Life and job satisfaction of PA vs MD

[throzen]

Hello everyone, I am an immigrant and I came to America 6 years ago. 

 

I am 23y old and junior in college, I was going to apply to Medical School this summer, but after searching a lot about MD and PA, I started to have doubts. I am not sure if I should go Med school for another 8 years, if I just want the satisfaction of helping people and being important, when I can do it by being a PA.

 

The biggest reasons why I wanna be a PA instead of MD, are the lifestyle, less stress and less responsibility, but I am afraid I might regret not becoming doctor. I heard Doctors cant afford good living until they paid of their loans at age of 40, but even after it, they cant have time to enjoy their life with money they made. What is the point of educating yourself for 12 years, even if you make big salaries, but at the end you will not have time to enjoy your life? What is the point of buying big house if you use it only to sleep, or a car, if you drive it only to work. Please don't tell me that the point of sacrificing 12 years of your life so you can help people, because you can do that many other ways that require less time and effort. I am saying I am going to Medicine, just to make money, of course I want something in return. I want to help people and know that I can save someone's life, but i also want live my own life, like everyone else. Doctors are not robots, they are humans too. So does physicians work alot of hours than PA that they don't have good lifestyle and time to spedn with their families? 

 

I look at my older brother and wonder, if I could be like him. He is the one of the smartest people I know and he could have easily became a Doctor, but He chose to become computer programmer/web designer and makes 79k a year. it is not much but at least he loves his job and he works only M-Th 8 hours a day. I wish it was easy for me to choose my path, between PA/MD/Dental schools. I love studying human body and  science, but I am afraid to sacrifice 8y of my life and I am not sure it is going to be worth it. even if I make it through Med school, but what if I will get low grades and cant choose my residency and will end up as IM or Family doctor, which will force me to work extra hard for the rest of my life so I can pay of my debt. 

 

My parents were used to be doctors in my native country. My father told me not go to Med school, because I will struggle alot and I should just become Dentist instead. my mother is the one who encouraged me to become a Doctor, and when I told her about PA, she said " you studied so hard and wanna be just a nurse?" and she says I will have to work for the rest of my life in order to put food on the table if I will be come a PA. I don't know if she is right. I know PA makes 6 fig salary, Does becoming PA worth financially, physically and mentally and does PA have better lifestyle than MD?

 

 

Pros of becoming PA: shorter training and education and better lifestyle, I am not sure about retirement. 

Cons of becoming PA: less money, less prestige and less independence. 

 

Pros of becoming MD: good salary, respect, prestige and early and better retirement.

Cons of becoming MD: high stress levels, much longer time of training and education, a lot of work hours, less lifestyle. 

 

 

 

Please tell what will you do if you were me and why. and also can you tell if information I have about work hours and lifestyle of MD and PA are correct. 

 

 

[LT_Oneal_PAC]

I work far more hours than my physician counterparts.

[Maverick87]

I work far more hours than my physician counterparts.

Really? In the Navy?

 

This has not been my experience in the Air Force.

[LT_Oneal_PAC]

Maybe it's a matter of opinion what is far more, but at my clinic the MDs do not do weekend or late clinic. Only PAs and NPs do. Many of them get out for other things not related to their admin work or patient care. I don't think as a general rule it's true in the military. As you know, command climates can vary a lot.

[Maverick87]

Maybe it's a matter of opinion what is far more, but at my clinic the MDs do not do weekend or late clinic. Only PAs and NPs do. Many of them get out for other things not related to their admin work or patient care. I don't think as a general rule it's true in the military. As you know, command climates can vary a lot.

Yeah, for sure. That's one of the reasons I'm getting out: I don't like not being able to quit if my leadership sucks.

 

In any event, at my base, the family medicine providers get crapped on (we have docs, PAs, and NPs....we all get crapped on really bad, but the docs get the worst of it). We also have flight docs here (and a flight PA). They're relaxing most of the time and have very little work.

 

Also, a PA that was previously stationed at my base now has a sweet assignment overseas where she is constantly traveling. I don't know the exact details, but she loves her job.

 

So it seems to vary from assignment to assignment.

[BruceBanner]

Do a search on this topic, OP. It's been discussed a thousand times.

 

There are no hard and fast rules on the age-old PA vs MD debate. There is so much variability within each profession it's just never a simple question.

[winterallsummer]

In my situation, I do not work more than my physician counterparts and we are both paid hourly.  I make a wage I am sincerely happy with but is maybe half that of the doctors' salaries (guessing here).  I have about 1/3 to 1/2 the debt I think I would've had as a doctor.  I have autonomy but do not handle as many complicated cases as physicians, and I deal with a similar or slightly smaller volume of patients than they do.  I am done with school and, with the exception of the PANCE every 10 years, do not have to really worry about studying per a syllabus, taking a test, matching for residencies, attending lectures, kissing ass, etc.  I do study all the time, ironically, but I study what I want and at my own leisure.  My QOL is better than it would be if I were a resident IMHO.  That being said, I do at times encounter situations when I wish I had gone to medical school, but when I really consider the emotional and time investment, I typically drift back to being happy with my decision to be a PA. 

