MT2PA

If they are interviewing you, they can't be that concerned about your GRE. Most programs will tell you it doesn't weigh heavily in their decision making process. I guess I just interviewed at programs that used the interview to get to know me vs picking apart an application they had already seen and evaluated themselves.

They won't ask

Have you applied to other jobs? Honestly this one has quite a few question marks. 60 days of training for a new grad usually is just not enough. Period. That's a long time be without benefits - mine was 1st of the month after hire (so it varies by start date but never more than 1 month until they kick in). I've seen 1st of the month after 30 days. They essentially are holding you up while training to make sure they don't waste their time. Try and negotiate this but if it's a corporate policy you may be out of luck. 401k is less than idea not matching until 1 year, but you know that. PTO isn't great but I've seen worse. Honestly, you have 2 rotations left. This offer does not hit it out of the park, so to speak. Without knowing details of the ED job, this one doesn't really sound much better. I'd keep looking, personally. (As an aside, there's nothing wrong with accepting a first offer if it's a good one)

Mine was a mix - but any rotation that had other students (both MD or PA) at the same site at the same time were prepared for that (i.e multiple teams (inpatient) so we each had our own teams, EMED (we were always 1:1 with an attending), surgery (we were 1:1 with a resident and they were more involved than the surgeon anyway). I'd inquire more about program A to find out how they handle it. Obviously 4 students with one attending/team is suboptimal. But if they can pull it off like my program, I don't feel that my clinical education suffered at all - in fact I had more options available to me. OP from the wording of your post you are making assumptions - if that's the case, get more information. Just because there may be multiple students at one site, doesn't mean they aren't getting 1:1 attention. Don't rule out program A just yet. I was in an area with 3+ medical schools and 2 PA schools. There were no issues.

*benign heme is easier. Malignant heme is a BEAST

That's a very high patient load - make sure you aren't expected to do that after your 6 month training period. Where I'm located even the physicians don't see that many per day. Especially considering the steep learning curve (ALL of oncology means you'll have a lot to get the hang of)...just make sure expectations are realistic. You also don't mention PTO.

I'm a new grad in oncology -but this is the specialty I want to stay in. Frankly, an inpatient oncology job is more likely to have some solid IM experience. Outpatient less so. If oncology isn't a field you want to be in (if you think you'll go to general IM or a different specialty in the future) I'd say there are better options out there for you.

PTO seems off - I'd be willing to bet it's 6 hrs per pay period (so every two weeks)...so cut that 7.5 weeks estimate in half. I highly doubt a new grad UC is earning nearly 2 months PTO. I'd also proceed with caution with PSLF - make sure you know all the details and nitty gritty to qualify (i.e you can't pay extra or early so make sure that 10k loan repayment is disbursed monthly vs a lump sum yearly and if it's lump sum make sure it goes to you and not directly to the loan servicer or it doesn't count as one of your 120 payments).

In Florida, where you can also challenge the CNA test, there are 3 day programs you can sign up (and pay for) that essentially teach you the skills you need. It was worth the money. Took my test with someone who spent 6+ weeks and thousands of dollars in a CNA 'school' and the poor thing still miserably failed the skills. I had no prior patient type skills and passed without much effort. Can't speak for NC but at least in FL they are very detailed in grading it and some of them are very random and you must follow a specific order of steps to complete the skills. Vitals will obviously be easy but there are more obscure CNA related things like brushing a patient's teeth, feeding them, changing their clothes...again common sense should prevail but they can be sticklers about grading. I'd google CNA training course or something similar and see what's in your area.

Respond by getting them to throw out the first numbers/benchmarks/etc. As a new grad of COURSE you don't know anything about this. You also don't know at this point how productive you'll be (or how productive they'll let you be). Have they had a PA before? Ask how they perform/average patients per day/hour, # of procedures. If you throw out what you think (with obviously NO experience to pull on) you'll either low ball yourself or set yourself up with expectations too high and never reach your benchmarks.

PA school is stressful and can also put a strain on relationships. That said, both paths have seen plenty of successful marriages and kids survive just fine. PA is simply just shorter than DO training. Your two years of PA school may even be more intense than DO (some programs have mandatory attendance with little wiggle room for family related absences whereas MD/DO tend not to be that strict during didactic). I think you're overestimating how much strain DO school would be honestly. It's also a fairly common misnomer that PAs have more free time or better work/life balance than docs once in their career.

Just to counter this, anecdotally, being a good PA student doesn't necessarily translate to a good PA, either. You can score the best grades and have a 4.0 but if you don't have any personality or ability to talk to patients or think critically on your feet, you won't get far. PCE is about truly knowing you WANT to be a PA and actually have the passion to work with patients. Getting through school and passing PANCE is a waste if you start your first job and realize you hate the career. I'm not sure anyone is saying there is an expected direct correlation to strength of HCE/PCE and your didactic grades. OP - students who usually get in to PA school with little to no HCE/PCE have nearly 4.0 GPAs and stellar GRE scores.

There's no harm in interviewing if you can afford to go. A: you might not get in and this worrying is all for naught. B: maybe you'll change your mind before then. C : You don't change your mind but now you have one PA school interview under your belt. Interviewing is not an obligation to attend.

Are you looking for a cheerleader to tell you that you can do this? Or are you looking for permission to quit? Because you can get both answers here (from myself and the forum in general). On one hand, you seem to be giving up fairly easily. It takes a lot of people time to find what works. And, not something you want to hear, even those of us that found it, had to change it during the year depending on the course. What worked for me in ID did not work for me in cardio. And clinical year was a whole different ball game. On the other hand, if you REALLY don't want to do this, get out now before you find yourself even further in the loan hole. I say this as someone who gave up a good salary and real career to go back to school. It's hard. Not making money is a rough pill to swallow. It's stressful. It's hard. You're looking at 2 years of that. Why did you want to become a PA in the first place? Do you still want to? Are you wiling to sacrifice and find the motivation to make it happen? Only you know the answers.

Get details in writing. As above, a lot of muddled wording. Are you doing 4 10s? That's up to 5 days and may or may not exceed 10 hrs. In which case, great. 5 x 8hr days also fine. But it's all too vague. The fact that they have this language in the contract would say to me that you definitely at some point will be doing 10+ hr days and potentially reaching 80hr/weeks. You need details. Make them get specific. Make them put it in writing. If the details lean your way, then sure. As is, this doesn't sound promising (but you SHOULD try to pin them down, it might end up being okay).