DO vs PA ?

[MortellarPreMed]

Go DO

MD=/>DO>PA>DNP

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[IH8ColdWeath3r]

YOU ARE GOING TO BE A SUPER GOOD DOCTOR THE VERY BEST DOCTOR EVER THE BEST INTERN THE BEST RESIDENT ALL BECAUSE OF YOUR SCRIBING HOW SMART.

Is that what you wanted to hear? Nobody cares btw.

Relax. It's a thread.

I was only implying that I have learned from experience and would encourage others to try scribing. It's a good experience. It has its positives and negatives. You learn a lot by watching different physicians and how they practice medicine. You see the best and worst bedside manner, how to and how not to deliver bad news, etc.

My previous post was not to make myself sound intelligent or to put down nurses or techs. So relax. And quit typing in caps. Makes you seem overly angry over a internet post, which is kind of ridiculous, even for SDN standards.

And I'm sure I will get to med school In August and realize how insignificant my experience was when I'm constantly bombarded* with info

 

[deleted6669]

That's 30hrs/wk average. What kind of specialty doc working 30 hrs/wk making 360k/year? Are these docs spinal surgeons?

independent em group. partners get a piece of hospital contract, all of their own production + 50% of the production generated by pa's.

 

[deleted6669]

I have a honda and am in AZ on vaca right now

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you just proved my point. pa's party like medical students or residents...woohoo...when you are 36 you could drive a porsche and vacation in barbados ....

 

[racerwad]

Relax. It's a thread.

I was only implying that I have learned from experience and would encourage others to try scribing. It's a good experience. It has its positives and negatives. You learn a lot by watching different physicians and how they practice medicine. You see the best and worst bedside manner, how to and how not to deliver bad news, etc.

This is my point about the differences between the two positions and what "clinical experience" means. As a scribe, the role isn't one that involves direct patient care; that interaction is where I think (and others, it seems) you learn the most. When I quoted someone else as saying that patient's are the best teachers, I didn't mean (and I think Slyvanthus didn't, either) that a patient just provides an opportunity to learn about a disease. I meant that they teach us about ourselves and how we interact with patients and their families, provide and obtain information, relate to their situation, etc. Obviously, it isn't the same level or way as the physician, but far beyond what the scribe does.

You're kidding yourself if you think that scribes are the only ones taught things in the ED. You're assuming that all the other techs and nurses have no intellectual curiosity of their own and/or have no access to physicians beyond what you see.

...And to the people who think that a scribe is some kind of courtroom stenographer, I can assure that it's not. You learn things ALL the time. It's clinical. And yes, the patients are the best teachers. When I put in physical exams, I learn clinically. When I put moon facies, buffalo hump, truncal obesity, and abdominal striae on someone's physical exam and have a brief discussion with the doc that I'm with for 9 hours, I quickly find out that these are the CLINICAL manifestations of someone with Cushing's Symdrome. I find out that cushings is from prolonged exposure to steroids, both exogenous and endogenous. And the most common form of Cushings is iatrogenic (an inadvertent consequence of medical treatment; like patients with RA, SLE who are on chronic steroids). These are the things that the physician that I was working with TAUGHT me during my shift a few days ago. Again, where I work, techs do not learn these things. These kinds of lengthy conversations never go on between the physicians and techs because the techs are just too busy doing other things (starting lines, transporting, doing EKGs, putting on a splint).

Imagine how much more you'd learn if you did the physical exam yourself or gave those steroids that carried those side effects. IMHO (which is worth what you paid for it) that is where the benefit of "clinical experience" comes from and why scribing is not it.

Being a scribe is indeed a great experience, especially because the pay is good, the hours are flexible, and there is no investment needed before you're able to work. However, I think that the low barrier to entry into the position also diminishes the amount of experience you gain compared to an EMT-B/MA/CNA.

 

[IH8ColdWeath3r]

This is my point about the differences between the two positions and what "clinical experience" means. As a scribe, the role isn't one that involves direct patient care; that interaction is where I think (and others, it seems) you learn the most. When I quoted someone else as saying that patient's are the best teachers, I didn't mean (and I think Slyvanthus didn't, either) that a patient just provides an opportunity to learn about a disease. I meant that they teach us about ourselves and how we interact with patients and their families, provide and obtain information, relate to their situation, etc. Obviously, it isn't the same level or way as the physician, but far beyond what the scribe does.

You're kidding yourself if you think that scribes are the only ones taught things in the ED. You're assuming that all the other techs and nurses have no intellectual curiosity of their own and/or have no access to physicians beyond what you see.



