Need some advice about the path to PA

[Alex1]

Hey everyone, I have a close relative who has been wanting to become a PA. I myself have been accepted to a few medical schools, but don't know how the PA route differs and what hoops one needs to jump through to be competitive.

 

The issue is this...

 

She has already received an Engineering Degree from a European country , however these European degrees seem to be equivalent to 3.5 years (Bologna Process), meaning she had to start school over here. Also, due to the corruption in her home country at the time (her not paying off teachers), her translated GPA is ~2.4.

 

She has since started taking courses in American and is a US Citizen. She is 2 classes away from an Associate's and has a 3.8ish GPA (Science and math heavy).

 

She is trying to figure out if she should just finish a B.S. in Biology and apply to PA school with her American degree or attempt to apply to a M.S. program in Biology (In America) utilizing her foreign degree if she can get them to see it as equivalent and going to PA from there.

 

After speaking with a few schools, I get the impression that each school sees a foreign degree differently. She would hate working on a MS and not being accepted to a PA program just because they don't accept her European degree.

 

On a side note, she has worked as a medical assistant/phlebotomist for at least a year+ and has a lot of patient contact experience.

 

If anyone has any tips and advice, please let me know.

[Timon]

There are associate and bachelor degree programs for PA if she has about 2k+ hours with paid direct patient contact. That's a route she could go and later get a masters through a program such as St Francis. Just throwing the option out there. There's over 150 PA schools last I checked. One of them has to be a good match for her if time is a factor.