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Hi Derm PA's. can you please answer these simple questions? PA student here


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1) level of autonomy

2) satisfaction in intelectual stimulation pertaining to medicine

3) do you do procedures? what kind? how often? do you enjoy it?

4) are you happy that you're in a highly specialized field or worry that you are pigeonholed away from medicine?

5) Do you feel that you make more money than your peers in other fields

6) How is your work life balance and do you feel that being in dermatology contributes to this or takes away from this? why?

 

 

Thank you!

 

PA student considering rotating in derm

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  • 4 months later...

Hi, 

  Late response but if you ever do read this. Maybe it will help some other person or student, so here goes. 

 

1) I pretty much see patients alone and only get assistance from the doc if I want extra input. So, fairly autonomous overall. I've been in dermatology less than one year so it will increase with time. 

2) I love dermatology, so I find it pretty stimulating. On the other hand, I see a lot of routine exams and rashes. Like pretty much any field, it can become repetitive. Occasionally you see interesting things but it's not particularly "exciting", like maybe an ER would be. I enjoy that most things in dermatology are curable/treatable. Overall people are more pleasant. I worked in pediatrics before and I loved the kids but honestly I ended up feeling annoyed with all the dramatic parents, antibiotic seeking parents and people who wanted to get over colds in 24 hours.  

3) Our office does Mohs surgeries and skin cancer excisions every Tuesday morning and every other Wednesday morning, I first assist on the first stages of Mohs and then close the wounds or perform the second stages as necessary. In the afternoons (on surgery days) I usually do around 3-4 excisions and 1-2 ED&Cs. Sometimes on Fridays I may do maybe 3 excisions/ ED&Cs as well. 

4) As I stated before, I love dermatology. It sounds bad, but I don't particularly like to deal with "sick" people, they're fussy and sometimes it makes me sad to see them that way. I'm glad that I worked in peds (and a little home health) before, it was a walk in clinic type situation so there was a variety of conditions and I learned a lot about primary care and the business of medicine. I would NEVER consider doing primary care with adults again, they're often noncompliant and have multiple conditions and medications. I don't think I would have regretted it if I didn't do those other jobs though. If I wasn't doing this I would probably choose plastic or bariatric surgery, maybe even urgent care, something where I could do procedures and not really have to follow patients up too often. I like treating things that I can fix, I don't like chronic disease. 

5) I definitely feel like I'm doing well, it could be better, I'm a W2 employee and make $450/day plus a bonus of 10% of collections. I only work three days a week from around 9:30-4:30 (give or take). I'm still under a year in derm so I'm pretty happy with it. I make more than my last job plus I have potential for growth, I could pick up the other day and a half if I want to, but I doubt I will. 

6) I think that was covered in question #5. Balance is great, even if I was full time It's only 4.5 days of work and we actually only see patients between 9:45-3:45. The rest of the time is just wrapping up office stuff, the medical assistants do almost all the charting for us in the rooms. We can come and go any time before or after the patients are there if we want to. I don't work any weekends and I take call for a month at a time, usually two months out of the year, I think the most calls I've gotten in a month might have been two or three and it's usually just silly questions. 

 

I hope this helps you in your future endeavors. Good luck to you, I know many complain but I'm glad I'm a PA and there are a lot of people out there that would kill to be in your spot so congratulation. 

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Hi, 

  Late response but if you ever do read this. Maybe it will help some other person or student, so here goes. 

 

1) I pretty much see patients alone and only get assistance from the doc if I want extra input. So, fairly autonomous overall. I've been in dermatology less than one year so it will increase with time. 

2) I love dermatology, so I find it pretty stimulating. On the other hand, I see a lot of routine exams and rashes. Like pretty much any field, it can become repetitive. Occasionally you see interesting things but it's not particularly "exciting", like maybe an ER would be. I enjoy that most things in dermatology are curable/treatable. Overall people are more pleasant. I worked in pediatrics before and I loved the kids but honestly I ended up feeling annoyed with all the dramatic parents, antibiotic seeking parents and people who wanted to get over colds in 24 hours.  

