Future in Pathologist Assistant?

[grad4ever]

I've read a few threads about it, some saying the job outlook is great, some saying it's getting tight, others saying it's getting saturated like Pharm(?!). The threads are all a few years old, and I don't want to necro them. Has the job prospect of PA changed in the past few years, or is it still a viable career option?

And are PA schools receptive to career changer? I'm coming from a biostatistics background.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[coroner]

We had some PA students rotating thru my program when I finished training a few years ago so that's as far as my exposure goes. From what they told me, the job prospects were sound. All of their classmates had jobs lined up well before graduating and didn't have much difficulty finding them from what I remember. Certainly a better market than it was for pathologists... It's a great career option imo: less than half the educational debt of an M.D., begin working at 26 if you go straight thru school, and between 80-100K+/yr. Very similar to Physician Assistants or Nurse Practioners minus the pt. contact, chartwork, etc. We even had one of our former histotechs, get accepted into PA (Pathology Assistant) school in her late 30's which I think was a smart move. Her background in histology would be a huge plus to get accepted. Don't know what impact, if any a biostats background would have.

 

[grad4ever]

We had some PA students rotating thru my program when I finished training a few years ago so that's as far as my exposure goes. From what they told me, the job prospects were sound. All of their classmates had jobs lined up well before graduating and didn't have much difficulty finding them from what I remember. Certainly a better market than it was for pathologists... It's a great career option imo: less than half the educational debt of an M.D., begin working at 26 if you go straight thru school, and between 80-100K+/yr. Very similar to Physician Assistants or Nurse Practioners minus the pt. contact, chartwork, etc. We even had one of our former histotechs, get accepted into PA (Pathology Assistant) school in her late 30's which I think was a smart move. Her background in histology would be a huge plus to get accepted. Don't know what impact, if any a biostats background would have.

Thanks for your insight! I've been trying to find more information online since there seems to be few PA's around where I live. They also don't seem to have a centralized application system, so I've got no idea if my GPA will be competitive for most schools.

 

[wholeheartedly]

I don't know much about job prospects, but it is an under the radar field that not a lot of people know about, so that tends to help prevent a surplus.

My bigger concern than you being a career changer is that you seem to be shot gunning all over the place for a career path posting here, pre osteo, pre pod, physician assistant. What is it you enjoy doing? what are you thinking for in a career? how much exposure have you had to these fields you're looking at? there are a boatload of other careers in healthcare, some of which might better fit your interests/skills if you give us some info on that.