Cody 0:06

Hello. Welcome to Building Bridges, a podcast from the Butler University, doctor of Medical Science Bridge Program. I'm Cody Ushak, and I'm so glad you're here. This podcast is all about connection. Bring together voices from across healthcare, education, leadership, and beyond. Whether you're a practicing pa, a student, an educator, or someone passionate about where healthcare is headed, this space is for you. On today's episode, we will talk with Megan Canon, particularly about her transition from clinical PA to faculty member after earning a doctoral degree. We think this might be relevant for new faculty, doctoral students, PA educators, and maybe for those who are considering a career change into into education. We're glad to be joined today by my cohost Adrian Banning. Hey, Adrian.

Adrian 0:49

Hi Cody. Thanks for having me here. I'm Adrian Banning. I'm an associate professor in the Butler DMS Bridge program Megan. Hello. Welcome. We're so glad that you're here.

Megan Cannon 0:59

Hello. Thank you so much for having me. I am very excited to be here and see you guys again. It's always nice to catch up.

Adrian 1:08

Feel the same way. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Like maybe kinda just start at the beginning. What brought you to, let's just start with what got you to PA school to start with and where did you go?

Megan Cannon 1:22

Yeah. I definitely did not take like the, what seems to be maybe the, Straight and narrow path to what? With what a lot of students are doing now. High school, going to get their bachelor's and then it seems like a lot of people are just going straight into PA school. At least where I'm teaching now that seems, to be the track. I took a much windier road. I finished high school, I started community college. I knew that I wanted to a hundred percent go into medicine. I got my EMT, like that summer that I graduated. school because I had been lifeguarding before that. And so I took a quick EMT course and a few months later I was working on an ambulance. Starting at 19 I started working on an ambulance. and very quickly went to paramedic school because I knew that I wanted to do that and. While I was working as a paramedic, I was doing little by little piece by piece my bachelor's and getting all my pre-reqs done. And so it took quite a long time because I was working full time. so before PA school, I worked, let's see, about 10 years, maybe just over 10 years in EMS. I was working on a ground ambulance and then I was working on a helicopter so I was in my early thirties when I got into PA school.

Cody 2:57

Megan, you've had several transitions. It in each of those, you were in the same space, but really it was, it was a substantive change. It wasn't like you were going from one EMS crew to another. Like, how do you, I know a lot of people through their PA careers look at these like points of transition and like, how do you know if it's the right thing to do? Is the grass greener on the other side? If you're gonna go from having an established career to going to PA school, which is no small effort, both in time. And money. How do you how'd you think through that? What, how'd you come to those decisions and that taking a turn, taking a different path was, or a somewhat different path was the right way to go for you?

Megan Cannon 3:35

Yeah, it's a good question and definitely I it wasn't an easy thing that just came to me overnight and was like, oh, I'm gonna do this and this is gonna be the right thing. It was a lot of, debate and, I very early on when I was going through school. I didn't quite know. I knew that I wanted to do something in medicine I thought for a long time like, oh, maybe I will stay in EMS because that is, love EMS. There will always be part of me that wants to do something within EMS, and I hope that someday, whether it be research or otherwise, I can get back involved in EMS. I knew that I wanted to stay in medicine in some capacity. I've always known that ever since I was little. I like, just loved medicine and so I had thought while I was doing my pre-reqs med school versus PA school, right? This is the great debate for a lot of us that kind of had to decide what we wanted to do Truth be told, I took all my pre-reqs from med school, took the MCAT twice, didn't do great on it. And could I have gone, maybe out of the country to med school? Yeah, I could have. But at the time in my life that I was in just that phase of my life had a house. I was established, I was married. I. And I'm an only child. My parents are here just so many, factors.

