Hello beautiful people! Adela here, and this week I’d just like to inform you guys on a wonderful occupation in the healthcare field! A physician’s assistant is a health care professional who works in partnership with a physician. They have the ability to specialize in any medical specialty they like and they have the option to switch between whenever they like!
Don’t let the name fool you, PAs aren’t exactly the typical “assistants” to physicians. They’re not fetching coffee or setting up appointments for doctors! They actually have hands-on duties concerning medications and their patients! A PA can basically do what a physician does, the only true difference is that they work under a physician’s license. PAs have the ability to make diagnoses, prescribe medication, and order lab tests.
To be a PA, one must obtain a bachelor’s degree and a PA master’s program. After PA school, a board exam must be taken to be a certified physician assistant or a PA-C. Your bachelor’s degree can be in any major you want, just make sure you take the required science courses for the PA school you are planning on attending.
In order to get into PA school, there are a few things you should do to make yourself a competitive applicant. Your GPA needs to be strong, PA school isn’t easy and you need to prove that you can handle it. It’s basically an accelerated version of medical school. Instead of 4 years, PA school takes 2 years, so you’re going to need the motivation to keep good grades because your GPA will be important to your future employers.
Next, are your patient care hours. Most PA schools require a certain amount of experience with patients in order for you to apply, let alone get accepted into their program! The hours they look for can range from 100 to 2000! To acquire patient care hours most people work as a medical scribe in hospitals, and volunteer at hospitals or clinics. Another common way to secure patient hours is being certified in something related to health care. Some people become Emergency Medical Technicians or Certified Nurse Assistants. The courses usually don’t take long and they allow hopeful students to get paid while they get their patient care hours. Shadow hours are another important aspect of the PA school application process. PA schools love to see that you are serious about actually becoming a PA that you took the time to shadow one. It is very difficult to find a PA to shadow due to their usually busy schedules, but it isn’t impossible. You can ask health professionals you know if there are any PAs that they work with that are willing to allow you to shadow them. You can also go to schools that are near you and ask about shadowing there. You can shadow any PA you’d like, I recommend shadowing ones that work in the specialty that most interests you, that way you can see if you actually would like to go into that specialty once you become a PA-C.
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A good GRE score is another factor that PA schools look for in an applicant. Letters of recommendation are also important to the application process. Make sure someone who really knows you writes your letter so it’s as personal and sincere as possible. I recommend getting someone who supervised your patient care experience hours to write your paper or a former professor of yours who taught science, Their input will look great to PA schools!
So, why am I promoting the PA profession? Well, I’m actually majoring in biology with an emphasis in pre-physician assistant here at GCU and unfortunately, many people don’t know about the PA profession, or even how to become one. So with writing this article I hope to inform you all about the magical field of physician assistants! The PA profession is quickly growing and soon enough it’ll be as popular as nursing, with the help of you and me to spread the information like wildfire!