3) Our office does Mohs surgeries and skin cancer excisions every Tuesday morning and every other Wednesday morning, I first assist on the first stages of Mohs and then close the wounds or perform the second stages as necessary. In the afternoons (on surgery days) I usually do around 3-4 excisions and 1-2 ED&Cs. Sometimes on Fridays I may do maybe 3 excisions/ ED&Cs as well. 

4) As I stated before, I love dermatology. It sounds bad, but I don't particularly like to deal with "sick" people, they're fussy and sometimes it makes me sad to see them that way. I'm glad that I worked in peds (and a little home health) before, it was a walk in clinic type situation so there was a variety of conditions and I learned a lot about primary care and the business of medicine. I would NEVER consider doing primary care with adults again, they're often noncompliant and have multiple conditions and medications. I don't think I would have regretted it if I didn't do those other jobs though. If I wasn't doing this I would probably choose plastic or bariatric surgery, maybe even urgent care, something where I could do procedures and not really have to follow patients up too often. I like treating things that I can fix, I don't like chronic disease. 

5) I definitely feel like I'm doing well, it could be better, I'm a W2 employee and make $450/day plus a bonus of 10% of collections. I only work three days a week from around 9:30-4:30 (give or take). I'm still under a year in derm so I'm pretty happy with it. I make more than my last job plus I have potential for growth, I could pick up the other day and a half if I want to, but I doubt I will. 

6) I think that was covered in question #5. Balance is great, even if I was full time It's only 4.5 days of work and we actually only see patients between 9:45-3:45. The rest of the time is just wrapping up office stuff, the medical assistants do almost all the charting for us in the rooms. We can come and go any time before or after the patients are there if we want to. I don't work any weekends and I take call for a month at a time, usually two months out of the year, I think the most calls I've gotten in a month might have been two or three and it's usually just silly questions. 

 

I hope this helps you in your future endeavors. Good luck to you, I know many complain but I'm glad I'm a PA and there are a lot of people out there that would kill to be in your spot so congratulation. 

 

Was it hard to land this job? Did you do an elective in derm? 

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I did a rotation in dermatology but I don't think it did much in the way of getting this job. The practice is in a rural area and they often hire new grads. Sometimes that's what you'll have to do if you really want something. It took me a few months of constant applying to get this job and I applied to the same job maybe three times. I found that when I resubmitted my resumes with a cover letter that was more about what I can do as opposed to how much I really wanted the job, I got much better results. I eventually got two term offers after three interviews. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi, 

  Late response but if you ever do read this. Maybe it will help some other person or student, so here goes. 

 

1) I pretty much see patients alone and only get assistance from the doc if I want extra input. So, fairly autonomous overall. I've been in dermatology less than one year so it will increase with time. 

2) I love dermatology, so I find it pretty stimulating. On the other hand, I see a lot of routine exams and rashes. Like pretty much any field, it can become repetitive. Occasionally you see interesting things but it's not particularly "exciting", like maybe an ER would be. I enjoy that most things in dermatology are curable/treatable. Overall people are more pleasant. I worked in pediatrics before and I loved the kids but honestly I ended up feeling annoyed with all the dramatic parents, antibiotic seeking parents and people who wanted to get over colds in 24 hours.  

3) Our office does Mohs surgeries and skin cancer excisions every Tuesday morning and every other Wednesday morning, I first assist on the first stages of Mohs and then close the wounds or perform the second stages as necessary. In the afternoons (on surgery days) I usually do around 3-4 excisions and 1-2 ED&Cs. Sometimes on Fridays I may do maybe 3 excisions/ ED&Cs as well. 

4) As I stated before, I love dermatology. It sounds bad, but I don't particularly like to deal with "sick" people, they're fussy and sometimes it makes me sad to see them that way. I'm glad that I worked in peds (and a little home health) before, it was a walk in clinic type situation so there was a variety of conditions and I learned a lot about primary care and the business of medicine. I would NEVER consider doing primary care with adults again, they're often noncompliant and have multiple conditions and medications. I don't think I would have regretted it if I didn't do those other jobs though. If I wasn't doing this I would probably choose plastic or bariatric surgery, maybe even urgent care, something where I could do procedures and not really have to follow patients up too often. I like treating things that I can fix, I don't like chronic disease. 

