Health Care Experience for PA School

[futurePA2020]

Hello! i am a sophomore in college and set to graduate in May 2020 and looking into applying for PA school. I am having troubles finding health care hours. Every job i’ve seen is full time, and i can’t do that with 18-21 credits every semester and two kids. The only job i’ve found is a Direct Support Professional. These people work with disabled people, kids and adults. Working with kids means watching them, giving them their medications, taking to therapy etc, and adults live in group home settings. So feeding, medications, etc. I was wondering if this would count for HCE? The program i’m looking into just says a list of some jobs and says “not limited too” and I emailed the program for help and they didn’t clarify anything.

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[Noisewater-TDX]

This is just off my local PA program's site.

"Healthcare experience that includes interaction with patients (patient contact, not necessarily hands-on) is required. To be most competitive, an applicant should have the following criteria:

• A minimum of 1,000 hours of healthcare employment or patient contact experience completed prior to October 3, 2017
• Patient contact experience that requires a period of training and results in direct (hands-on) patient care
• Evidence of community service in a health care setting (eg, healthcare for underserved populations, medical mission work, etc.)"

I've never heard of a direct support professional. Is that like a non-licensed CNA or Med Tech? But from your description it sounds like it would qualify as HCE.