Reply to Are physician assistants blue collar?

Forum Index » Jobs and Careers

Reply to "Are physician assistants blue collar?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]So here's the deal:

PAs must take several prerequisites to enter PA school which is usually 2-3 years. They must also do 2000 hours of clinical work. So its not like they don't do anything. They also take a general board exam every 10 years. They do not specialize and can work in various fields. Pay is fantastic! Truly the best profession in medicine hands down (I say this as a med student who sometimes regrets not doing PA).

Doctors have to take prerequisites as well then 4 years of med school, which includes several board exams (step 1+ step2). After med school, one cannot practice independently (like a PA) without at least 1 year of residency and another board exam. But for the majority, physicians do about 3-9 years of residency training, which is low pay and involves many many hours in the hospital. After that, the pay can range from 150-500 depending on specialty.

As one poster mentioned, most people are comfortable with PAs because most people do not value years and years of training. A poster said they like PAs over a pediatrician for sick visits. When you think about it- it doesn't make much sense since the PA has alot less experience (only about 4 weeks of peds training in their program) vs a pediatrician who spent 4 years of med school plus 3 years working intensely at a children's hospital.

But, most patients value personality over those years so in the end, its not really worth it to be a physician since most people are fine seeing a PA anyway, making the 3-9 years of training not worth it, especially since during those years you miss out on PA income during those years.

Long story short: I'd argue that PAs have it better than doctors and more students are interested in this path now.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics