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Healthcare experience regarding entry to PA School


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Hi guys, I am just curious as to how many others out there have 0 healthcare experience at all and if you still plan to apply to PA school that way. Also how detrimental having no experience(direct patient or not) could be to a would be applicant. I am still in undergrad and have years left to gain experience. Are shadowing and volunteer hours alone enough to gain entry? Any advice pertaining to experience for a well rounded PA School applicant

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The are really two answers to the question.  If you are really asking if it's possible with shadowing and/or volunteer hours then the answer is yet there are some programs that it is possible to gain entry, however, your choices will be limited.  If you want the best chance to get in and more choices then compensated patient contact would be best.  Most programs require 1000 hours or less.  Some programs look at quantity and quality of the health care experience.  Really the best answer is to look at the admission requirements for programs you would want to go to and see what their specific requirements are.  This is an area that has many variations and is program dependent.

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3 hours ago, FCanales said:

Hi guys, I am just curious as to how many others out there have 0 healthcare experience at all and if you still plan to apply to PA school that way. Also how detrimental having no experience(direct patient or not) could be to a would be applicant. I am still in undergrad and have years left to gain experience. Are shadowing and volunteer hours alone enough to gain entry? Any advice pertaining to experience for a well rounded PA School applicant

In my opinion, HCE is the MOST important part of the application. PA school is meant to build on a firm foundation already in place from prior medical experience. 

shadowing and volunteering are NOT HCE. 

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I was accepted into PA school with only shadowing and volunteer PCE as a medical assistant. I did go on to get a decent number of paid hours before I started the program, but I had already been accepted to a few schools by that point (and had turned down quite a few interviews). While I think the PCE I got has helped some, I know I could have done well academically without it. Where prior health care experience really shines is when you start working with actual patients. 

I do have a military background, and got a small amount of experience as my squad's Combat Lifesaver (and was able to use those skills a number of times on seriously wounded patients overseas), but they don't really count that as PCE like they would if I were a medic (my primary job was as a shooter, not a healer). I also worked for a few years in another field, so I think my background outside of medicine (along with my solid academics) helped prepare me to succeed.

I know this isn't a popular opinion on this site, but I don't think prior patient care experience always translates to a stronger PA student, or necessarily to a stronger PA. I go to a pretty highly ranked program, and there are everything from former medical assistants, pharm techs, paramedics, EMTs, military medics, respiratory therapists, nurses, athletic trainers, scribes, etc. I haven't seen any correlation between a specific health care background and the ability to excel (academically or clinically); in fact, some of the students that struggled the most in the first couple semesters had some of the "best" prior experience (notably a paramedic and an RT, both with years of experience). Other students with "weak" prior experience have been rock stars. 

Obviously this is all anecdotal, but my point is that while prior experience can be helpful, being prepared academically can be just as important.   

 

To the OP: You mentioned that you have years left before you apply. Do yourself a favor and get some PCE; you have the time, it definitely won't hurt, and it will make you a more well rounded applicant. Just don't neglect your academics, as that foundation is just as important. 

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1 hour ago, ProSpectre said:

I know this isn't a popular opinion on this site, but I don't think prior patient care experience always translates to a stronger PA student, or necessarily to a stronger PA. I go to a pretty highly ranked program, and there are everything from former medical assistants, pharm techs, paramedics, EMTs, military medics, respiratory therapists, nurses, athletic trainers, scribes, etc. I haven't seen any correlation between a specific health care background and the ability to excel (academically or clinically); in fact, some of the students that struggled the most in the first couple semesters had some of the "best" prior experience (notably a paramedic and an RT, both with years of experience). Other students with "weak" prior experience have been rock stars. 

 

Just to counter this, anecdotally, being a good PA student doesn't necessarily translate to a good PA, either.  You can score the best grades and have a 4.0 but if you don't have any personality or ability to talk to patients or think critically on your feet, you won't get far.

PCE is about truly knowing you WANT to be a PA and actually have the passion to work with patients.  Getting through school and passing PANCE is a waste if you start your first job and realize you hate the career.  I'm not sure anyone is saying there is an expected direct correlation to strength of HCE/PCE and your didactic grades.  

OP - students who usually get in to PA school with little to no HCE/PCE have nearly 4.0 GPAs and stellar GRE scores.  

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agree with above- a lot of this is post college "life experience" and if that experience happens to be working in medicine, then even better. we had an Irish Catholic priest in my PA program who was also an EMT and the guy had a great bedside manner(go figure). we called him "the padre". 