Cody 5:10

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 5:11

I really had to just a conversation with myself about what is truly important to me. And things are not very pleasant in EMS sometimes. And so you see experiences that other people have that at least for me, helped me figure out. earlier age maybe than others, like what was truly important to me and staying near my family became very important. Making sure that I had that time and space for my family and my friends, because life is short. It sounds silly, and people, say it all the time, but truthfully, life is short and. That was just my own personal decision, and that's not obviously what's right for everyone. But I realized, you know what, like the PA path is gonna give me the school experience that I think better suits my life at this point. It's gonna give me the afterschool experience that suits my life better. I don't have to move around a bunch for a residency, which is huge. And things just fit much better. It aligned with my goals were and it just made the most sense to me in the end. So that's how I ended up, going the PA path as opposed to something else. When I was flying, I thought, okay, maybe I'll go into like clinical education. At the flight program that I'm working at. But even there, there's like what next? Okay, so now I'm a clinical educator at the age of 32. It just, it wasn't gonna be quite enough for me, From like a. My brain.

Adrian 7:04

Next 30 years

Cody 7:05

yeah.

Megan Cannon 7:06

Yeah.

Adrian 7:06

Where do you go from there?

Megan Cannon 7:08

I wanted to definitely go back to school.

Cody 7:10

and it sounds like you had, in some of the things you mentioned had this thread of education and teaching and learning woven through your experiences. Did you feel like when you considered. Opportunity in PA education that, that was like a natural, was it an inevitable thing for you, or was it came outta left field and that'd be a unique opportunity. What was that? What was that like?

Megan Cannon 7:31

I knew in the back of my mind that like it would be something that I would want to do eventually. It definitely came up a lot faster in my career than I thought it was going to.

Adrian 7:42

everyone says that I think everyone thinks they're just gonna teach for the last three years of their career before they retire and everyone that says that, they're like, oh, I, this happened much sooner than I say that, too. That happened to me too. But So how did it happen then? First of all, tell us where you are now, then

Megan Cannon 7:59

Oh. So yeah, I guess that part is important. So now I am full-time faculty at University of the Pacific. It is a PA program in Sacramento, California. And it is fully in person. Like my PA program was mostly the didactic was online. Definitely a different experience, but I really love it here.

Adrian 8:26

And so you just walked up to the door one day and knocked and was like, Hey, let

Megan Cannon 8:31

Yeah, I just knocked and they let me right in.

Adrian 8:35

your desk. Which is normally how PA faculty hiring goes yeah.

Megan Cannon 8:41

I, there were some things going on in my personal life and I needed a bit of a schedule change from my clinical job. And so I was my intent was just, oh, I'm gonna look for a different clinical job where this schedule is a little bit different and a little bit more flexible. While I was doing my job search, this popped up it. It partially was oh, I don't think that they're gonna hire me with, only a year or so out of school. But I'll put my application in. Maybe they'll take me as an adjunct or something.

Adrian 9:17

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 9:18

So I put my application in, not. Not necessarily having, I should have had more faith in myself, a little bit more confidence in myself retrospectively. But, I just didn't think that I was gonna necessarily be viewed as qualified, which insert Butler DMS Bridge program. because truly I think having my at from the get go, like it was huge. At least the program that I'm at, there's a. A decent amount of push to get us all trained to doctoral level if we're not already there. And so I know that helped me a lot.

Cody 10:03

Yeah. I appreciate you saying that. And in the context of a shameless plug that I might make, I think, in talking with folks you just never know, and this is true for PA opportunities, and this is probably a broader statement on life as well, but you just never really know when that next great opportunities going to happen. And if you're prepared with knowledge and skills and some experience that allow you to do that, that, that seems like a. A great opportunity, certainly in the current context. I'm sure it's in the same way that you know your experience as a paramedic and a flight medic really in helped inform, your journey through PA school, through clinical education, and into professional practice. To, I would say.

Megan Cannon 10:43

Yeah, certainly. Things have built on one another nicely to help me get where I am. Also, I think a little bit of luck good timing.

Cody 10:53

Hey you make your own luck mostly.

