treejay Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Thank you for everyone who has already voiced their opinion on this issue. I too am in the same situation having been accepted to more than one quality PA programs and at least 1 quality Direct Entry-NP program for matriculation in late Spring. This decision is so tough. There are clearly pros and cons to each. I have been leaning towards PA in recent months and still do a little. But the allure of autonomy if it were to prove beneficial later down the career path beckons a bit. And it seems the AAPA is weak sauce compared to the nursing equivalent which might translate to more opportunities for NPs than PAs. At this juncture, I am very interested in emergency medicine. It seems that PA's might have the upper hand in finding jobs in EM. Is this true? If so, how much is this true? There are very clearly a significant number of NP's also working in EM. Why is it that NP's earn a little less than PA's on average? Especially since many job postings are for either/or an NP or PA. I wonder if this has to do with the legacy of nursing being a female dominated profession while medicine has been a male dominated profession. Also, I have read elsewhere on these forums that it's possible that the lateral mobility a PA enjoys might be restricted in the future. If this is likely, it would definitely make the NP path more attractive to me. The lateral mobility of the PA is one of the gems of the profession in my eyes. I find it amazing that while comparing PA education to direct-entry NP education, the NP route has less than half the clinical rotation hours that the PA student will have, yet they can come out and practice autonomously. Do you think this is justified because NP's "specialize" and their rotations are more focused while PAs are generalist and they take rotations across the gammut? The much more likely explanation to me is the political power that the nursing lobby wields. Good ole fashioned politics! Any other thoughts or comments about what this boy should do? PA school or direct-entry NP school? I have to choose in the coming weeks my life career choice. I need your help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delco714 Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 From what I heard, say in Emed, a pa student could rotate for 8weeks doing 80hrs a week. Do a math, we still win over a specializing an np, and add all the other rotations, and we have much more over experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonR Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Maybe I'm misunderstanding or I didnt read carefully enough, but I understand you are a college senior, meaning you have gotten a bachelors degree in something. Why did you say that PA school would be 32 months starting in the fall? There are many PA schools that will give you a masters degree that are around 27 months long. Do you have to go to that particular school? If not you could shorten your time by at least 5 months if not more because many schools start in May, right after you graduate. Just wondering why no one else called foul on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbrsmurf Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 Well, if you went DO/MD, you could get your med education & your autonomy... considering what you said about the GPA requirements for the NP school you got accepted into, seems like you could get into med school pretty easily w/ a decent MCAT? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted February 24, 2011 Moderator Share Posted February 24, 2011 From what I heard, say in Emed, a pa student could rotate for 8weeks doing 80hrs a week. Do a math, we still win over a specializing an np, and add all the other rotations, and we have much more over experience. with a little forethought you can get even more em clinical time than this: em#1 (required) peds em(for peds) trauma surgery(for surgery) em elective. I ended up with 27 out of 54 weeks in em/peds em/trauma surgery. 50% of my total clinicals and > 1500 hrs. almost twice what an emergency np gets( 2 programs @ 800 hrs each) and 3x the total hrs that many fnp's get + I had 27 weeks of other rotations(obgyn, fp, IM, psych). if you are set on em do pa. pa's are the adv. practice clinician of choice in this realm as stated by the physician president of acep( american college of emergency physicians) and as witnessed by the large # of em pa jobs vs em np jobs. if you have any desire to do outpt primary care(peds, fp, IM, obgyn, psych) go np for legislative reasons and ease of practice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
just_me Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 was in the same situation...I had 2 PA acceptances and 2 Direct Entry NP program acceptances as well as a MS In nursing program (not NP)....the only differnce between my situation and yours is that when I initally applied to the nursing programs it was as a backup career....I never seriously considered NP or nusring to be an equal choice....no offense to nurses or nursing its just that PA has always been my focus. I thought that if I didnt get in a PA program then I would go the nursing route and it do it for a year or so and then look into applying to a PA program OR CRNA. Once my PA interviews started to roll in I stopped paying attention to my nursing applications. Honestly i would say whatever your initial passion was....stick with it. If you were passionate about it then its worth giving it a try Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treejay Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Well, if you went DO/MD, you could get your med education & your autonomy... Hmm.... 2.5 years for either the PA school or DE-NP school, or 4 years of med school + 3 years of residency (7 years) 2.5 years vs 7 years.... I wonder why this was ruled out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treejay Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 with a little forethought you can get even more em clinical time than this:em#1 (required) peds em(for peds) trauma surgery(for surgery) em elective. I ended up with 27 out of 54 weeks in em/peds em/trauma surgery. 50% of my total clinicals and > 1500 hrs. almost twice what an emergency np gets( 2 programs @ 800 hrs each) and 3x the total hrs that many fnp's get + I had 27 weeks of other rotations(obgyn, fp, IM, psych). if you are set on em do pa. pa's are the adv. practice clinician of choice in this realm as stated by the physician president of acep( american college of emergency physicians) and as witnessed by the large # of em pa jobs vs em np jobs. if you have any desire to do outpt primary care(peds, fp, IM, obgyn, psych) go np for legislative reasons and ease of practice. good logic. And if I were 100% sure that EM was my passion, it would be a done deal. But I'm not 100% sure. NP's might have the upper hand with community health, public health, primary care, education, academics, even international work (Doctors without Borders doesn't take PA's, not sure why). While I agree PA is likely the better choice for EM, I wonder how hard it is to find a good EM job as an NP. But of course, as a new grad, I'm sure the PA would be better trained. Here's a big question that could help: Are there any EM residencies for NP's like there are for PA's? I would love a statistic/figure of the number of PA's in EM vs. the number of NP's in EM. The thing I just can't get over is how much less clinical training hours NP programs have compared to PA programs. For me, that's their A-1 biggest downfall. If the clinical preparation was the same, it would almost be a no-brainer. This needs to be looked at comparing apples to apples, i.e. comparing a direct entry-NP program to a PA program which required little to no HCE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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