Imagine how much more you'd learn if you did the physical exam yourself or gave those steroids that carried those side effects. IMHO (which is worth what you paid for it) that is where the benefit of "clinical experience" comes from and why scribing is not it.

Being a scribe is indeed a great experience, especially because the pay is good, the hours are flexible, and there is no investment needed before you're able to work. However, I think that the low barrier to entry into the position also diminishes the amount of experience you gain compared to an EMT-B/MA/CNA.

Lol the pay sucks and the hours are sh**. I lovey job and the doctors that I work with, but I absolutely despise our scribing company. It's owned by a malpractice lawyer who exploits people that want to go into medicine and are scribing as a means to gain exposure to medicine.

We used to get paid more, but our pay has been cut, even though our scribing company charges the doctors that we work with an arm and a leg ONTOP of the money they get from the hospital for our services. The other competing scribing company pays their scribes double what we make. Many of my coworkers quit and joined that company. Many stayed because they like the doctors at our facilities and the money is not their #1 priority. We used to get healthcare, but not anymore. Luckily I can stay on my parents plan but many of my coworkers who are over the age of 26 are not so fortunate.

Anyway, my point is, make no mistakes... We are overworked, understaffed, and underpaid.

 

[Textbookversion]

Relax. It's a thread.

I was only implying that I have learned from experience and would encourage others to try scribing. It's a good experience. It has its positives and negatives. You learn a lot by watching different physicians and how they practice medicine. You see the best and worst bedside manner, how to and how not to deliver bad news, etc.

My previous post was not to make myself sound intelligent or to put down nurses or techs. So relaxer. And quit typing in caps. Makes you seem overly angry over a Internet post, which is kind of ridiculous, even for SDN standard.

And I'm sure I will get to med school In August and realize how insignificant my experience was when I'm constantly bearded with info

seems like your head is screwed on fine, but sorry you just sounded ridiculous talking about how your premed job is going to make you chief resident with a silly anecdote that perhaps epitomizes the phenomena of "correlation is not causation" and "confirmation bias." bolded parts are super true. also no caps to make up for last post.

 

[Temperature101]

seems like your head is screwed on fine, but sorry you just sounded ridiculous talking about how your premed job is going to make you chief resident with a silly anecdote that perhaps epitomizes the phenomena of "correlation is not causation" and "confirmation bias." bolded parts are super true. also no caps to make up for last post.

Nothing new here...A premed scribe who think he/she knows more than a nurse or paramedic. You should be used to that if you spend 5 minutes/wk on SDN.

 

[IH8ColdWeath3r]

Nothing new here...A premed scibe who think he/she knows more than a nurse or paramedic. You should be used to that if you spend 5 minutes/wk on SDN.

Scroll back up and keep reading

 

[MiracleforMD]

Nothing new here...A premed scibe who think he/she knows more than a nurse or paramedic. You should be used to that if you spend 5 minutes/wk on SDN.

If you spent 5 minutes/wk on SDN you would not be shocked about what a EP can make in 30 hours per week. But I see that the majority of your 5 minutes/week is focused on being an ass.

 

[Titus Times]

Well lots of PA's end up going to medical school, so I will say go PA if you will be content with all that it has to offer and dont plan on going to medical school otherwise go DO.

 

[primadonna22274]

Lots? About 4%.
Not lots.
Much cheaper and more efficient to make up your mind before training.

 

[Temperature101]

If you spent 5 minutes/wk on SDN you would not be shocked about what a EP can make in 30 hours per week. But I see that the majority of your 5 minutes/week is focused on being an ass.

My feelings are hurt ..Lol. EP who make 360k/yr working 30hrs/wk are outliers...

 

[Dr.TurkandJD]

What's an EP?

 

[racerwad]

What's an EP?

Emergency Physician

 

[MedPR]

Well lots of PA's end up going to medical school, so I will say go PA if you will be content with all that it has to offer and dont plan on going to medical school otherwise go DO.

Yes, but nothing is that simple on sdn.

ITT: premeds try to tell other premeds why PA is better or worse than DO.

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[JGimpel]

Yes, but nothing is that simple on sdn.

ITT: premeds try to tell other premeds why PA is better or worse than DO.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using SDN Mobile

I second that banana.

 

[cliquesh]

MGMA, the supposedly most accurate physician salary report, says that the average ER doc makes 280k and the 90th percentile makes 398k.

 

[Temperature101]

MGMA, the supposedly most accurate physician salary report, says that the average ER doc makes 280k and the 90th percentile makes 398k.

That salary might refer to EP who work 40 hrs/wk...

 

[MiracleforMD]

That salary might refer to EP who work 40 hrs/wk...

It doesn't. But continue to spread misinformation. You excel at it.

