Ashton Rolland

I spent half of high school working in a hospital. Through a healthcare pathway program, we would take a 3 year course plan that consisted of an intro class which was just basic exposure to healthcare careers, an essentials class which is just a full year of anatomy and physiology with a clinical part to it, and for your third year you do straight clinicals. After that, we have the opportunity to get a Certified Clinical Medical Assistant Certification if we opt to take the exam for it. For context, Healthcare/Medicine was always my passion. I knew I wanted to be in the medical field at an early age as my aunt who was a nurse and my uncle who was a doctor worked in the same hospital and I would always love to go see them while they were on the job when I was in elementary school. And also the cafeteria cheeseburgers were some of the best cheeseburgers I've ever had to this day. When I first grew fond of medicine, I wanted to be an Orthopedic Surgeon and it was like that for a long time. What I liked about orthopedics was I liked the idea of working with the musculoskeletal system which is just like ligaments, tendons, joints and cartilage. I was an athlete at this time and injuries to this system are the most common in athletes so I would be exposed to these injuries all of the time. The next occupation I wanted to do was Physician Assistant. What I liked most about this was the fact I realized I didn’t want to spend all of that time in medical school and PA school is a 2-2.5 year post grad program. But after that, and now currently, I want to become an Anesthesiologist Assistant. An AA is just like a PA but for Anesthesia. I found this career through my old supervisor at Augusta National Golf Club. His brother is an AA in North Carolina and was open to let me shadow/work for him during the summer.