Is Being a PA right for me?

[cxr89]

Hi everyone, I will first off and say that this is an awesome forum with lots of good folks as far as I can tell. So let me start out by giving you a little bit about my situation. I am 23 going on 24 and I graduated about 6 months ago with a BA in psychology. Luckily I did not graduate with any debt and i currently have no financial obligations and I am currently single with no kids. I live at home and I do not need to pay rent. I currently am in banking, and I am about to be promoted and there is a possibility that i might become assistant manager in a year or so, but I dont feel that banking is the right field for me. During my last year in school, I had a nurse in one of my upper division general ed classes, who said that I should look into the medical field, as she believed I was a good fit for that type of work. I was able to find a volunteer program that had an emphasis on its volunteer's getting hands on experience to a certain extent. The training for this volunteer program was 4 days and afterwards we were allowed to pick a hospital floor to volunteer on. As of now, I volunteer at an ER that is the third busiest in my county. I actually get hands on experience, such as taking vitals, assisting emts with splinting, bandaging and help set up ekg's on patients, helping nurses draw blood, and even helping some of the PA's when they work up patients. I have seen alot in our ER. I have seen people overdose on drugs, gsw's, stab wounds, full on code blues and being in the room when the er doc is intubating a dying patient and I was right next to a neurosurgeon when he drilled into someones head to relieve cranial pressure. In all honesty, everytime I go in to volunteer, I actually look forward to it and my time there always goes pretty fast. I have also built a good raport with one of the PA's and I get to shadow him when he does any procedures with his patients in the fast track area. I have also shadowed a PA in a level one trauma center and that too was a great experience. The way I see medicine, I feel that it would fit me as I feel that being a PA, you get to meet a wide variety of people, there is always a good amount of variety and not so much monotony so you never get bored and I could go home at the end of the day and truly feel taht I made a positive impact in someones life that day. However, do you guys feel that I have the right idea of what being a PA is all about and that I am getting good exposure to the PA field and to the health field in general? Or are my idea of what being a PA is all about a misconception? The only reason I ask this was because when I was working at the bank during my undergrad, I thought it would be right for me, but after doing more soul searching, now I feel that it isnt. Also I recently just took the Myers Brig Type Indicator and my personality came out to enfp. If you guys know anything about enfp's, we never can seem to make our minds up on what kind of career we want (However, working in banking was considered the polar opposite of what career fields most ENFP enjoy doing. The health field scored about a 68% on my test) . In the past, some of my careers I wanted to try was being a psychologist (the field of psychology is very saturated and after talking to some counselours, I kind of got turned off by the field), police officer (I applied, got denied, but I feel that it wasn't right for me afterall), social worker (I hear its emotionally draining and that the pa is horrible. My bro in law is a social worker) or pilot( I found out a few years ago I am slightly color blind so that went right out the window =/). The PA field is probably the most exposure i have ever gotten in any career field outside of work.So my question to you is, after being exposed to many of the things at my local er, do you feel that I have a decent idea of what it is to be a PA? If not what suggestions would you have for me to get a better idea of what the PA field entails. If i choose the path to becoming a PA, it will be long and hard for me, as I would like to get my emt license and become a tech at a local er. But that is not for certain and I heard ER tech positions in my area are hard to come by. As well, getting my science prereqs might be challenging, as many of my local colleges have their science prereqs fill up quick and I would have last priority in signing up in the beggining, and I would most likely have to take fluf classes to bump up my registration to get the classes i need. In essence I would be giving up a somewhat promising career (although I currently really dont enjoy to well), and a cut in pay for a path that is uncertain but in a field that I do find enjoyabel. I would like any advice from anyone who reads this, but I would like to hear from people who made the switch into the PA field from nontraditional background such as business or any other field outside of medical. Once again, thanks for taking time out of your guys lives to read my little life's spiel and dillema. =D

[cinntsp]

Holy wall of text...

[Andreasmo]

Holy moly ha..Ok where to begin.. I don't necessarily think a forum of people who have no idea who you are can give you a good answer for what to do with the rest of your life.. Personal opinion there. It is great that you are getting the volunteer and shadow experience in. Why don't you ask the PA if you can shadow him for a full day to see if it gives you a better idea? The you'll know it isn't always going to be as exciting as procedures. You are still young so you do have time to figure out what you want to do. As a psych major, I bet you are going to have to take almost every pre req.. And those classes will help you figure it out too. If you are already unsure of your career choice in banking, my bet is it isn't the job for you so I would keep trying to get experience and slowly figure it out. There are a few books you can find on Amazon that you can use as a supplement to gaining experience... Such as "so you want to be a physician assistant" by Beth grivett or "an applicants guide to physician assistant school and practice" by Erin sherer. Also, I would read from the pre-pa section on this forum and in the future, put postings like this on there.

good luck!

[Just Steve]

It is easy to be seduced by the sexy side of medicine... doing/assisting with procedures, high action, low actual responsibility..all the glory but no risk. Expand your circle of exposure to see a broader picture before making up your mind.

[thinkertdm]

I have no idea what this says, but please move this to the "pre-pa" forum. And I encourage people to not reply, this only encourages non-pa's to post inappropriately.