Hey.
What's up guys my name is John and I'm an emergency medicine Physician Assistant and
in today's video I'm going to share with you guys how to become a Physician Assistant.
How do you become a PA.
I'm going to start this video out with the big picture and then I’m going to
go through all the different steps and stages and things you need to do
so that you can one day become a Physician Assistant, if that is your ultimate goal.
And in future videos I'm going to be breaking down each of these steps
in even more detail. I already have a video on interviewing tips and how to interview for PA
school so if you don't want to miss any of these future videos or updates consider subscribing to
my channel also if you guys could please just take a millisecond and hit that like button down below
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I'm not going to waste any more time with you guys, let's get started.
So on a broad level to become a Physician Assistant this is what you need to do.
You need to obtain a bachelor's degree, you need to have some health care experience, a graduate
level entrance exam such as the GRE or now they're experimenting with something called the PA-CAT.
You then have to get accepted to a PA program once you're accepted into a Physician Assistant
program. The program will usually last somewhere between two and three years.
They teach you the same thing.
The time frame is just more or less how many breaks you kind of get in between the semesters.
After you finish PA school you go on and take a board exam known as the PANCE.
When you finish the PANCE and you actually pass
this exam you are then allowed to apply to get a state license and practice in your respective
state or multiple states depending on which states you need to work in.
So to get from point a to point b will usually take you anywhere from six, to seven, eight years.
It kind of depends on if you have any gap years in between.
There is a slight variation to what I just told you guys there do exist
PA programs that are almost like a fast track kind of thing you apply to
the university that also has a PA program and they'll do this three plus two kind of setup.
What it is is you will earn your bachelor's degree, in three years and then if you meet
their entry requirements you will transition directly into their PA program so as of
right now the fastest way to become a Physician Assistant is in five years, as to my knowledge.
So now I'm gonna break down each and every step starting with earning your bachelor's
degree or getting into some sort of undergrad degree to enter PA school. You need to have a
bachelor's degree what the degree is in what subject matter degree is in does not really
matter what's important is that you have all of their prerequisite courses completed and
for most of them you need to have good grades in them you can't just take it and get a C.
You need to actually do well in these courses.
It is almost guaranteed that every PA program will have you take two semesters worth of general
chemistry, two semesters worth of biology, and usually an advanced biology course.
In addition to that, they'll want you to have at least one semester of microbiology
under your belt with a lab. Anatomy and physiology usually with a lab component attached to that.
In terms of non-science related prereqs PA programs will want you to have a statistics
course, two semesters worth of English, which is fine because a lot of universities
make having English a requirement anyways to earn a bachelor's degree.
PA programs will also want you to have at least one semester worth
of some sort of psychology usually at least an intro to psychology course.
Now the next set of courses are things that PA programs some of them require you to have and
others would prefer you to have so things like organic chemistry or biochemistry,
genetics, physics, a sociology course, or possibly even some foreign languages,
but you can't just go through the motions and get all of those courses under your belt.
You also need to excel in them and some PA programs will be looking at both your science GPA
and your regular GPA and that's to prevent you from taking a bunch of non-science courses and
padding your GPA the courses each individual program will want you to have may vary a little.
So what I recommend is you guys just type in a few PA programs and all of their websites
will tell you exactly what courses they want you guys to have and you create a spreadsheet or you
write this all down and you say, “okay I need XYZ courses” and as you're going through your
undergraduate journey you're ensuring that you are meeting all of their requirements
so that when it comes time to applying for PA school you leave no stone left unturned.
In terms of the classes that you should focus on the most things like anatomy and physiology
are very important because those tend to be the hardest classes during your PA program
in addition to things like clinical medicine although some programs might not want you to
complete your bachelor's degree completely online whether you go to a community college
and then a four-year institution or private university it doesn't really matter to them
where you get your credits as long as you earn your degree so once you have your bachelor's
degree in hand you also need to have health care experience relevant health care experience
things like being an EMT or Paramedic, a CNA. Some schools will accept the
phlebotomist or scribe others will accept a hygienist, some sort, some form of nursing.
And the amount of patient care experience that you have in health care experience
varies usually on average the schools will want you to have a thousand – two thousand
hours of health care experience before you matriculate into their PA class.
Sometimes you might get into PA school with 500 hours and other times people are getting into
PA school with about 10,000 hours worth of experience because they've had a long career
in health care and then they decided that they want to become a PA.
Some PA schools will also want you to have shadowing opportunities. So they want you
to shadow PAs and other medical providers just to make sure that you really understand
what you're getting into before you sign up for it.