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I agree, being a good PA student doesn't necessarily translate to being a good PA. However, you are more likely to succeed in PA school if you are a good student, and are arguably more likely to be a good PA if you understand the medicine you learn in PA school. But a mediocre or poor student with lots of prior experience that can't pass PA school or the PANCE isn't going to be a PA, period. 

I also agree with EMED that life experience after college and the maturity it brings with it is extremely valuable; and all the better if that time was in the medical field. 

PA school admissions have changed over the last decade or two, for better or worse, and have been trending toward students with higher GPAs and less PCE; has the end product gotten worse in general? I'd like to think not, but only time will tell. 

I guess my main point is that there is so much variability in PCE that it is hard to say that PCE in general makes a better PA. I would say that all other things being equal academically, strong PCE probably does help, especially as a new grad; but working as a CNA or MA for 6 months or a year (as many applicants do these days) isn't likely to make a huge difference in learning to think like a clinician. It absolutely makes a difference in learning to talk to patients, and probably makes a difference in knowing whether you like the medical field (though I would argue it doesn't tell you whether you would like working as a PA specifically, since the role and stress involved is so different). You learn to think like and perform as a clinician in PA school. 

There has been at least one study done by NPs (go figure) that found that prior experience as an RN doesn't necessarily correlate to better clinical skills as an NP (tried to find the link, but could only find abstracts -- I have the PDF if anyone is interested. The title is "Does RN Experience Relate to NP Clinical Skills?" by Ellen R. Rich, PhD, RN, FNP). From the study: "An unexpected finding was that there was a significant negative correlation between years of experience as a RN and NP clinical practice skills as assessed by the NPs’ collaborating physicians.Longer experience as a RN was associated with lower rankings of NP skills competency by the physicians."

Another study showed that it is a structured orientation period, rather than prior RN experience, that correlates to a successful transition to practice as an NP (I did find that one -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4323084/). It would be interesting to see similar studies done on PAs in the same manner, looking at prior experience (type and duration) and success in both PA school and as a PA.  

 

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I think you would find it is highly specialty specific: A former paramedic definitely has an advantage when working in emergency medicine, but probably not so much if working in ob, peds or derm. Ditto an ICU nurse becoming an ACNP working in critical care vs family practice. I can't imagine doing the jobs I do now without having prior paramedic training. If I had done an EM residency I would probably feel different. the vast majority of my training in emergent (read crashing/dying right in front of you) patient management/procedures came from paramedic school, not PA school. PA school taught me urgent care procedures and creating a good ddx on stable patients. paramedic school taught me to think on my feet and intervene with limited information. 

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11 minutes ago, EMEDPA said:

I think you would find it is highly specialty specific: A former paramedic definitely has an advantage when working in emergency medicine, but probably not so much if working in ob, peds or derm. Ditto an ICU nurse becoming an ACNP working in critical care vs family practice. I can't imagine doing the jobs I do now without having prior paramedic training. If I had done an EM residency I would probably feel different. the vast majority of my training in emergent (read crashing/dying right in front of you) patient management/procedures came from paramedic school, not PA school. PA school taught me urgent care procedures and creating a good ddx on stable patients. paramedic school taught me to think on my feet and intervene with limited information. 

do you propose I should make becoming an EMT or CNA a priority and then continue with my education and just rack up experience with those jobs? The program I plan to apply to does not require any prior medical experience, they also say they give preference to students who have undergraduate degrees from that particular school and are considered of military status or veterans.I will be both when i Complete my undergrad.

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you can do an emt program in 110 hrs or a cna program in about 60. this can be done concurrently with your undergraduate studies. I think you should both do this AND work with whichever cert you decide to get for a min of 1000 hrs, preferably more. even at programs that do not require experience, those who have it will be ranked over those who do not all else being equal. 

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53 minutes ago, EMEDPA said:

you can do an emt program in 110 hrs or a cna program in about 60. this can be done concurrently with your undergraduate studies. I think you should both do this AND work with whichever cert you decide to get for a min of 1000 hrs, preferably more. even at programs that do not require experience, those who have it will be ranked over those who do not all else being equal. 

Thank you for your input, I appreciate it! 

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I had mostly volunteer hours (in a hospital) and shadowing, but only about ~300-400 hours as a CNA, which is somewhat low compared to a lot of people. A lot of schools like you to have 500-2000 hours of paid experience, so I was a bit nervous about that. Anyway, I have interviews coming up, so apparently it was good enough. I didn't apply to schools that required thousands of hours of experience, though, because even adding my volunteer/shadowing hours didn't add up to quite that much. 

I would definitely try to get some hours under your belt, though. I think it's important to have some at LEAST for your own benefit, but it also shows that you have diversity.  

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