Robin Masi’s Path to Physician Assistant
Robin Masi, PA-C, knew that she wanted to be a physician assistant from the time she was young. Her mother, who was a PA, often brought her to the hospital where she not only watched her mom in action, but watched her enjoy what she was doing and saw the pride she had in her role as a PA. In addition, Robin found her love for science and anatomy throughout her time in high school. Considering both her early exposure to the career and her academic interests, Robin felt like a career as a PA would be the right fit for her.
Following the end of her high school career, Robin entered a 6 year PA program, where she began her journey. She first completed 3 years of her bachelor’s degree at Western New England University. Robin then transferred to Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, where she eventually earned her master’s degree. She has been working as a PA ever since.
As a primary care physician assistant, Robin’s day begins by dropping off her two daughters before going into work. Once arriving at the hospital, she starts by prepping for the day, going through the patients on her schedule, and making notes about what she needs to discuss with each of them. She then begins her morning block of patients. After finishing with these appointments, Robin takes a short break for lunch. During this time, she is able to do any follow-up necessary to complete her morning block, calling patients and responding to labs. She then starts on her afternoon block of appointments. Once she finishes with her afternoon patients, she has time to catch up on medical records and follow-up necessary from those patients before leaving work around 5 o’clock.
Typically, Robin works five days per week, Monday through Friday. In addition to this, she takes calls outside of the office one day every two weeks and one weekend every two months.
One aspect of her job that Robin has really grown to love is being with patients. She likes getting to see them one on one, connecting with them and helping them. In one case, Robin was seeing a patient that was going through something really tough in her life. Throughout her time with this patient, she was able to empathize with her and help her. Because of the impact she was able to make on this patient’s life, her patient’s mother came in and was extremely appreciative of how much Robin had helped her daughter.
Although there are many aspects of her career that she loves, one thing that Robin isn’t the biggest fan of is taking calls outside of the office. While she loves getting to help people, when taking calls, she is tasked with solving a problem without all the information she needs. This can be extremely frustrating.
Through her journey of becoming a PA and working in the field, Robin has learned that you get out of it what you put in. While health professional tracks aren’t easy, if you stick with it and work hard, it will get easier. She also says that it is important to remember that it’s okay for the journey to be hard. This is what makes it all the more rewarding.