Menu
Physican assistant plans book signing
HAYS, Kan. -- A McCook native and physician assistant has written a book that he will autograph during a book signing Saturday, July 16, from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m., at New Life Christian Bookstore at 212 Norris Ave. in downtown McCook.
Sean Conroy, now of Hays, calls "Through the Eyes of a Young Physician Assistant" "the story of a young man, armed only with classroom instruction and books, who, through personal experiences, becomes a true medical professional." Conroy has practiced medicine in Kansas in primary care, including family practice and emergency medicine, since 2010. Conroy said recently, "I live in Hays, but due to an excellent rotation schedule with two other PAs, I am able to provide medical care to the residents of Oberlin, Kan., and the surrounding community area as my full time occupation."
Conroy says he is a "physician assistant with a passion for writing." He chose to write a book about the rotations necessary to become a physician assistant because he could not find any books by physician assistants that were not study guides, ethics books, histories or specialty-specific books. "I saw an area of literature not yet served: a first-person perspective on the early molding of PAs," he writes in the introduction of his book.
He writes, " ... my book can at least tell the stories I find so moving and keep those who live in my memory alive just a bit longer as their stories are transferred to paper."
Conroy dedicates his book "to Briella Faith Quaduor, the angel who left too soon." Conroy explains that Briella is the baby daughter of his sister, Stephenie, and her husband, Kyle Quaduor, of Indianola, who lost their baby girl in September 2015. Conroy writes, "There is a fair amount of emotion, and sadly this includes loss of patients in my book, so it was almost fitting to dedicate the book to someone who passed away too soon."
"In the end, I wrote this book for myself: to share the stories of patients that affected me deeply and made me who I am."
Conroy's parents are Stephen and Sharon Conroy, now of rural Indianola. He graduated from MHS in 1999 and completed his first bachelor's degree, in biology (human biology option), at Chadron State College. He earned a second bachelor's degree, in clinical laboratory science, at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. He worked at Creighton University Medical Center (now part of the Alegiant group) for three years, before returning to school for his master's degree in physician assistant sciences at Union College in Lincoln.
Conroy's rotations, in order, were family practice I in Chadron; surgery in York; obstetrics and gynecology, and orthopedics/sports medicine in Lincoln; internal medicine in Grand Island; psychology in Lincoln; family practice II in McCook; cardiology (location changed); pediatrics, and hematology-oncology in Lincoln; and trauma/emergency medicine in Omaha.
Of his family practice II rotation in McCook, Conroy writes that he looked forward to working with his own family doctor "and somewhat hero, Dr. Weston (Dr. W if you are super close to her ... ) ... and my other medicine hero, Will the PA. ... how can you not look up to a ripped, Hummer-driving, athletic guy with great hair who is adored by patients?" Conroy writes of Will and his bedside manner with patients, "I guess the cape was invisible."
Page 57: "I fell in love with science as a child. I fell in love with biology in junior high; and thanks to my mother's nursing magazines lying around the house, I fell in love with medicine in high school. Yet after all that was said and done, if I was going into medicine the ultimate goal was to be Will and to work with Dr. Weston. Furthermore, there was the fact that more than a few employees at the clinic were looking forward to me graduating PA school and coming back to McCook to work there. My mother is the employee health/infection control nurse at the hospital, and my father was a floor nurse there before taking a travel job with another clinic. You could say McCook Community Hospital/Clinic runs through my veins and the Conroys run through the veins of the hospital."