Should I give up on trying to get licensed with a mark on my juvenile record?

[Morganp]

Hi, I'm new and I have to say, I love this site. It's quite a wealth of information.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone here knew if the PA board(I'm in CA) will really care if I have a juvenile mark on my record. Things were rough for me at home as a kid and I got in a fight when I was 17. I was convicted with assault with a deadly weapon for throwing a stick back at a family member (that family member called the police to "put a scare in me" even though the stick didn't even make a mark on them. They later tried to drop the charges but the police said they couldn't be). It is considered a felony, and when I was younger I was obviously very mad at this ridiculous charge but I didn't take it to trial because the public defender pressured me into giving up that right by saying it would be eventually erased from my record if I accepted the charge and went on probation for a couple of months (this was after I spent 8 days in juvenile hall and 2 weeks on house arrest with a PO barging into my room every other morning). This was the first and only time I have EVER gotten into any trouble. But I won't get into any more detail and make myself even more upset now.. So then I was put on probation and forced to do an anger management program for 6 months and then it was dismissed and sealed. After this I learned that "sealing" a record in CA just makes it unavailable for the average joe to access. If I apply for any job working with kids or the sick or elderly or in any kind of government job, I basically don't have a chance to get it because I'm a liability because of this one mistake and there are other perfectly clean applicants. I've been pursuing PA and ignoring this fact because I plan on working outpatient and a doc can't see juvenile records unless they're hiring for a hospital job (doesn't make sense to me but whatever..) Also the record never totally gets erased.

 

I'm not planning on hiding the fact that I have a juvenile mark. I know that the board has access to the FBI's records( juvenile or not, sealed or not) and it will show up with my fingerprints. I have been researching this pretty heavily trying to find some kind of answer saying my dream isn't crushed and I CAN still have a future if I work hard enough.. but what I've read from lawyers' posts indicate there's no hope. I've read multiple stories of nurses with a similar past having to go through a year long process with the board of nursing just to get a "restricted" license which makes it nearly impossible to get work.

 

 

I'm 22 now and about to get my BS. I have a 3.7 science gpa and have put in tons of hours at a free clinic and I've been living SO carefully because that incident has thoroughly traumatized me and I don't want to do anything else that could be used against me when I apply for licensure. It makes me so sad because so many people have told me I would make an excellent PA.

 

For anyone who made it through this long post, I thank you.

[Just Steve]

Are you determined to stay in Cali to practice? Can it be expunged?

[Morganp]

Expunging is the same thing as sealing, it basically *slightly* limits who can see the details of the record and yeah I got it expunged.

It just seems like the humiliation from this is gonna haunt me forever.. I've spent way too much of my life being punished for this and dealing with the stress/emotional $#!@ from this. I thought the purpose of the juvenile justice system was to punish kids harshly to scare them straight and then give them a chance to rehabilitate themselves and have a fresh start. Ugh sorry I keep going off on tangents..

 

 

Anyway yes I would even be willing to move to a different country if it meant this juvenile record wouldn't follow me. I guess I have to do some more research to see if it would follow me if I left the country

[UGoLong]

A good friend of mine got into PA school even though, as a young college student, he had been convicted of buying marijuana for a customer of a business he was working for at the time. That had been at least 20 years before his application to PA school. He wrote the necessary explanations of what happened and practices to this day.

 

I don't know all of the details in his case -- or yours -- but, even if it takes some explanation, it need not derail your life. What happened happened. If I were you, I might consider talking with a lawyer and/or someone in a college admission process somewhere (not necessarily even in a PA program) and develop your application strategy for dealing with it.

 

I'm sure the experience makes you angry. Try not to let it make you bitter or stop you from going for what you would like to get out of life.

 

Good luck.

[rpackelly]

The California Board has generally been giving probationary licenses to applicants who have convictions of anything related to the practice of medicine. It may make a difference that your record is as a juvenile. You can get a job with a probationary license. You will be 25 or so by that time, and most people have lots of sympathy with things that happened when you were 17.

 

After your probationary license turns into a regular license you will have an easier time. They may not even require a probationary license. The best advice I can give is when you apply, engage the services of an attorney who is very experienced in administrative medical licensing law in California. You might want to speak with an attorney when you fill out applications to make sure that your answers are both truthful and that you only give information you are required to disclose.

 

BTW, other boards are not as strict; Michigan will fully license with an expungement as I know from being a PA program director here; we had a couple of students in that situation.

[bradtPA]

Just be honest with the license application, and you should be fine in the end. If you lie and get caught lying, however, boards tend to be harsh.