FMG (MD) vs US PA

[Honze55]

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.

 

[135892]

I know this might not be the BEST section for this thread, but it's MD related so I'm going to post here...

What would you do if your GPA/MCAT only allowed you go to a good Caribbean Medical School (Ross, SGU) or a US physicians assistant program?

What you YOU do?

P.S. not that I'm in this situation, it's just I'm currently shadowing at an urgent care center with PAs and MDs and honestly, the PAs are doctors for all practical purposes (besides legally not being able to call themselves doctors)

no

 

[Honze55]

no

I see you're a pre-med. Have you worked in a hospital or clinical setting?

I'm telling you this is the way it is, in California anyway.

PA- full prescription power. able to see patients.

Only limitation is they must work "under" a physician which means they can't open up their own practice, but not one of the PAs at the hospital I'm at every had to bring in a doctor when dealing with patients.

 

[scarletgirl777]

no

I second that. A PA is a physician's ASSISTANT. Depending on what state you live in, you could be extremely closely supervised and be very restricted on what you can do. You can never do surgery (and I"m sure a whole host of other things). An MD is still a MD, even if it's from Dominica.

 

[8744]

... the PAs are doctors for all practical purposes....

PAs are doctors in the same way that I am a Starfleet Admiral.

 

[tkim]

I see you're a pre-med.

Says the other pre-med.

 

[8744]

I see you're a pre-med. Have you worked in a hospital or clinical setting?

I'm telling you this is the way it is, in California anyway.

PA- full prescription power. able to see patients.

Only limitation is they must work "under" a physician which means they can't open up their own practice, but not one of the PAs at the hospital I'm at every had to bring in a doctor when dealing with patients.

The most important thing is that you, as a pre-med, know absolutely nothing about medicine and I assure you that you will be less impressed with PAs the further along you get in your training.

Consider one of my horrifically complicated patients on my last shift who showed up with Atrial Fibrillation, hepatic failure, and sepsis. If you poked your head into the trauma bay you would have seen a resident doing what needed to be done, piecing it all together, and making sense out of a confused and contradictory history from the family, but looking incredibly bored while doing it and working on a patient who really looks no more threatening than a low-acuity back pain but was, in reality, a ticking time-bomb and the kind that PAs give thanks they don't have to handle.

If you had poked your head in when the patient first arrived you would have seen a sick-looking but unremarkable, patient virtually indistinguishable from somebody showing up for an Emergency cold. Again, you don't know any better.

No great fan of the medical profession am I but the idea that a PA with two years of medical education is the equivalent of a physician with seven to twelve is laughable.

 

[Character]

I see you're a pre-med. Have you worked in a hospital or clinical setting?

I'm telling you this is the way it is, in California anyway.

PA- full prescription power. able to see patients.

Only limitation is they must work "under" a physician which means they can't open up their own practice, but not one of the PAs at the hospital I'm at every had to bring in a doctor when dealing with patients.

umm, apparently, you havent worked in the clinical setting very much, and if you have, you sure are naive. and im from cali, and i have thousands of hours in the clinical setting, as a volunteer and as a clinical research associate......anyways, id go to sgu, they do all of their clinical training in jersey and new york, most get residency in the northeast, over a 90% pass rate on step 1 and last years match list showed a crap load of specializations in emergency med, ortho, rad, diag rad, optho, optho and a bunch of gas as well. 3 students even matched into specializations in canada residencys which is damn tough. BUT ID GO OSTEO B4 THE IMG ROUTE. look into it.

 

[GoldShadow]

PAs are doctors in the same way that I am a Starfleet Admiral.

Ensign GoldShadow reporting for duty, Admiral, sir!

 

[a817]

I know this might not be the BEST section for this thread, but it's MD related so I'm going to post here...

What would you do if your GPA/MCAT only allowed you go to a good Caribbean Medical School (Ross, SGU) or a US physicians assistant program?

What you YOU do?

P.S. not that I'm in this situation, it's just I'm currently shadowing at an urgent care center with PAs and MDs and honestly, the PAs are doctors for all practical purposes (besides legally not being able to call themselves doctors)

if you really wanted to be a doctor, you will be depressed in the future by being a PA. you will be working under a doctor, and will be in constant reminder that you are not a doc.

