Pre PA guidance

[RVDuong]

I am a 23 sophomore student that regretted his after-high-school-indecisive-goals pursuing his career in Physician Assistant. I've always wanted to do pre-med but the length of it discourages me. But as long as I can become someone that give hope and care for people for their health, thats all I care.

 

Community College GPA: 3.75

Major: Bachelors of Science in Healthcare Studies

School: Richland Community College/University of Texas at Dallas

 

Here are my questions and concerns:

 

1. I am doing Bachelors of Science in Healthcare Studies. The reason is because I wanted to become more diverse in my courses rather than just complete science like Mechanics or Biochem. I feel as if those classes are for those who are interested in other particular fields. My community college advisor did not guide me in the right way whatsoever. I took an unnecessary A&P 2401 course at the community college, believing that it would transfer over to my degree as the A&P requirement. I just had to confirm it with the school advisor at the university via email. My concern is would that class be admitted as an elective or not?

 

2. I am stuck between math and science courses at my community college. The last classes I can take there is Organic Chem 1 & 2 and Applied Calculus. The University of Texas at Dallas highly recommend me to take Genetics/Microbiology in higher 3xxx courses rather 2xxx in order to be competitive in Pre-PA school, is this true?

 

3. I made a B in my English 1302 course and was debating if I should retake it and make it an A. Are Pre-PA school requirement strict on ENG?

 

4. What other things do I have to do in order to get in Pre-PA? I'm so lost... help :/

[dndandrea]

Medical school is only about a year and a half longer plus residency. So if you want to be a doctor, I wouldn't limit yourself because of the length of schooling. However, I don't want to talk you out of what I believe to be a great career. Your GPA is good. Don't worry about the B in english. I can't comment on the A&P situation, it really depends on the school. I took genetics and microbiology a community college because it was 4x cheaper and just as good, if not better, than my current university. Just make sure you get your undergrad degree in something that you can use if you don't get into PA school.

 

Things to do:

• Take some really good electives (endocrinology, pathology, pathophysiology, immunology, etc...)
• Prepare for the GRE and do good on it
• Shadow PAs in multiple fields
• Get a job as a nurse assistant or something in the healthcare field and rack up HCE hours
• Start looking into schools and their pre-reqs. Don't forget you can apply a year in advance before your pre-reqs are done.
• Find a PA who will write a letter of recommendation to you. It will make your application stand out a little more.

[GreatChecko]

I would sit down and figure out which schools you want to apply to and look at their pre-reqs. Every school is slightly different and at your stage of the game you can figure out a course plan and go from there. Unfortunately, guidance councilors often don't even know what a PA is, much less how to guide someone towards the right prereqs, so you end up having to figure out the course plan on your own. Just make sure you meet the requirements of your degree while you are at it. 

[cm7sus4]

 

Medical school is only about a year and a half longer plus residency. So if you want to be a doctor, I wouldn't limit yourself because of the length of schooling.

 

This is a bit of a red herring, respectfully.  OP, med school is 4 years of the most intense, deeply scientific study you will ever do in your life.  It's 24/7 of drinking from an academic firehose for 2 years, then another 2 of intesne rotations and more studying for the USMLE.  It is not a decision to take lightly.  After med school, something general like IM will take you 3-4 years of residency, during which time you are paid relatively little for your services, expected to start paying on loans unless you are in forebearence, and, chances are, taking up gobs of 12 hour shifts doing things that the attending physicians have all "gorwn out of."  It's a hard life which causes strain on finances, marriage/family, and you will have no social life.  This is something that many folks are willing to do, but you should be very aware before you sign onto the idea.

 

To answer your questions, OP:

 

2. Take the recommended coursework.  PA school is incredibly competetive; the more intense coursework you have, the better.  The best way to prepare yourself for the intense studying that PA school requires is to take some loaded udergrad semesters.  I did so by taking 18,19,20 unit semesters with 2-3 science/lab courses.

 

3. Don't bother retaking.  No one is going to care about a B in a gen ed course.

 

4. Pre-PA is not something you get into, it's more like a concentration of undergrad courses to prepare you for applying to PA school.  The 2 best things you can do are HCE and high grades in difficult science courses.

 

Additionally, you should start researching which schools interest you, and start knocking out the pre-req courses, they tend to be a little different for every school.  Gen bio, gen chem, o chem are all given.  I would also take stats, bio chem, med term, a full series of a/p or human anatomy and human physiology.