direct patient care experience

[Kristen.Donohue]

Hello everyone I'm applying to PA schools in August and I currently have 1,152 hours working as a dental assistant. Do you think on CASPA i should list all 1,152 hours as patient care experience or write 576 hours under patient care experience and 576 hours as other health care experiences?

[AudreyH]

I would put it all under the patient care experience because then the schools won't count that as direct patient care hours. It is better to have as many patient care hours as possible.

[EMEDPA]

I would check with individual schools before applying to check if they accept dental experience.

ditto anyone applying with vet tech or non-clinical research experience.

[Kristen.Donohue]

Okay thank you both for your advice I really appreciate it. All of the schools I called said that dental assistant experience would count thankfully but I'm also in the process of trying to gain experience volunteering in hospitals so I can be more exposed to a more medical rather than dental atmosphere. 

[GreatChecko]

It depends on your job description and what you actually do in your job. Here are the CASPA definitions and the ones I would go by. Don't split up hours just to fill up different columns, go with what you actually have.

 

One of my classmates is a hygienist. Good luck!

 

Patient Care Experience

Experiences in which you are directly responsible for a patient’s care; for example: prescribing medication, performing procedures, directing a course of treatment, working on patients as an active EMT, etc.

Other Health Care Experience

You are working in the health or a health-related field but are not directly responsible for a patient’s care; for example, filling prescriptions, performing clerical work, delivering patient food, cleaning patient rooms, working as “candy-striper” or hospital volunteer, etc.

[Kristen.Donohue]

Thank you

[Ashwee]

Along the same topic, you said not to split up patient hours... should I not split them up even if my job is half and half?  I spend half of the time direct patient care as an MA (height/weight, hearing/vision, flouride treaments, BP, etc) and the other half is office work (i.e. calling patients, scanning paperwork, confirming appointments, entering information into the system, etc). 

[rcreek]

Along the same topic, you said not to split up patient hours... should I not split them up even if my job is half and half?  I spend half of the time direct patient care as an MA (height/weight, hearing/vision, flouride treaments, BP, etc) and the other half is office work (i.e. calling patients, scanning paperwork, confirming appointments, entering information into the system, etc). 

 

If half of your work is office/clerical work, then of course - you should be honest and split the hours between "patient care experience" and "other healthcare experience". I had to do that with a few of my previous healthcare jobs. To do otherwise is a deliberate falsification of your application.

[Z PA-C]

I also split my hours up. CASPA is pretty clear about how to allocate your hours. If you're an EMT who spends 30% of the day waiting around for calls do not count that time as direct patient care but rather healthcare related. Same goes for MAs whose job duties include clerical work.

[Ashwee]

That's what I'd always planned on doing, but the way the reply was worded above made me think they'd reject it if they were split up. Thanks!