 

[SpecterGT260]

That salary might refer to EP who work 40 hrs/wk...

It doesn't. But continue to spread misinformation. You excel at it.

what are we debating here? many ED docs work ~40 hours, with many going to a 36hr 3x12hr system. Increases incentive towards the field (every week has a 4 day weekend) and fills much needed overnight spots. 280 sounds higher than what I have heard in the past, but I don't keep up on each specialty individually and they are subject to change as competition changes.

 

[SpecterGT260]

you just proved my point. pa's party like medical students or residents...woohoo...when you are 36 you could drive a porsche and vacation in barbados ....

I was also being facetious

 

[cliquesh]

That salary might refer to EP who work 40 hrs/wk...

Yea, its for full time and it includes bonuses/perks.

 

[SpecterGT260]

It doesn't. But continue to spread misinformation. You excel at it.

Yea, its for full time and it includes bonuses/perks.

1.2.3. fight!

 

[Temperature101]

what are we debating here? many ED docs work ~40 hours, with many going to a 36hr 3x12hr system. Increases incentive towards the field (every week has a 4 day weekend) and fills much needed overnight spots. 280 sounds higher than what I have heard in the past, but I don't keep up on each specialty individually and they are subject to change as competition changes.

We are debating that EPs who make 360k/yr working 30hrs/wk are the norms, which MiracleforMD seems to say. I say these are outliers.

 

[SpecterGT260]

That's funny, because 2 of the 5 chief residents in EM right now were scribes. The residency director at UTSW thought that their previous exposure was beneficial and played a role in not only getting those candidates into the EM residency, but also helped with the chief resident selection process.

And sorry, but where I work there is zero interaction between the physicians and techs (I know this varies from facility to facility). At our hospital, if there is an order for an EKG, it pops up on the techs computer and he does it. The blood is drawn immediately by the nurse/tech. If the patient needs blood cultures, the nurse gets it. If a patient needs to be transported, the tech takes them. The only time really when a doctor verbalizes anything to a tech is in regard to different types of splinting or during a code.

And to the people who think that a scribe is some kind of courtroom stenographer, I can assure that it's not. You learn things ALL the time. It's clinical. And yes, the patients are the best teachers. When I put in physical exams, I learn clinically. When I put moon facies, buffalo hump, truncal obesity, and abdominal striae on someone's physical exam and have a brief discussion with the doc that I'm with for 9 hours, I quickly find out that these are the CLINICAL manifestations of someone with Cushing's Symdrome. I find out that cushings is from prolonged exposure to steroids, both exogenous and endogenous. And the most common form of Cushings is iatrogenic (an inadvertent consequence of medical treatment; like patients with RA, SLE who are on chronic steroids). These are the things that the physician that I was working with TAUGHT me during my shift a few days ago. Again, where I work, techs do not learn these things. These kinds of lengthy conversations never go on between the physicians and techs because the techs are just too busy doing other things (starting lines, transporting, doing EKGs, putting on a splint).

Im sure I came of ass an ass in this post, which I didnt mean too. I have much respect for techs and I am friends with all the techs at our hospital. They keep the ED running. But, its just my two cents on the difference in the kind of learning experience based on facilities that I have worked at (both private and academic teaching hospital).

And Racerwad, my lack of understanding is exactly what made me also want to pursue medicine. I acknowledge that these experiences in no way prepare you the the volume and depth of info that's presented in medical school.

When I see pre meds rattle off medical or clinical trivia I always think of this
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcWKz97WQFA[/YOUTUBE]

It's interesting that when you see a patient with cushings-specific jargon you think cushings. What you have is clinical exposure , not experience. You may have learned a couple neat little tid-bits, but I guarantee you will miss at least one cushings patients in spite of what you learned here (assuming you come across any). The point is, scribing really doesn't give you any sort of a leg up or put you in any advanced position as compared to any other pre-med out there. I did it, and I found the experience to be invaluable (in the positive sense) but I wouldn't pretend that it would prepare me in any fashion for the clinic. Ergo, not clinical experience, but rather "exposure". You have become exposed to the clinic, but not experienced in it.

I am an MS2, so I have not started the clinic yet. I do have plenty of shadowing and scribing experience where I saw a ton of cool stuff. I also have a wealth of didactic scientific and clinical knowledge over what you have from the first two years of medical school. I am also terrified of not knowing what the eff to do on my first day in the clinic (terrified might be a strong word. I just recognize that I don't know crap). Anyone thinking they are gaining useful clinical knowledge from scribing is only demonstrating the degree to which they are ignorant of clinical medicine.

It's ok. We all start there. What happens is that as you become aware of the breadth of possible diagnoses for a simple presentation you start trusting anecdotal personal experience less and less. You also have yet to experience being wrong when you were absolutely positive you were right.