It depends on your gpa/mcat. If you have a shot at osteo school (there ave run like 3.5 26-27 mcat these days) i would do that first over img. I personally had that choice i picked osteo over sgu. You can compare a quality osteo school like nycom, ccom, pcom, dmu (and they are a few more) and see where and what they match into. It is in alot more competitive specialties then IMG match into. SGU seems like they match in strongly but remember they have almost 1000 students graduate per year (400fall, 400 spring, 200 in UK).

your choice in the end

 

[coffeebythelake]

I see you're a pre-med. Have you worked in a hospital or clinical setting?

I'm telling you this is the way it is, in California anyway.

PA- full prescription power. able to see patients.

Only limitation is they must work "under" a physician which means they can't open up their own practice, but not one of the PAs at the hospital I'm at every had to bring in a doctor when dealing with patients.

PAs do not have as much autonomy as you think.

 

[paranoid_eyes]

The most important thing is that you, as a pre-med, know absolutely nothing about medicine

FINALLY.....someone needs to tell some of the idiots in my school...👍

 

[Honze55]

The most important thing is that you, as a pre-med, know absolutely nothing about medicine and I assure you that you will be less impressed with PAs the further along you get in your training.

Consider one of my horrifically complicated patients on my last shift who showed up with Atrial Fibrillation, hepatic failure, and sepsis. If you poked your head into the trauma bay you would have seen a resident doing what needed to be done, piecing it all together, and making sense out of a confused and contradictory history from the family, but looking incredibly bored while doing it and working on a patient who really looks no more threatening than a low-acuity back pain but was, in reality, a ticking time-bomb and the kind that PAs give thanks they don't have to handle.

If you had poked your head in when the patient first arrived you would have seen a sick-looking but unremarkable, patient virtually indistinguishable from somebody showing up for an Emergency cold. Again, you don't know any better.

No great fan of the medical profession am I but the idea that a PA with two years of medical education is the equivalent of a physician with seven to twelve is laughable.

This is very true.

 

[LizzyM]

The biggest difference from the practioner's standpoint is the paycheck. The tasks of the MD and PA in ambulatory care settings are outwardly similar and if you would be satisfied to do the same type of work (histories, physical examinations, ordering and interpretation of diagnostic tests and imaging, sutures, prescriptions, providing information to patients) as the MD for much less money, then go PA. (With the understanding that you finish with less debt and get several years jump on an MD in terms of entering the job market -- so consider the opportunity cost of every additional year in school/training, too).

 

[cableguy]

PAs do not have as much autonomy as you think.

It really depends on the State, specialty, individual practice, and clinical environment. I'm not sure you can accurately make a blanket statement regarding this. Its really variable.

Primary care PAs, especially in rural medicine, have almost complete autonomy. At many HPSA rated medically underserved locations a PA is the only health care provider. A physician may or may not visit a couple of times of year. Other wise, the PA is "supervised" via landline. So in many cases, Honze55's statement that "PAs are doctors for all practical purposes" can be accurate - in terms of SOP.

I've noticed that some on the forum like to point out that this is not true because MD>PA always, based off training time and experience. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. However, I believe that Honze55 meant scope of practice only (In an urgent care environment, there would be NO difference as far as SOP is concerned between a PA and MD/DO). I would hope that any reasonable person and/or Admiral (Starfleet or otherwise) would recognize this. I would say this mostly holds true for all areas of primary care. PAs definitely lose autonomy as they move into specialty areas.

-will

 

[Mobius1985]

What would you do if your GPA/MCAT only allowed you go to a good Caribbean Medical School (Ross, SGU) or a US physicians assistant program?

There is an IMG in our local clinic who was never able to get a US residency after finishing medical school. He returned to the USA, went back to school, and is currently working here as a licensed P.A., earning a P.A.'s salary, though he graduated as an M.D. So getting a P.A. degree could be considered a fall-back position for unmatched IMGs who want to practice in the United States. Imagine carrying the debt for all that education. It might have been better had he elected to get the P.A. degree alone in the first place.