PA available in Chicago for Shadowing

[cariad]

There is a PA available for shadowing in Chicago.  She has more than 10 years experience in Primary Care and Emergency Medicine.  You can find her profile here    http://pamentoronline.com/mentors/      Just select 'PA Shadowing' under 'Our Services' to schedule a shadowing appointment.

[victorianee]

Is this shadowing opportunity currently available?

[greenmood]

Might have to follow the link to find out.

 

Kind of weird that you have to pay for this. And $200 is pretty steep. But I guess if there is the demand...

[beattie228]

Charging a potential candidate to shadow is absurd and borderline unethical to me. Shadowing is a nice way for a candidate to find out if becoming a PA is right for them. I interviewed with a couple of schools in the Chicago area and have a hard time believing there aren't PAs available for shadowing at no cost. 

[ryebread203]

There is a PA available for shadowing in Chicago.  She has more than 10 years experience in Primary Care and Emergency Medicine.  You can find her profile here    http://pamentoronline.com/mentors/      Just select 'PA Shadowing' under 'Our Services' to schedule a shadowing appointment.

Please do not attempt to conduct business of the PA Forum. Reported to Mods.

[mkearney]

They were previously warned.

[greenmood]

"Absurd and borderline unethical"    These are interesting comments so let me point out a few things:

 

We created a website for PA Shadowing 10 years ago for students to try and find a PA to shadow.  We created this website at our own expense and it wasn't cheap.  It might look simple, but because of the custom programming that went into it so it would work throughout the United States, it cost thousands of dollars to have someone design and it costs hundreds a year to maintain not to mention time spent responding to all the random emails that come in every day from people using the website.  We did this using our own money.  No ads and no cost to the users to sign up and use the site.  Ten years later and we have more than 40,000 students signed up to use the site but only about 100 PA's who are signed up.  And of the 100 PA's who have signed up to use the site, less than half are even active or taking students for shadowing.

 

So, you call this absurd and boderline unethical?  Well, for those PA's who are willing to take a student shadowing and don't want anything in return, I applaud you and feel free to contact me as I can supply you with students.  But those PA's seem to be in VERY short supply and the demand for a PA to Shadow is huge.  "Unethical"?!?  No one is forcing students to pay, and the PA's that we work with, well, they can always do it for nothing and sign up for the PA Shadow site.  But we never have a problem finding a PA to allow a student to shadow them when they realize they are going to be paid.  We never have them tell us "I don't want to be paid"

 

For students:  one recent who purchased the PA Shadowing was going to apply to 20 schools!  Fortunately, the PA that student shadowed was able to look at the list of schools and narrow it down to five schools.  The student was interviewed by three of the schools and accepted by one of them.  Now for the cost of applying to 20 schools alone, let alone all the costs incurred traveling around for interviews, cutting out 15 applications it would seem the student saved quite a bit of money by using the Shadowing service

 

For PA's:  As a professional, we consider your time to be valuable.  Again, I applaud those who will allow a student to shadow and charge nothing.  That is what we set out to do 10 years ago but learned a hard lesson over all those years...   people who are professionals want to be paid for their services.  If you think our prices are high, you should see what students pay who are applying for Medical School mentors.  

 

"Kind of weird that you have to pay for this"  Yes, we are here to tell you that there is a HUGE demand.  Just understand the statistics:  In 2015 there were more than 28,000 applicants and for those of you who know how many PA Programs there are and the approximate number of students who are accepted to each program... well, you can do the math and see this is a highly competitive process.  You do NOT have to pay for anything, but if you want to be one of the few who are accepted out of the thousands who apply, you might realize it's worth it to invest a little in your future.  

 

As for the demand, well, I guess the site would never have been created if there wasn't demand.  

 

Yikes. This is how you respond to working physician assistants who express an opinion you don't like? No thanks. Wow.

[rhudson9]

Guys, this website is useful to some people while it seems absurd to others. In my case, I might need to go after them because I MUST have shadowing hours to fulfill the requirements and I don't know anyone who could connect me with PAs to shadow them. I learned something in my life: Nothing comes for free; and I am one of those who will do anything to reach their goals. So I not only MUST pay, but I am also willing to if I dont find any other alternatives. Cheers

[beattie228]

"Absurd and borderline unethical"    These are interesting comments so let me point out a few things:

 

We created a website for PA Shadowing 10 years ago for students to try and find a PA to shadow.  We created this website at our own expense and it wasn't cheap.  It might look simple, but because of the custom programming that went into it so it would work throughout the United States, it cost thousands of dollars to have someone design and it costs hundreds a year to maintain not to mention time spent responding to all the random emails that come in every day from people using the website.  We did this using our own money.  No ads and no cost to the users to sign up and use the site.  Ten years later and we have more than 40,000 students signed up to use the site but only about 100 PA's who are signed up.  And of the 100 PA's who have signed up to use the site, less than half are even active or taking students for shadowing.

 

So, you call this absurd and boderline unethical?  Well, for those PA's who are willing to take a student shadowing and don't want anything in return, I applaud you and feel free to contact me as I can supply you with students.  But those PA's seem to be in VERY short supply and the demand for a PA to Shadow is huge.  "Unethical"?!?  No one is forcing students to pay, and the PA's that we work with, well, they can always do it for nothing and sign up for the PA Shadow site.  But we never have a problem finding a PA to allow a student to shadow them when they realize they are going to be paid.  We never have them tell us "I don't want to be paid"

 

For students:  one recent who purchased the PA Shadowing was going to apply to 20 schools!  Fortunately, the PA that student shadowed was able to look at the list of schools and narrow it down to five schools.  The student was interviewed by three of the schools and accepted by one of them.  Now for the cost of applying to 20 schools alone, let alone all the costs incurred traveling around for interviews, cutting out 15 applications it would seem the student saved quite a bit of money by using the Shadowing service

 

For PA's:  As a professional, we consider your time to be valuable.  Again, I applaud those who will allow a student to shadow and charge nothing.  That is what we set out to do 10 years ago but learned a hard lesson over all those years...   people who are professionals want to be paid for their services.  If you think our prices are high, you should see what students pay who are applying for Medical School mentors.  

 

"Kind of weird that you have to pay for this"  Yes, we are here to tell you that there is a HUGE demand.  Just understand the statistics:  In 2015 there were more than 28,000 applicants and for those of you who know how many PA Programs there are and the approximate number of students who are accepted to each program... well, you can do the math and see this is a highly competitive process.  You do NOT have to pay for anything, but if you want to be one of the few who are accepted out of the thousands who apply, you might realize it's worth it to invest a little in your future.  

 

As for the demand, well, I guess the site would never have been created if there wasn't demand.  

Simply because there's a demand for your product doesn't make the argument one way or another in regards to how ethical it is to charge fees for PA shadowing. This same sentiment is what fueled numerous for-profit universities that have slowly begun to be shut down. Seems to me the product you're selling is preying on mis-informed pre-PA students who desperately want to get into PA school. With that said, I was merely expressing my opinion to the OP to pursue alternative PA shadowing options that don't include needing to input their credit card information in order to find clinicians to shadow for a few hours.

 

That aside, your condescension and angry rant doesn't appear warranted. Most of us on this forum are gainfully employed professional PAs who, unlike the PAs your website hires, chime in from time to time at no profit to us simply to give back to the PA/pre-PA community.