medical College Application System is the medical school equivalent.
The requirements for becoming a physician assistant are a bachelor’s degree, a master’s of science degree in physician assistant studies and certification obtained by passing the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam.
McCormick told students that one of the greatest resources she has used in the application process have been the forums on The Student Doctor Network, which describes itself as “a nonprofit organization of thousands of pre-health, health professional students and practicing doctors from across the United States and Canada.”
McCormick’s main message to students was to study, a point she emphasized with a personal example.
“I goofed around my freshman year and messed up my grades,” she said.
She also had advice for those considering a career in the health care field: try it to see if you like it. “Get a job at a hospital, because you don’t know what it’s like until you do it.”
She said that there are lots of entry level jobs available for college students at hospitals and she told students that she wished she had worked in a medically related job during her years at Saint Rose. McCormick said that she used to deliver pizza as an undergrad student.
Ellen Braun-Howland also spoke about her career in a scientific field to students at the meeting. She is the director of the Laboratory of Environmental Biology at the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health.
The Wadsworth Center’s mission statement describes itself as “a science-based community committed to protecting and improving the health of New Yorkers through laboratory analysis, investigations and research, as well as laboratory certification and educational programs.”
The Laboratory of Environmental Biology is a reference laboratory that tests drinking water for New York State, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program and the Environmental Laboratory Approval Program, which is also part of the Wadsworth Center.
An example of the work the lab does is microscopical analysis of water samples for bottled waters and water treatment plants. The analysis of water is used to search for health risks such as pathogenic protozoa and harmful algal blooms. She noted one case in particular where a dialysis unit at a kidney treatment center was contaminated with harmful algae.
The Environmental Laboratory Approval Program handles around 3,500 samples semiannually and contracts tests out to 200 laboratories in the state, Braun-Howland said. These laboratories must demonstrate their analysis proficiency semiannually or lose their lab license.
Braun-Howland has a doctorate in biology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and has had postdoctoral training both at RPI and the University of Oslo in Norway. She told students to accept any opportunities to study abroad.
“If you ever get a chance to live in Europe, do it before you have kids,” she said.
