| Course | PA 626 Clinical Clerkship: Elective I |
|---|---|
| Week | 1 |
| Paper type | Discussion post with two replies |
| Length | About 450 words |
| Format | Discussion post with APA 7 citations |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | Master of Physician Assistant Studies (MPAS) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PA 626 Week 1
Week 1 Discussion: Initial Post
What Eight Clerkships Gave Me and the One Class of Work None of Them Did: Kidney Disease Followed Over Years Rather Than Days, and Why I Chose an Outpatient Nephrology Elective to Fill It
Where the Absence Comes From
Eight blocks so far. Family medicine gave me volume in chronic disease, about 160 encounters. Internal medicine gave me inpatient depth, including a pair of admissions for acute kidney injury that I tracked day to day. Emergency medicine gave me undifferentiated presentations. Surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics, behavioral health and the underserved clinic each gave me a setting. What none gave me was a kidney followed over years: chronic kidney disease staged, slowed and prepared for. In family medicine, patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate below 45 were referred out, and I never saw what happened after the referral.
Naming a Service Without Describing It
The elective is the outpatient nephrology clinic at the regional medical center, four clinic days a week. I am not describing nephrology; my classmates know what it is.
What I can say is what the clinic's schedule looks like: mostly return visits for people in stages 3 to 5, a few new referrals each week, a pharmacist on site two days and a nurse educator who runs a class on dialysis and transplant options. That mix is the reason I chose it over the inpatient renal consult service, where patients are seen once during a hospital stay and handed back.
Why This Gap
My summative practice exam put the renal system at 53 percent, and my missed questions clustered on drug dosing at reduced kidney function. That is a knowledge gap, but it also reflects an experience gap: I had never adjusted a dose for a patient I would see again in three months.
What the Post Sets Up
In week 2 I will argue the choice in a memo; in week 3 I will set objectives that can be checked against this clinic's caseload. Kidney disease staging now combines filtration rate and albuminuria into a risk grid (Stevens et al., 2024), and reading that grid fluently is one thing I expect to leave with.
Week 4 will be a vocabulary brief from the clinic itself, and the last weeks will test whether my objectives held.
The Closing Question
For classmates who chose a specialty elective: did you choose it to fill a gap or to test an interest? I chose mine for the first reason and want to know whether that changes how you set objectives.
Tone That Survives Grading
This post is plain on purpose. It names what I lack without apology and what I expect without promising.
References
Stevens, P. E., Ahmed, S. B., Carrero, J. J., Foster, B., Francis, A., Hall, R. K., Herrington, W. G., Hill, G., Inker, L. A., Kazancıoğlu, R., Lamb, E., Lin, P., Madero, M., McIntyre, N., Morrow, K., Roberts, G., Sabanayagam, D., Schaeffner, E., Shlipak, M., . . . Levin, A. (2024). KDIGO 2024 clinical practice guideline for the evaluation and management of chronic kidney disease. Kidney International, 105(4S), S117-S314. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.kint.2023.10.018
The Chamberlain PA 626 Week 1 instructions
The opening post of the first elective asks you to work from a list only you could produce: the blocks you have already carried and what each supplied. From that list, name the absence, a class of work none of them gave you, and say where it comes from. Name the elective service without describing the specialty, since classmates know what it is. Say briefly what the post sets up for the weeks ahead. Close with a question that classmates could answer from their own experience. Keep the tone plain; it should read well to a grader and to a future preceptor. If your required blocks covered almost everything, the absence may be depth rather than breadth. Cite a source where it shows what the elective will teach.
Inside the PA 626 Week 1 example
The sample lists eight blocks and what each supplied: family medicine volume, internal medicine depth with two acute kidney injuries, emergency presentations and a setting from each of the others. It names the absence as chronic kidney disease followed over years, noting that family medicine referred out below an eGFR of 45. The service section names the outpatient nephrology clinic and four clinic days. A section links the gap to a 53 percent renal subscore and missed dosing questions. The setup section previews the memo and objectives and cites Stevens et al. (2024) on the filtration and albuminuria grid. The closing question asks whether classmates chose to fill a gap or test an interest. A last section explains the plain tone.
Where the points sit in the PA 626 Week 1 rubric
Faculty weigh this post first on whether the gap comes from the writer's own record. A post that describes the specialty in general, or lists reasons anyone might choose it, earns little. The absence should be stated as a class of work and traced to specific blocks. Naming the service without describing it is expected, since description takes space that reasoning needs. Credit also goes to a post that sets up the elective's later weeks. The closing question is judged on whether classmates can answer it from their own logs. A plain register is noticed. Any source should support a specific point and be cited in APA form.
PA 626 Week 1 help: mistakes that cost points
First elective posts tend to slide into why the specialty is fascinating, with no list of what the writer has already done. Another common slip is naming a gap so broad, such as "more outpatient experience," that no elective could be judged against it. Some posts also describe the specialty at length. If your blocks and chosen elective differ, send your block list with rough numbers and the service you applied for; we would build the absence from that list, name the service without describing it, link the gap to any exam or log data you have and end on an answerable question. If your required blocks covered almost everything, the post would argue for depth instead of breadth.
Get a PA-626 Week 1 example written to your instructions
Send the discussion instructions from your classroom, with the rubric rows if your section posts them, and a custom PA-626 Week 1 post is written to them and returned inside 24-48h, the first one free. Add your finished block list and the absence in the example will be one you could actually defend.
More PA 626 papers and MPAS samples
- PA 626 Week 2: Elective Rationale Memo
- PA 626 Week 3: Self-set Objectives Draft
- PA 626 Week 4: Specialty Vocabulary Brief
- PA 626 Week 5: Subspecialty Clinic Note
- PA 626 Week 6: Consult Question Brief
- PA 626 Week 7: Directed Reading Brief
- PA 626 Week 8: Unmet Objective Memo
- PA 624 Week 1: Chart Instruction Test Post
- PA 648 Week 1: Testable Commitment Post
- PA 622 Week 1: Psychiatric Note Readership Post
- PA 650 Week 1: Practice Variation Post
PA 626 Week 1 questions, answered
My required blocks covered almost everything. What is left to name?
Coverage and volume are different things, and the post can run on the second. A block seen twice in a term and a block carried daily leave very different marks on a writer, so an honest absence is often a kind of work met twice rather than never met at all. Send the discussion instructions and the example is built on whichever reading your section asks for.
Does the post have to name the service I actually applied for?
Sections differ on that, and several ask only for the kind of service rather than the placement itself. The example is written so the naming sentence can be swapped without disturbing anything around it, since the graded argument sits in the absence and the join, not in the name. Send what your classroom asks and the sample matches it.
Can the example use my own block list?
Yes, and it reads better with one. Send the blocks in the order you carried them with a note on what each was heavy with, and the post is written from that rather than from a generic schedule. Without it the example still works, but the absence it names will be a plausible one rather than yours, and you will be rewriting the first paragraph.
Where can I find a free PA 626 Week 1 sample paper?
This page holds a complete PA 626 Week 1 post that builds the case for a nephrology elective from the writer's own clerkship list.
What gap does the PA 626 Week 1 sample name?
Chronic kidney disease followed over years, which none of eight clerkships supplied because patients below an eGFR of 45 were referred out.