When it comes to PA school admissions it's better to be a well-rounded candidate,
not just very linear in your pursuit of becoming a PA.
Lastly, in order to get in PA school some schools require that you either take the GRE
or this new PA-specific entrance exam that they're starting to roll out.
So applying to PA schools is a very competitive and difficult process. I will tell you guys
that my PA program had 2 000 applicants, over 2000 applicants for 50 seats, okay?
The average GPA in our PA class was over 3.6.
A lot of PA schools will state that their lowest minimum that they will go to is 3.0 GPA,
but just because that's their minimum doesn't mean that, you know, if you have a 3.0 it's
an easy in. If if if you have a 3.2 or 3.3 GPA overall you're still going to be
fighting an uphill battle getting into PA school because it's just so competitive.
What's important in applying to PA schools is that you use a portal known as CASPA,
where they have all of the PA programs in one convenient place you kind of create
one singular application and then you send that application out to all the programs from CASPA.
And then some programs do have secondary applications where they want you to submit an
extra essay or meet extra kind of requirements before they consider your application.
The CASPA process usually starts in March or April
and it will last up until the following year, more or less.
Through CASPA you submit all of your credentials and you start getting interviews for PA schools.
Ultimately in an ideal world you are applying to multiple PA programs and then you will hear back
from a handful of them for an interview you go and interview at the school and you will receive
an acceptance from them and you say, “Yes I would like to attend your program.”
PA school is kind of split into two different sections: didactic year and a clinical year.
You are in class almost every day you are bombarded with exams,
you are bombarded with clinical tasks.
You have to go to other locations to shadow and learn.
Our didactic education consisted of a fall semester,
a spring semester, and the summer semester.
Each semester had, you know, nine, ten, eleven courses in it. So it was very rigorous
it was not a cakewalk. After your didactic year,
you transition into what's known as the clinical year which is where you attend multiple different
clinical rotations. These include family medicine, emergency medicine, psychiatry, women's health,
pediatrics, general surgery, and a handful of electives that you get to choose from.
At every point and stage in the clinical year you have exams and presentations to do you're going
to the location to the site you're interacting with doctors,
med students, other PA students and you are seeing patients, for the most part.
The whole point of clinical year is you're not shadowing or
kind of staying off the sideline you're going into the room you're seeing and evaluating Patients.
You're giving reports to preceptors and you're, you're doing hands-on things, right?
As a PA student you're you're first assisting a surgeon in the operating room and these are
real patients and real procedures and you are there by their side helping them out.
In the emergency department, for instance, you'll help suture and see
patients and things. In family medicine you'll be asked to come up with plans for patients.
And the summation of our clinical year involved a capstone research paper
and a presentation after you do that once again more tests and exams and...
Congratulations.
With your PA school degree in hand you could sign up for the PANCE exam. It is a 300 question
five to six hour exam your PA programs
want you to succeed in this exam how difficult the PANCE is uh will vary depending on who you ask.
Personally, I think I got an easy version of the PANCE because I didn't really have any
issue with it then there were also people who did super well in PA school
who said it was super duper difficult.
There are a few variations of the exam and some are more difficult than others
but then they're all kind of weighted, so that, it kind of averages that one.
After you successfully complete the PANCE...
Congratulations.
You can finally apply for state licensure to start working as a Physician Assistant
once you complete the PANCE you're technically certified – board certified Physician Assistant.
Some PAs after PA school will go on to complete residencies or fellowships,
and I hate those terms because they are not equivalent to Physician residencies, uh,
in any sense, but they are usually an additional year of learning on the job learning with some
sort of curriculum attached to it where say as a new grad PA could you enter right into the ICU?
Sure, but if you take one of these residency programs they will
literally hand hold you the entire way and make sure that you are set up for success.
Each residency program or fellowship once again I hate the name
depends on the quality of the program so you have to vet each one individually.
They also will hit you with a lower salary than what a new grad PA is making out of
school so you kind of have to weigh the pros and cons of further education for less money
versus maybe just entering the workforce going from there.
Guys we're done with this video.
I hope that in this video I properly explained how to become a PA in a concise manner. Obviously
there's a lot of nuances. If you liked the video please hit that like button.
Consider subscribing to my channel.
Consider following me on Instagram, I'm sharing photos of the PA lifestyle over there.
Feel free to leave a comment down below in the video.
And guys stay safe out there, have a great rest of your day.
Bye bye.