carpy2012 Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Hi! I will be going into my senior year of college in the fall as a Public Health major. It need some advice on becoming a PA.... The reason why I want to pursue a career as a PA is because of my experience with one. When I was 18 years old I was diagnosed with melanoma. My usual dermatologist was out one day and I saw the dermatology PA instead...she was even better than my usual doctor...so engaging and personable. Ever since she has sparked the idea in my head of becoming a PA... I am just really curious on current or past PA students experiences getting accepted into school. I currently have a 3.2 GPA (and hope it keeps going up). I have little to no direct patient care experience. I work in a nursing home in the dietary services...and have been a volunteer with the Melanoma Foundation of New England for 3 years. (Running events and speaking to colleges|high schools on melanoma) I need to take only 3 more prerequisites after I graduate with my bachelors degree... Basically...I need all the advice I can get! I have no guidance in this from professors at my school and want to know your experiences! When should I apply to school?? What should I do to get direct patient care experience? Is becoming a PCA at my nursing home too safe or do I need to become an EMT or phlebotomist?? I look forward to hearing from you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brooks23 Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Congratulations on deciding to pursue a career as a PA. I'm just wrapping up my first semester as a PA student, and was in your position not long ago. What are your responsibilities involved with your current job? Do you educate? Interact? Direct care/contact is really important to admissions committees. They understand, however, that not everyone is going to be able to have direct patient contact as a provider of sorts. If you can't get direct patient, make sure you invest as much time as possible shadowing PAs. There are two reasons for this. 1. It will give you a valuable opportunity to see what a PA does. This will give you a better picture of what you could potentially doing for your career. It's the time that can cement your decision to become a PA. 2. Admissions boards need to see you putting forth as much effort as possible to learn about the profession and putting yourself out there. You must demonstrate that you're serious about pursuing PA. Basically anything that gets you in front of a patient will be favorable for you. The more interaction you have, the better. I was a paramedic, and I felt like it gave me great exposure in regards to interacting, creating a field diagnosis, and creating and carrying out a treatment plan. EMT is a relatively short, inexpensive route to go if you're interested in getting lots of good hands on experience. It's definitely not a must though. I'm just partial :) Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quietmedic Posted August 26, 2015 Share Posted August 26, 2015 Agreed. I was also an EMT before PA school, and it was an invalvuable experience...more than medical knowledge, it taught me how to approach and talk to patients, something that even med school students don't always know how to do. If you can do EMT, that would be great, if not PCA or phlebotomist (PCA probably a littl better, more consistent and in depth patient contact I would think), or at very least ask your nursing home director ow some boss you are close with if you can just volunteer upstairs to help with patients. And definitely try to get your GPA up especially in the premed sciences... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious_Ignoramus Posted August 27, 2015 Share Posted August 27, 2015 Here are two things I am picking up from your post: 3.2 is on the low side - get that GPA up to give yourself the best chances. Experience as a patient is not sufficient to make the leap into a professional school like PA. I fully understand that an experience with a caring, empathetic provider can inspire you to look into medicine, but only direct patient care, ie having your hands on a patient, is sufficient for this decision. Visit the admissions pages for your prospective schools in order to find out what those schools deem as adequate HCE/PCE. EMT, nursing, er tech, medic, and the like all consistently rank among the highest quality HCE that schools are usually looking for. Otherwise, it sounds like you are on your way! Best of luck to you, it's a long road but it can be done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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