Adrian 10:57

We could say that, but actually you were in the research design class that I was teaching and maybe one of the first

Cody 11:04

I.

Adrian 11:04

I taught with the Butler DMS Bridge program. And you had just graduated, A very little kid, a baby, A farm with horses. You were doing a doctoral degree. You maybe, did you just move or you were going to move?

Megan Cannon 11:23

We were thinking about it.

Adrian 11:25

about it

Megan Cannon 11:25

Yes.

Adrian 11:26

to a really high intensity cardiothoracic surgery job, and we talked about that. Like you were doing a lot of things all at once and you were always and polite doing your work. And I just remember thinking if I had one of those things, I couldn't. I couldn't do it at all. That you were like, what? Not that you were raising a whole human, but I was like, wait, horses? Like, how are you doing this? They're so expensive. Like

Cody 11:54

And not just one, three and a half of them.

Adrian 11:56

three,

Megan Cannon 11:57

they are

Adrian 11:59

three and a half.

Megan Cannon 12:01

On one hand they literally eat your money. But on the other hand, I think they're, a big reason why, that is my kind of outlet is being able to like, because I have the animals and everyone has their hobby, and so maybe some people go to the gym and I go groom my horses. So it's just, outlet. It's.

Cody 12:22

Yeah. Megan you'd mentioned, speaking of outlets and kind of flexibility, you'd mentioned before that like one of the things that was appealing in looking at opportunities and particularly in PA education, was that sort of like flexible, more flexible nature of things, what have you, and obviously each place is a little bit different, but what have you found that's been been the rewarding parts of the job for you so far? Or if there were any surprises that maybe you didn't see coming and maybe a little bit about like how you manage that. That flexibility in where you have some, I distinctly remember my first first week on the job where suddenly I was managing my own calendar. Like I didn't have someone telling me in 15 minute increments like what I was now still people were inviting me to meetings and that's but I can distinctly remember sitting in my office on the first day and it was like. Four o'clock or four 30 or something and you're getting onboarded. You might not have your, I didn't, probably have the credentials to get started with my email login or whatev what have you. And I remember sitting there and my colleague at the time and future boss and longtime mentor Steph VanDerill and walked by and she's shush, you know that you can. You don't have to sit here and punch the clock. There's no patient that's gonna show up. It was just such a wild a wild change for me that, that was, I thought that was was very interesting. So I'd be interested to hear a little bit about what your perspective on that those early days as a PA educator were like.

Megan Cannon 13:44

Yeah I definitely agree and I had similar moments especially in the beginning, is this okay? Like that? I'm, like leaving at four 30 without remembering, oh the day before I had to stay until five 30 because this, and this was going on, or the other day I, had to work through lunch. And so yes, it's definitely a give and take and it's just a lot more variable than, like a clinic job where you're, showing up at seven and leaving whenever you get done with your charting. And yeah, it's definitely a lot different, but it's, at least for me, it's been a huge stress relief because I do have a young child and my husband works full time, and so when my husband gets off a 24 hour shift in the morning. Having, we were, I was having to figure out he gets off at seven and I had to be at work by six, so A baby at home alone for two hours.

Cody 14:48

My understanding is no, you cannot.

Megan Cannon 14:51

So

Adrian 14:52

Frowned upon.

Megan Cannon 14:53

yeah they frown on that. I think. So it was like childcare was just really chall, challenging and figuring out how am I supposed to, be on call for the or when it's, extremely variable if it came to that when I'm home with son by myself. It's alleviated a lot of those types of stressors. Just because I know that when my husband's getting off work, like for the most part, unless I have something scheduled, I can, maybe come in a little bit late that day. And if I have stuff that I need to do, then I stay a little bit late that day. and do I do a little bit more work here and there at home? Yeah, but I will happily do that when I don't have to stress about, oh my gosh, I'm supposed to be somewhere at, six in the morning and now it's this whole song and dance with my husband's schedule and my schedule.

