EMEDPA

you have a lot of research to do still. outside of surgery, many PAs work MORE than the docs they work with. I have been working in medicine for over 30 years. I know a lot more happy, well rounded physicians than PAs. the folks I know who are better parents are the docs, not the PAs, why? they work 30 hrs/week while the PAs work 45-80. they are home at night while the PAs cover the ICU, ER, etc they are home Christmas, etc while the PAs staff the various hospital depts. they are at their kid's ball games while the PA is seeing pts in clinic. physicians who get initial training in family medicine can do many things outside of clinic work. this is a very flexible career path. one can do ER coverage, manage OB pts including c-sections, work as a hospitalist, do lots of procedures like scopes, derm stuff, treadmills, cosmetic stuff, vasectomies, overseas work, etc. my biggest regret in life I think is not going to medschool. I like my current PA job, but it took 20 years to get here to work at a place a physician could work day 1 out of residency. I also have to drive more than an hr from a major metro area to find a place that treats PAs well, one of the few places in my state. Docs get instant respect based on the initials after their name. we get instant doubt about our qualifications and constantly have to prove ourselves. please, do yourself a favor. Shadow docs and PAs in the same specialty. ask them about their lives outside of work before you make a decision about who has a better life.

also keep in mind that there are combined BS/MD and BS/DO programs out there that shave off some time.

with the increasing # of 3 yr med schools, identical prereqs(except for the mcat) and many PA schools approaching 30 months, it makes sense to take a LONG HARD LOOK at becoming a physician. wish I had.....

wow! hope you are planning on pursuing an MPH or DrPH/DHSc/DMSc in addition to your PA school training. we need more folks like you in the trenches representing the PA profession!

this is one reason I started working nights over a decade ago...night shift rules...no admins around means I eat and drink whatever I want whenever I want at work. no covered coffee mugs, etc total BS. my feeling is that if your car is never at the hospital at night or on the weekends then you Mr or Mrs administrator are just slowing the system down because we obviously don't need you to function....

as long as your check isn't issued by the same folks who manage your regular job, making your per diem shifts "overtime" at a higher rate of pay no one should complain.

I think 100k for any new grad is fairly generous with an appropriate benefits package. keep in mind you will be pretty worthless to the practice for quite some time. not too many new grad pas can run an ICU by themselves or do many of the procedures required. I am not a fan of the teaching salary anywhere outside of a residency, but I think 100k is a very reasonable amt of money for reasonable hrs. as you are basically a trainee. now if this is 80 hrs/week with q3 call, then yes, more $ is in order. keep in mind avg new grad salary is around 90k. when I graduated 20 years ago a lot of offers were 1/2 that. we all thought 40k was fair for primary care, more for specialties. we were all coming from jobs making 32-35k as paramedics, RNs , RTs, etc so 50k was huge money back then. I actually made 70k my first year out of school with a bit of OT.

The other option is MHA(health admin).

yup. and when it's time to be a cowboy, be a cowboy, but when there is time to summon the troops, involve a specialist.

I think it is fair to say some hrs are better than others. some programs rank intensity of hrs and prior training as well as duration so things like paramedic/rn/rt/etc >>>>>things like scribe, cna, etc. One program I used to work with calculated professional hce as 2x lower levels of hce so a paramedic x 2 years was worth the same as a cna x 4 yrs in their calculations.

I know folks who have worked with both comphealth and passllc.com and been happy with the experience.

had a little pucker moment recently...doesn't happen much anymore...middle aged obese lady stung inside the mouth by a bee, presented with significant resp distress and torso urticaria. smoker. big neck. malampati 3. poor landmarks for crich and swollen uvula. lips and tongue were nl. maintaining sats ok with positioning and nasal cannula o2. rash resolved and some improvement with epi, Benadryl, fluids, Pepcid, racemic epi neb. steroids given, but no real help anticipated for hours. considered cpap, but pt very anxious and unlikely to have tolerated mask. didn't want to sedate to facilitate bipap or cpap. glidescope with size 6 tube at bedside. crich kit at bedside. relatively stable so called in anesthesia for potential elective intubation. anesthesia feels pt stable enough to obs in dept and await steroid effect. signed out pt to my partner 1 hr later at shift change. by the time I got home 2 hrs later had a text that anesthesia electively intubated with fiberoptic scope when pt worsened. I feel like I could probably have managed the airway with glidescope/small tube or crich, but pt was relatively stable so involved anesthesia.

might be time to move on to a place you are respected better. I have left several jobs like that over the years. max out the learning, then leave. I am at job # 8 now after 20 years and think I have finally found I place that is a good fit. the only reason to leave now for me would be if my ultimate favorite per diem job offered me full time hours. less likely now as they are moving to 100% IC providers...might still make it work....

I'm trying not to be that one anymore too. my base schedule now is 168 hrs/mo( 10 12s and 2 24s), but I work for several small groups so cover a lot of "emergencies". 230 hrs last month, 208 this month, 144 oct (with 10 days in Haiti), 180 Nov (with 3 days of cme) , 144 december (with a week in Hawaii)

not easy, many of us do just that. I just left a job of 15 years that had 18 pas working 240+ hrs/mo routinely for straight pay without overtime. my regular schedule there frequently involved working doubles or even 2.5 shifts to cover the schedule. We had a shift that was 3pm to 7 am at a relatively busy place. There is a surgical PA on this forum who routinely works 80+ hrs/week with Q3 night call and has for > 10 years