confused...

Started by rinamin1011
Get help with your application

Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.

Browse articles Compare schools My application plan Read Interview Feedback
Practice for interviews Ask an Advisor
R

rinamin1011

Full Member
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
IM SO CONFUSEDD. 🙁
I want to go into the medical field, but i am not sure i can get into a medschool. I want to choose PA as my backup, but im not sure if i am making the right decision. what do you guys think?

ps. im still a soph in college, but im doing pretty well. i dont really feel confident into getting into medical school because it is getting so competitive now.
 
rinamin1011 said:
IM SO CONFUSEDD. 🙁
I want to go into the medical field, but i am not sure i can get into a medschool. I want to choose PA as my backup, but im not sure if i am making the right decision. what do you guys think?

ps. im still a soph in college, but im doing pretty well. i dont really feel confident into getting into medical school because it is getting so competitive now.
Click to expand...

Just what makes you think that PA school isn't competitive. Just like med schools there are programs out there that take one student for every forty applicants. There are also schools that are easier to get into.

Just to set you straight PA school is for people that want to be PAs. If you want to be a physician go to med school, if you want to be a PA go to PA school. You should have a good idea of what each profession does if you apply.

David Carpenter, PA-C
 
MD programs and PA programs have different admissions requirements. They're both competitive in their own right. I wouldn't look at PA school as some sort of "consolation prize" if you can't get into an MD program...it doesn't work that way. PA programs want people who want to be PAs, not people who couldn't get into medical school.
 
(I posted this elsewhere, as well, but I it's just as relevent here...)

Don't forget that PA School is, in many cases just as hard (if not harder) to get into than Med School!!! The PA profession is one of the fastest-growing in the nation--even more so than other medical professions--and schools haven't quite expanded to meet that need just yet. In a few years, who knows, but right now it's quite difficult to get accepted to PA School if you're not lucky enough to have a public school in your state of residence.

There are also different prerequisits for PA School that you may not have covered in your premed route-- the Anatomy & Physiology series, the GRE, and many hours of paid direct patient care experience, for instance.

Med school is certainly longer and more comprenensive than PA School, but be careful when considering it as a "backup" to med school. You might also want to consider the fact that, though there are many surgical PAs (about 30% of all PAs), there are very few in other specialties such as oncology & neurology. Most PAs are in general practice or internal medicine.
 
"You might also want to consider the fact that, though there are many surgical PAs (about 30% of all PAs), there are very few in other specialties such as oncology & neurology. Most PAs are in general practice or internal medicine."

actually most pa's at this point do not work in primary care. as of this year less than 50% of pa's work in fp/im/peds. there are lots of pa's in specialties.
10% of all pa's work in emergency medicine for example. there are now pa's working in every medical field including interventional rads, allergy, psych,rheumatology, GI, etc
 
You must log in or register to reply here.