Cody 15:54

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 15:55

it's been a huge relief from that standpoint,

Cody 15:58

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 15:58

Husband feels the same way. So

Cody 16:00

Yeah,

Megan Cannon 16:01

been a positive for the whole family.

Adrian 16:03

he's a paramedic.

Megan Cannon 16:05

Yeah, he's a paramedic supervisor, so he works 24 hour shifts.

Cody 16:08

Yeah. Adrian and I have talked a lot about, sometimes people get into think about getting into PA education with the idea that like, oh, it's easier, and, or it's it's, I think most would say that it's the classic. It's not easier, it's just different. And while the flexibility is a plus, it also, you have to be intentional about drawing boundaries

Adrian 16:28

right.

Cody 16:29

and those sorts of things that, you know, can sneak up on you where it gets, can you gotta be able to put boundaries on it as well, just like anything else where like clinic work oftentimes has a, has more clear bounds on it because you have your schedule and you do your dictations and Away you go. But that's one thing I think that's always, maybe sometimes a misconception that it's easier. It's just different.

Adrian 16:52

Or that it's just what the students see because how else would you know really what goes on behind the scenes? Having been a student, you're like, oh, I think I know what PA education is. They get in front of the class and they do some, like a razzle dazzle. Back in my day or here's my experience, and then people are like, oh wait, I don't just get to like wax poetically about my experience in front of students and they like fall at my feet lovingly all the time. And you're like, oh no, we have ARC pa and you have to be on committees and you have to do scholarship and you have to do service. And they're like, hold on, wait, you were doing all of this all while my professor. And you're like yeah,

Cody 17:24

Or like even the, I think I re, I remember being blown away about how like I was looking forward to lecturing and obviously that's a very visible part of the job the like. Hours and days that I'd spent develop would spend developing a single presentation. Like these Don't just create themselves. It'd be cool if they did, but all of that stuff the man behind the curtain stuff is very interesting. But I think it's, it's a different skillset. It's a different I love it. I love that variability. But but I could see how sometimes folks might get into that and realize oh, this is not. This is not just talking in front of, talking in front of students and that there's a whole, whole other host of the other duties as assigned as they, they like to say at the end of a job description.

Megan Cannon 18:08

Yep. Yeah I definitely was surprised or, caught by surprise. Still am occasionally. I'm only a year and a half in, so I'm still, it's, the learning curve is real for sure. The amount of time that I thought it would take me to even update a lecture to the point where I had my head wrapped around it is like

Adrian 18:32

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 18:34

Oh. I'll set aside a couple hours, like eight hours later.

Cody 18:38

Yep.

Adrian 18:39

You're still

Megan Cannon 18:40

Yeah.

Adrian 18:41

that box. Megan you and I once had a conversation about doing an online doctoral program and kind of that flexibility that it allowed for you. The timing was right, because you were a recent grad. It leads into, how you're probably so good at being. A relatively new educator with a flexible schedule because you, this is not your first rodeo in organizing your time and keeping like academics especially from home because you did an online program and you talked about the value of the online PA program a little bit. and it would, we would be excluding a lot of people if we didn't have these options. Will you dive into that and what that meant to you? The option of having an online hybrid PA program and then

Megan Cannon 19:24

Yeah.

Adrian 19:24

how that helped your transition an online doctoral program.

Megan Cannon 19:29

Yeah, definitely. Even before PA school I think the fact that I was, managing work and school for such a long period of time, I it allowed me time to figure out what works, what doesn't work. Some of the classes that I took in undergrad were, either hybrid or online as well. It was definitely much more of a mix, but, I had time in undergrad figure out what worked and what didn't work for me. And I learned a lot about time management during that time. And when I was looking at PA schools, knew that I wanted, is, against all of what PA educators will tell students to do, but I wanted to work as long as I could. and it's just the reality of going from two paychecks for, years to, and, if you don't include, being with my husband, even before that, it's like I was living alone. And so having that constant paycheck since I was 19 years old,

