I am pre-PA & I have questions about EM specialty

[MC99]

Hello. I am about to start working on my bachelors degree towards becoming a PA & I am leaning towards emergency medicine (including traumas). I shadowed a PA at a level 2 trauma center today and she said that the PAs there did not help with traumas. However, she said that some hospitals do have trauma PAs and they usually require experience.

 

My questions:

1. Do alot or only a few hospitals have trauma PAs (I live in FL if that makes a difference)?

 

 

2. How much experience is usually required to get a trauma PA position (a year, five years, ect)?

 

 

3. Regarding experience, do they want the experience to be in an ER, even if it does not include traumas (I am guessing yes but I want to make sure).

 

 

4. Is there any kind of "speciality" that would help you land a trauma PA job? For instance, getting a PHD in something. A specific cert likes how nurses can get PALS and stuff, ect.

 

 

5. How does being a trauma PA work? Do you just handle the normal patients in the ER like chest pain, sore throat, ect & then when a trauma comes in you tend to that pt then go back to seeing things like ear aches and stuff.

 

 

6. Are trauma PAs made the same as a regular EM Pa or more (average salary if you know).

 

 

Thank you for your patience,

 

Megan

[EMEDPA]

Trauma pa's work for the surgical service, not the emergency med service.

most large trauma ctrs in big cities have trauma teams which include pa's

most of the duties of these pa's involve care of pts in the icu or general surgical floors. after the 1 hr of exciting trauma eval the pt is still there for days to weeks.

doing a trauma residency (see www.appap.org) is the best way to get a trauma job but you can also do it by building up experience on general surgical jobs.

smaller hospitals do not have trauma teams and have docs and pa's in the er who stabilize pts and transfer them to trauma ctrs.