Hey, what's up guys my name is John and I'm an emergency medicine Physician Assistant. And today
I wanted to share with you guys a bit about my journey and why I decided to become a PA in the
first place and this is just like a discussion and chat with you guys it's not like I have a
script prepared or anything like that. Just share with you my thoughts and everything about that and
why I love being a PA. So my journey, believe it or not, starts all the way back in high school. I
remember I was in you know a junior or senior in high school and I had a buddy John Linhauser who
was really into EMS he was already an EMT I believe he wanted to become a paramedic,
I thought that was really cool I remember in an elective anatomy class
really doing well in biology and tried to do really well in chemistry and stuff like that
and overall I didn't really know what I wanted to be as a kid but I knew I wanted to do something
science-related. I was really good at school, I didn't really have any issues with that. I mean,
my parents always encouraged doing well in school getting good grades they would always pull open
the report cards and go through it with me. So, I was accepted to my favorite school ever,
Penn State. Huge Penn State fan, I love my alma mater, and I remember even as a freshman,
I'm... I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do so I just started taking, you know, general bio,
general chemistry. I was considering becoming a bio major but I didn't necessarily know what I
wanted to do with biology yet. I started joining all these clubs and stuff one of which being
Penn State Global Brigades which was earn money and go travel to countries that needed help and
aid and through these types of clubs, I mean, I went to Africa and everything. I thought it was
a very great experience but through these clubs what helped was I got to meet a lot of like-minded
individuals. I got to meet people trying to go to into medicine, into nursing, into PA school,
into pharmacy, what have you... into all of those like different specialties, right?
And so it's, you know, I was just chatting with people and I realized Penn State they
offered an EMS course so I said, "heck, why not?" I did it. It's three or four credits. I remember
long hours but it was taught by a paramedic or two and lots of EMTs and it was a really great course
and through it i actually discovered, you know, it wasn't until my like sophomore year at Penn State
that I realized that PAs even existed and it was something I wanted to pursue, you know,
I knew as as myself I didn't really want to do nursing and I wasn't super duper interested in
going to medical school. I was actually, honestly, considering becoming a paramedic. So with this
information you know I started looking up and doing a lot of research and looking into how to
apply to PA school and what you needed to do and with that info, I just took all these courses,
right , and I went to my academic advisor who I know sometimes depending on the school they
might not be super helpful at Penn State they were very helpful i essentially said listen pa
schools wanted me to have x y and z courses i mean i'm currently kind on the right track
what type of degrees can I do that would, you know, a lot of these things would kind of fit
into what a PA school wants, but also I had interest specific to myself. So
at the time (and I still am) I'm super duper interested in languages. I love language-learning,
I mean, I run a website called frenchcrazy.com. We've reached millions of people across the globe.
I teach French. I wanted to major in french so one of my degrees is actually in French
and I loved majoring in French. I studied abroad, I have family that lives in France. Uh, I wanted
to do my french stuff but I had a huge interest in linguistics I was taking linguistics courses
and so I was like I want to still do this stuff but how can it kind of fit into
PA school stuff. Ultimately, I know it's a joke when you say you're a psych major but they had
a an option called neuro-psych, at the time i'm not sure if it still exists, where it was like
taking a lot of biology classes which PA schools would accept you know beginner and intermediate
tiered biology classes there were some upper level you know neurobiology stuff that I could take
in addition to I could just kind of get my chemistry and get all this other stuff to count
towards the major and by doing the Neuropsych I could also get my linguistics courses I wound up
graduating Penn State with major in the psychology a major in french and a minor in linguistics but
the way it worked out was I was able to get all my PA courses in
while still doing info that I, I mean I loved. I just, I'm a big geek so i guess i loved learning.
So why did i become a PA in the end so i have a few reasons I didn't want to be burdened by
the hundred thousand, two hundred fifty thousand, four hundred thousand dollars of student loan debt
that a lot of our medical students and residents are strapped with. Secondly, by becoming a PA, I
mean, I get to be practicing medicine at a really high degree. I would earn a Master's degree. I
felt that I really liked the job description, especially in the ER, and I love medicine,
I'm committed to my job and my profession, but I didn't necessarily want to make medicine my life.
They say, they harp on the "work life balance" "work life balance" but I mean it's true a lot
of PAs, I mean, they take they either don't take call or they take a small amount of call.
You don't feel like you're attached to the phone, you're not attached to your workplace you actually
have a life outside of your job. Still kind of enjoy some of your 20s and you got people coming
out of PA school sometimes they're 24 or 25 and, so you still have you know your life ahead of you,
in a sense. And I see that a lot of people kind of do it and they're either starting a family or they
have some little kids they get to still be there for their kids as they're growing up they get to
kind of live life the way they want with some more flexibility. Really, that's what it is. Being a PA
does give me a really good salary. I mean, you get yourself a very good quality of life a lot
of PAs are making anywhere from a hundred thousand dollars to a hundred sixty thousand dollars. Some
PAs are making two hundred thousand dollars a year but they're working a ton so it's not it
doesn't really count to me. It goes without saying too, you don't get into medicine for the salary,
I mean if you want to become rich there's a bunch of other stuff you could do,
you know, you get yourself a lot of financial security you have good job security
and it's just, I mean, I love doing what I do I'm very happy that I got into it and I saw PA as
the best fit for me, honestly. And the awesomeness about medicine, I know we people harp on it all
the time lots of flexibility you could work almost anywhere in the country. Your skills transfer
really well from one place to another and as, at least as a PA, we still have that lateral mobility
so say I get really tired of emergency medicine. One day I can go work in an urgent care. I doubt
seeing that happen but you know there's the option, right? And it was through also just
talking I spoke to a lot of PAs, I shadowed, PAs, I shadowed doctors, I spoke to doctors
and I mean. I mean, I had doctors telling me that you know, "if PA was a more popular thing back
then maybe I would have went the PA route." I had general surgeons tell me that they wish they went
the PA route. I mean and that's not to say that they had regrets about becoming a surgeon because
yeah they're a surgeon they made it. They're making their money, they're
seeing patients they're doing surgery, they're doing something fulfilling. That's not to say
"surgeons say PA is better so medicine sucks!" No, that's not saying that at all. It's saying
maybe there's a little bit of the grass is always greener on the other side. Personally, I don't
have any regrets with where I'm at now I know you might say 10 years from now, you know, come
back make a video about how you hate being a PA. I don't know. Personally I think you only live life
once you gotta enjoy your life uh I don't think that people should have regrets for whichever path
they choose. Guys, honestly it helps a ton if you just hit that like button take a second it really
helps the YouTube algorithm, apparently, um that's a big thing helps my channel get seen by more
people. Hopefully you found this video helpful if you have any questions about what you're thinking
about which is right for you just know that, I mean, it took me up until my sophomore year
college almost to realize I wanted to be a PA. If you're in high school and, you know, you want
to be PA? Great! You're ahead of the game. If you're after high school if you're already in a
profession and you're thinking about switching to become a PA, honestly, make the switch is a
great profession. Be having more videos on how to help you do that in the future so please
subscribe to my channel if you like this type of content and guys have a great day. Thank you.