Adrian 20:43

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 20:44

over a decade of having a decent paycheck to not really scared me. And so I wanted to try to hold on to. That as long as I possibly could, because I knew that it would get to a point where, I wouldn't be able to work like in clinicals. Or I would have to drop down to part-time and be like, extraordinarily part-time. And a hybrid program, just, it made the most sense for me. I was fortunate, I didn't have a nine to five like clinic type job. I wasn't like scribing where I had to be on it for eight hours during the day. I was working on 24 hour shifts and. When I wasn't on a call or doing paperwork, like I could do homework, and I had functioned that way for years. And so that, that was my plan just to continue to function that way. Do not recommend, but that was part of what led me to wanting to do a hybrid or a that had some online options. And it's definitely not for everyone. There are things that I see now in students that I'm like, yeah, this would've been valuable. This would've been valuable for me going through school. I think, the only thing that made it workable and that. It didn't really, it wasn't that impactful to me. It was because I had as much EMS experience as I did, and so was this whole piece that a lot of, at least my students here. Need to get through that I didn't need to work through, because I had already gone through that. Just getting comfortable patients, talking to patients, touching patients, doing procedures, and being comfortable doing a procedure for the first time on a patient. Like those are all sorts of hurdles that all of my students, for the most part are having to work through. And those were luckily things that I didn't have to worry about. And that made like hybrid program perfect for me because, it played on my strengths, but still gave me what I needed. And then once I had graduated, an online program was like the only option in my mind, I wouldn't have even considered doing it in person. It was just, it wouldn't have been for me. And I was so used to having the flexibility to listen to lectures when I want, and if I wanted to be a night owl and do something at three in the morning, like I could do that. And I did that because I think as we discussed, I actually had a baby during PA school and it's,

Adrian 23:39

Again,

Megan Cannon 23:39

up at two in the morning.

Adrian 23:40

Really.

Megan Cannon 23:41

gonna listen to a lecture.

Adrian 23:43

Let's make it as easy as we can on ourselves. There's a theme here, Megan.

Megan Cannon 23:48

I know I have serious problems.

Adrian 23:52

I didn't say that. I think that you thrive though, in any situation, right? Like when there's a lot going on, you're like, yeah, fine. Oh, I had a baby during PA school. It was perfectly fine.

Cody 24:02

Megan, what do you think about? A access obviously is a really important piece of things. If as a profession we're gonna, we're gonna represent the patients that we serve, you know that, that. That we need to provide access for a wide variety of people. And as you mentioned before, the history of the PA profession, had always been second career sort of folks But not within the last, 10, 15, but probably even 20 years. How do when you're looking at applicants now as a faculty member, how do you think about balancing. GRE scores, let's say with them working full time with having a family or kids or horses or whatever it might be. Do you have any thoughts on, on how that, in how the process of admitting students essentially is informed by your own varied past experience.

Megan Cannon 24:48

Yeah, I can tell you I am was not a 4.0 student. I, that was not me. And I, encourage people to apply and not get discouraged just because they have, a 3.1 GPA or whatever. Like you are not your GPA, are not your GRE and as much as they.

Adrian 25:10

that says that like my gosh, a hundred percent. Yeah.

Megan Cannon 25:15

I actually, this is slightly off topic, but just had a conversation yesterday with a current PA student

Adrian 25:24

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 25:25

who was so concerned about her current GPA.

Adrian 25:29

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 25:29

It's not going below a 3.0. Like we're all good here and as and B'S land, but I think we just get so it's ingrained into us so much in high school. Gotta get those a's, gotta get those a's, you gotta get into college. And people get so fixated on I must have to have straight A's,

Adrian 25:51

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 25:52

In order to get into grad school. And it's, is a much bigger conversation than that. It's yes, the GPA is a component, but it is, it's, a fraction of what. What the big picture is, it's, does this person have the grit? Does this person have the determination? Does this person have the interest? Do they know what they're getting into? Have you educated yourself on what exactly it is you're getting into?