 

In the end, I think it comes down to three main things: 1. will your ego and your self be personally satisfied with "never being a real doctor", 2. will you be happy being limited in your field (to different degrees ranging from perhaps no limitation in rural settings and out patient practices, to being quite limited respectively in surgery and academic emergency medicine/critical care/etc), and 3. at the end of the day, knowing you can make good money and have a good QOL as a PA, are the "extras" of MD/DO worth it (such as more extensive academic training instead of on the job training which I will mention on the job training can and often does stink and consists of "teach yourself" but other jobs teach their PAs just like residents, broader scope of practice, more respect, and overall more money in the long run, and being called a doctor [although many patients mistake us for doctors but this is not something important to most of us]). 

 

I suggest you do some serious soul searching, but in the end, make a decision and be happy with it.  The grass is ALWAYS greener and for every PA you meet here who says "I do the same job as a doc but work more and am paid less", you can find a doctor who says "I do the same job as a PA but with more headaches and I had to sacrifice a hell of a lot more for it."  I hope this advice is helpful for you, and I will mention I am a somewhat recent grad, so my opinion may change a decade from now.

[Guest Paula]

@throzen:  Please refer to your other post with the same question. 

[Corpsman2PA]

Yep, as a PA you get to spend so much time with family, have less stress and so much less responsibility (sarcasm intended)

 

 

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[Boatswain2PA]

This belongs in "pre PA forum"

[CAAdmission]

Physicians are generally miserable people. The etiology of this misery is hard for me to ascertain. It is possible that naturally miserable egomaniacs are drawn to medicine, or it might be that the medical education process turns otherwise normal humans into ogres.

 

Need proof? Go check the SDN forums. I would not want most of them touching me with a 20 foot stethoscope.

 

Find a profession that will make you happy.

[ohsnapPA]

^I think healthcare in general is a tough field...the battle between quality of care + patient satisfaction, the endless insurance/misc paperwork, tight time slots can make PAs, physicians, nurses miserable - to each, their own. 

 

I agree with @winterallsummer that you really need to dig deep into what you want out of your career, and choose the profession that makes YOU happy! Best of luck x

[ItRainsItPours]

This is something only you can answer after looking deep inside and asking the hard questions. I think there are docs who would've been happier as PAs, PAs that wouldve been happier as docs, and more importantly, people who would be miserable regardless. Are you the type A personality that dreams of being an academic sub specialist who also does research? Then the choice is clear as it would be difficult to replicate that as a PA. But say if you imagine yourself working in the community in a specialty where PA's have broad scopes of practice and the line begin to blur. Are you willing to apply broadly for both medical school and the competitive match? I personally am not willing to move out of state from my family, but that is a personal/cultural decision on my part and might not apply to you. Only you know what your ultimate priorities are.

I will say I strongly believe people attach happiness to their job far more than they should. What I mean is I think it is possible to have a happy and full life with whichever decision you choose. It is possible to have a comfortable salary, recession proof career, and the satisfaction of providing a service to your community with either path you choose to go down. So try not to sweat it too much.

[Febrifuge]

I think that you'll find, as with so many things of this nature, that the variation within groups is a whole lot greater than the variation between groups.

 

What I mean is, you'll find MDs who are insanely happy and have great schedules and have no regrets, and you'll find MDs who hate going to work and would do every single thing differently, if they had the chance to go back and do it again. Likewise you'll find PAs who are working longer hours than their MD counterparts, have to struggle with frustrations and annoyances that the MDs don't, and are totally miserable, and you'll find PAs who are incredibly happy they didn't become MDs and wouldn't change a thing.

 

What you're asking is, are PAs happier than MDs, or are MDs happier than PAs... and that's kind of a meaningless question. It depends. The degree and the job title are probably not the only thing, or even the most important thing, that makes a clinician happy or unhappy with their own specific situation.

 

And anyway, the real question is would you be happier as one or the other... and nobody can possibly answer that question for you.

 

Now, if you're asking how you go about finding that answer for yourself, we might have some ideas about that. It starts with shadowing. Shadow a lot of different providers, in different settiings and practice enviromnents, and in different specialties. Discover for yourself what makes one role different from the other, decide how important those differences are, and see what you like and dislike about either path. There are no shortcuts to learning what you need to learn to make the decision.

[JohnnyM2]

If you decide to become a PA, you may spend the rest of your life wishing you had invested the time and money to go to med school. You may long for more respect and independence and you may pine for the easier life of an MD. If you decide to go to med school, you may kick yourself for committing to seven or so years of training and debt. You may resent that the government keeps trying to reduce your pay, increase your taxes and force you to become an employee of a large hospital system thereby limiting your freedom to practice as you see fit. Choose your poison if you are inclined toward being unhappy.

 

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[kayakr]

Don't expect that you will have less responsibility than a physician.  Yes, the physician is supposed to be there to back you up with questions, etc, but many times they are not easily/readily accessible and you are expected to have a great deal of autonomy and good medical decision in most positions.