nbwhite Posted December 19, 2010 Share Posted December 19, 2010 For those that are currently in PA school, or are out there practicing, could you please elaborate on your experiences during school and the after years. Some PA programs are literally right next/intertwined with medical student classes; did you ever hear them complaining about wishing to go to PA school instead or vice versa (you wish you went to med school). Are PA's respected in hospital setting by both patients and physicians? Thanks for any help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weello Posted December 19, 2010 Share Posted December 19, 2010 I just wrapped up my 1st semester this past week. It has felt I weird over the last few days not having to do any work. PA school is well, not a walk in the park! Its overwhelming at times, and there are many moments where you say to yourself "what did I get myself into". Its actually scary how much I learned over the last 3.5 months, and its only a scratch on the surface. The material isn't very hard, its the volume and the pace in which you have to absorb it, which I am sure you have realized if you have read other posts on this site. As long as you don't fall behind the work is do-able. Remember most of the stuff you are studying you should be interested in if your sitting in one of the seats, so its not drag to sit down and read at night. Compared to a few of my buddies in DO/MD school there is stuff that I have learned that they haven't yet and vica versa. Remeber there aren't medicine books for MD's and medicine books for PA's, we use the same books, information is coming from the same sources. Overall I loved school, I just hated not having a tremendous amount of free time, but that is the nature of the beast.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nbwhite Posted December 20, 2010 Author Share Posted December 20, 2010 Thanks for the response; I live in Oklahoma and that's generally what I hear from the students at our programs; hell in 30 weeks (or whatever time frame of your program). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lzypanda Posted December 20, 2010 Share Posted December 20, 2010 I've just finished up my program and dunno what to do with all my spare time! PA skool was an awesome experience for me ;) It was quite a bit of info in a short 16 months but it's manageable so long as you stay on top of it like the above poster stated. I had a very positive experience with the medical students I've come across. Many of them liked that we had lots of clinical advice and would often share more biochemical/mechanistic/histologic stuffs with us, so it was a great trade. Lots were impressed with the amount of material and knowledge we gained in such a short amount of time. They love what they do but sometimes do get a little jealous that we finish and can start practicing and making some real bucks so fast. During my clinical rotations I never felt that my attendings would be biased when teaching. I felt lucky though.. I had amazing preceptors and they all taught me the same way they would teach any other medical student. Never treated me like I didn't belong or anything. Lots of patients didn't quite understand what a PA was, so we would just spend some time talking about it.. but in the end they still call you "doctor" even if you correct them like a dozen times, haha. There were only a couple instances when the patients preferred to see my preceptor.. but it was more b/c I was a student, and not so much as a PA. I have to say I feel on top of the world right now to be finishing up! All I gotta do now is pass the PANCE and I'm on my merry way to practice medicine. And no, I never felt I made the "incorrect" decision to go to PA skool.. in fact I feel that I made the right decision (for my life) to go to PA skool instead! Lots of the med students would joke around and say they wish they went to PA skool.. but I've found that some med students have other motivations for becoming doctors than a love for medicine or helping others. To each their own! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoNH-PAC Posted December 25, 2010 Share Posted December 25, 2010 I just finished my first semester too. I agree that it is the volume of information that makes it tough, and also that you are expected to learn more on your own than in undergrad. I feel like because of the high volume of info the lectures only scratch the surface of what we are responsible for learning and to fully understand it it requires alot of outside work. I really find the material very interesting though so I don't mind all of the reading. in regards to med students, we had 2 med students that TAed our anatomy lab and alot of times they said they felt that our program was more intense and fast paced than their MD program. They learn the info more in depth, but they also get more time to grasp the concepts. We had 6 finals and 2 practicals in 4 days and they only had 4 finals so they were laughing about that too. Ultimately though I see it as a positive thing that I'll be able to practice in 2 years even if the volume of info is crazy. Other than that I haven't really gotten to interact with med students very much, so I can't really make generalizations, just sharing my interactions. Overall I think most programs have their kinks, but in the end it is very rewarding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hemegroup Posted December 25, 2010 Share Posted December 25, 2010 Feel free to read through my clinical year blog, it should be down in my signature ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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