Adrian 26:19

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 26:19

And so many other factors that people don't realize come into play if it was all about GPA, like I wouldn't have gotten into PA school either.

Adrian 26:32

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 26:33

but it's so multifactorial and if you have life experience and you have prepared yourself in other ways and you've done things to prove that you can handle it academically, even if that number isn't perfect you can absolutely, show people that. You will do just fine in PA school.

Adrian 26:56

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 26:57

Sorry, I might have gone a little bit off

Adrian 26:59

it

Megan Cannon 26:59

tangent there.

Adrian 27:00

you knew who you were outside of being a student All this. You had a sense of your own identity and your own value that wasn't inherently tied to a grade. But if all you've ever been is a student whose worth has been measured by a numerical grade, and that's part of your identity, I am someone who gets good grades. Then the minute that you don't, then who are you? If

Megan Cannon 27:20

Exactly.

Adrian 27:20

someone who gets good grade, and by don't meaning like you got an 82 or like God watch out. I think you'd probably agree. I've had doctoral students who were like, but this number, this grade. And you're like, what are you gonna do with this? Who are you gonna show this grade to later? And when do you uncouple like this? toxic perfectionism from a number, from your value as a human.

Cody 27:44

Yeah. And I think that's exactly right and I think PA educators feel that on the other side too, is that I think all of us want to create a space for growth and development and that sometimes feels at real odds with the time pressure and the. The outcomes that we have to deliver. We're not teaching people to build widgets. And people need to graduate with the knowledge and skills to be safe and effective. But that doesn't mean that you know all the answers or you have a, you score a hundred percent on everything. And I think I, I often find that balance is, can be really challenging.

Adrian 28:21

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 28:22

Know especially. I think I'm too early in PA education to reflect on it at this point. But anecdotally from going through paramedic school and working as a paramedic, the fact that people are getting a's on their exams does not equate to calm, competent, and successful in the field. It's a

Cody 28:52

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 28:52

ball game once you have a patient in front of you

Cody 28:55

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 28:56

And an a on your exam does not equal an A with a patient in front of you. And sometimes

Cody 29:04

Yeah.

Megan Cannon 29:05

The opposite, which is very interesting.

Adrian 29:07

Yeah. Yeah.

Megan Cannon 29:08

you might have all this book knowledge up here, but then when the person gets a patient in front of them, it's where did it all go?

Adrian 29:15

Yeah.

Cody 29:17

Yeah, and I, I think, all of us have experiences with students who are working hard are developing but maybe not quite at the same rate as everyone else. They. They make it through the didactic portion and move into clinical phase where they're applying things and then just take off These extraordinary providers who, and PAs who, wouldn't, people would not have guessed that early on. And that's, I think, the art and science of education and, understanding pedagogy and remediation and all those sorts of things, which. Were words that I barely knew on the first day of my PA education job. And so that's it's certainly, I would I think all would agree that there's PA education is a real learning job as well as a teaching one. And I think if we're curious and we're humble, I don't think that'll, I don't think that ever stops.

Adrian 30:09

Yeah. That's definitely two things that Megan is I think there's a

Megan Cannon 30:11

You're very kind.

Adrian 30:14

Absolutely.

Cody 30:15

Indeed. Indeed. I was just, I was, as I was saying that I was thinking somewhere Ted Lasso video was in my feed. That was the be curious, not judgmental quote that was used. So to the extent that matters to this conversation, I was throwing a little Ted lasso it. It applies.

Adrian 30:32

Yeah.

Cody 30:34

Well, Megan, thanks so much for being here. We really enjoyed the conversation. I really appreciate your perspective about your journey to PA education and reflections on what it's meant to you and and the difference you're making for your students and and the patients they'll eventually take care of. So we hope to connect with you again soon.

Megan Cannon 30:51

Thanks so much for having me.