Personally, I would recommend scribing to any pre-med. I did it, and loved it, and learned a ton from it. But in reality what I learned (even though at the time I thought I was learning medicine) was limited to gaining an appreciation for the clinic. Scribing and pre-med volunteering teaches medicine in the same way that licking the bottom of a pudding cup lid teaches culinary arts, mass production techniques, and marketing strategy - all things that went into you getting that little taste.

 

[MiracleforMD]

Yea, its for full time and it includes bonuses/perks.

"Full time" for EM is considered by many in the field to be ~30 hours a week. I did not read the study but it's possibly they did not specifiy

1.2.3. fight!

Don't patronize me lol.

We are debating that EPs who make 360k/yr working 30hrs/wk are the norms, which MiracleforMD seems to say. I say these are outliers.

I am not going to argue semantics with you about what is above average vs outliers. Simply put, there are many (thousands) EP docs making > 300K/year whether being from working in a rural area, all nights, or with a great payer mix. I really question your understanding of what an outlier is. An outlier is a single data point that seems not to follow anywhere near the normal distribution. The dermatologists who created Proactive are outliers. The EP physicians in the 85th-99th percentile of income (for their specialty) are not.

There is a god damn 20 year vested EDPA in this FREAKING thread who is well aware of what people in his shop (and other shops like it) are making. What is your source, other than your misinterpretation of studies and lack of understanding of important statistical terms?

 

[felix2929]

"Full time" for EM is considered by many in the field to be ~30 hours a week. I did not read the study but it's possibly they did not specifiy



Don't patronize me lol.



I am not going to argue semantics with you about what is above average vs outliers. Simply put, there are many (thousands) EP docs making > 300K/year whether being from working in a rural area, all nights, or with a great payer mix. I really question your understanding of what an outlier is. An outlier is a single data point that seems not to follow anywhere near the normal distribution. The dermatologists who created Proactive are outliers. The EP physicians in the 85th-99th percentile of income (for their specialty) are not.

There is a god damn 20 year vested EDPA in this FREAKING thread who is well aware of what people in his shop (and other shops like it) are making. What is your source, other than your misinterpretation of studies and lack of understanding of important statistical terms?

i think full time is typically 3 12 hour shifts..at least it is here, where sadly the pay is in the bottom 10th percentile of pay

 

[Temperature101]

If you spent 5 minutes/wk on SDN you would not be shocked about what a EP can make in 30 hours per week. But I see that the majority of your 5 minutes/week is focused on being an ass.

You were implying that the 360k/year (30 hrs/wk) salary for EP is the norm...I am just saying that is not the norm. I am done with this nonsense...

 

[MiracleforMD]

(Removed post, too mean)

 

[SpecterGT260]

(Removed post, too mean)

Sissy

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[Temperature101]

Sissy

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Yeah...

 

[Temperature101]

(Removed post, too mean)

Calm down bro...

 

[MiracleforMD]

I'm not that much of a dick. I think it was even beyond the bottom of what you would say Specter.

 

[SpecterGT260]

I'm not that much of a dick. I think it was even beyond the bottom of what you would say Specter.

Pretty harsh then.

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[MedPR]

(Removed post, too mean)

Aw, I missed the fun.

 

[deleted307836]

Lots? About 4%.
Not lots.
Much cheaper and more efficient to make up your mind before training.

That's actually a lot higher than I would have thought. If 1 in 25 PA's ends up becoming a physician, I'm sure there are many more who have the same desire but are held back by lifestyle, family considerations, grades/MCAT, or any combination of those factors. Probably a good thing for someone on the fence between these two fields to consider.

 

[primadonna22274]

4% is the most commonly stated statistic. I don't know how true it is because we don't really have good data on this. AAPA doesn't really track it. As one of the 1/25, though, I can tell you it's interesting how many NEW PAs ask me about it. I can barely keep up with their PMs. (I am trying.) i suppose it's old-fashioned of me but my feathers get a bit ruffled at these newbie PAs who haven't earned their stripes yet and are already looking to move on up...I guess I feel like they should have figured that out first. I have mixed feelings on the economy of retraining health care professionals into physicians, taking them out of the workforce for so long etc. I know for me it has been very financially stressful but I can now see the end in sight, and I'm glad I'm doing it, but it is not without huge sacrifices.

 

[deleted6669]

The commonly bantered around stat is 4-5% of pa's get an md/do and an additional 4-5% get a non-clinical doctorate of some type(PhD, DHSc, DrPH, etc) at some point in their careers so 8-10 % of pa's end up with some type of doctorate at some point.