Can you help me with these Qs?

[midoritori2013]

Hello

 

I would like to go into Holistic primary care as a PA.

 

A few questions:

1) if the doctor is there all day, are there positions generally where a PA can work part time? I.e are there part time PA positions? Or do you shadow the doctors schedule

2) I have a family and the residency will be hard- I have no family in town and most are overseas as is my husband's. I realize surgery can last all sorts of hours and that's fine. Out of that year which parts of the residency are the most insane for hours and how long does this last? In other words, how long does each type of residency last especially ones with most insane hours? 1 month? Three months?

3) what is best way to see if I even like PA work. Can I go and shadow one for a couple months at a local clinic? How does getting patient experience happen? I have no my undergrad in sciences (although I did take a lot of science courses) I am switching gears. I have another undergrad degree in Japanese.

4) in what states can PAs have there own practices?

5) if PAs can switch specialities without additional training how does this work? Is our training so general that it allows this? How could I go from family care to say neurology easily? Does our education prepare us?

6) are there certificates designed for PAs to increase our knowledge in certain fields that we can electively take?

7) lastly will we ever be given more difficult hard to diagnose cases? I'm torn between MD and PA. I would love challenging cases. Thinking through hard cases is a great joy of mine. But I'm in mid-30s and the MD route feels very very long.

 

THank you so much!

[jlumsden]

1)  PAs work a variety of schedules, and depending on the setting, they are sometimes the only provider working in the clinic.

2)  A residency is not required to become a PA.

3)  To learn more about the PA profession, try finding a PA you know socially or professionally, and ask if you can shadow him or her.  But do your homework, and learn as much as you can about the PA profession before hand.  Also, patient experience is gained by working in another healthcare profession, such as being an EMT, or doing nursing.

4) Look it up.

5) Switching specialties does not always require additional schooling.  It might be hard however, after working in something like psychiatry, to convince a cardiologist to hire you.  If you are successful in switching specialties, it may be that you have a bit of a learning curve the first year or two as you adjust.  

6) Yes, there are Certificates of Advanced Qualifications in some subfields.  These are usually acquired after several years of working in the subfield.

7)  Yes, you can definitely get higher acuity cases, especially if you work in inpatient medicine or oncology as a PA.  However, please don't see becoming a PA as some kind of easier version of med school.  Students are worked at a more intense pace than MDs while in the didactic phase.

 

Not to nitpick, but much of this information could have been found via some moderate Googling.  The first step in all of this would be to go through what you can find online.  Look elsewhere in this forum.  Most of the PAs here are awesome people, and love to answer questions and be helpful, but they are also busy people.

[midoritori2013]

Thanks so much for your answers. I actually in spare time have been researching and after a month posted here because I couldn't find specifically what I was after especially where PAs can practice autonomously. I found a lot of general info on PAs everywhere though.

 

Thanks so much. Really appreciate your time

[midoritori2013]

Also, I forgot to ask, I was under the impression one had to do residency or something akin to it in your second year to gain experience. Is that wrong?

[charlottew]

PA school is 1st year didactic (classes), 2nd year clinical rotations.

 

Residency is optional, 1 year of additional training after you have passed your certification exam (PANCE). The majority of PA grads do not do a residency. Depending on your personal situation and goals, it may or may not be something you wish to pursue.

[midoritori2013]

Ah! That's it. Clinical rotations. I think I was confusing the terms :)