5) I definitely feel like I'm doing well, it could be better, I'm a W2 employee and make $450/day plus a bonus of 10% of collections. I only work three days a week from around 9:30-4:30 (give or take). I'm still under a year in derm so I'm pretty happy with it. I make more than my last job plus I have potential for growth, I could pick up the other day and a half if I want to, but I doubt I will. 

6) I think that was covered in question #5. Balance is great, even if I was full time It's only 4.5 days of work and we actually only see patients between 9:45-3:45. The rest of the time is just wrapping up office stuff, the medical assistants do almost all the charting for us in the rooms. We can come and go any time before or after the patients are there if we want to. I don't work any weekends and I take call for a month at a time, usually two months out of the year, I think the most calls I've gotten in a month might have been two or three and it's usually just silly questions. 

 

I hope this helps you in your future endeavors. Good luck to you, I know many complain but I'm glad I'm a PA and there are a lot of people out there that would kill to be in your spot so congratulation. 

Hopefully this question isn't too intrusive but you are only working about 21 hours a week and pulling a yearly income of roughly 65k-75k?  Do you work another part time job?  If not, how are you dealing with the debt of PA school?

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Hopefully this question isn't too intrusive but you are only working about 21 hours a week and pulling a yearly income of roughly 65k-75k?  Do you work another part time job?  If not, how are you dealing with the debt of PA school?

 

Not at all, I think we should talk about money as often as possible so we know what we should be getting paid. Not saying that I'm doing anything right. I'm fortunate to be fairly debt free, I went to Miami-Dade College, one of the older PA programs that still offers an associates degree in PA studies. The program probably cost me less than $20k and I also got grants to pay for a large portion of that. Then I did a one year Masters Bridge at ATSU for around $15k that I paid for by working. I don't have any college debt or credit card debt, just mortgage and a car payment....because I just had to have the new chevy volt....

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This isn't my first job either, I worked full time for the first almost two years of being a PA. I basically paid my bills, left enough to keep $500 in my account at all times for myself and then put the rest towards debt. It was a risky strategy because I didn't have much for emergency, I basically figured I would use my credit cards, or my mom, for emergency if need be. I just realized I was spending way more in interest than I could ever reasonably save. Fortunately, I didn't have an emergency and I don't have any dependents. I just realized that there's way more to life than working 20/30 days a month and it just doesn't feel natural for me. Maybe I'll go back to full time if my circumstances change, or if I find something I really love.

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Not at all, I think we should talk about money as often as possible so we know what we should be getting paid. Not saying that I'm doing anything right. I'm fortunate to be fairly debt free, I went to Miami-Dade College, one of the older PA programs that still offers an associates degree in PA studies. The program probably cost me less than $20k and I also got grants to pay for a large portion of that. Then I did a one year Masters Bridge at ATSU for around $15k that I paid for by working. I don't have any college debt or credit card debt, just mortgage and a car payment....because I just had to have the new chevy volt....

 

 

This isn't my first job either, I worked full time for the first almost two years of being a PA. I basically paid my bills, left enough to keep $500 in my account at all times for myself and then put the rest towards debt. It was a risky strategy because I didn't have much for emergency, I basically figured I would use my credit cards, or my mom, for emergency if need be. I just realized I was spending way more in interest than I could ever reasonably save. Fortunately, I didn't have an emergency and I don't have any dependents. I just realized that there's way more to life than working 20/30 days a month and it just doesn't feel natural for me. Maybe I'll go back to full time if my circumstances change, or if I find something I really love.

Interesting pathway you took.  It looks like the Miami-Dade program is no longer running the same way.  I think they are phasing out all of the A.S level PA programs.  :(  I would really love to finish all this without that debt burden.

 

You are living my dream though.  I love how the PA profession allows for part time work with a livable wage.

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