Healthcare experience for PA school, need advice

[harkkam]

Hi guys, I'm sure this topic has been asked before but I couldn't find the answer to my particular question. I'm thinking about going to PA school. I work in finance and I'm not happy.

A little bit about me:
Age: 28
Gpa: 3.2
SGPA: 3.3
Still missing about 4 classes from pre-reqs.

I have about 250 hours of volunteer experience in the ER and I know this isn't enough.

I was thinking of doing an ekg/phlebotomy certificate since it takes only 6 weeks to complete.

My problem is that I couldn't find any entry level jobs for an ekg technician without experience required. There also didn't seem to be many jobs online to begin with. I couldn't find too many jobs as an EMT either.

What I'm looking for is a certificate I can take quickly and where there are jobs available because in the end I don't want to take a certificate and not be able to find a job to get those all important hce hours.

The only solution I came up with was medical assistant. The problem is that the program is six months long but there seem to be quite a few jobs available

Does anyone have suggestions for hce for me?

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[deleted6669]

CNA (nursing assistant). 2 week(80 hr) class. lots of job openings.

 

[harkkam]

I really don't want to be a CNA to be honest I looked at what the daily responsibilities are and it's mostly poop duty work. I wanted more medical interaction.

 

[deleted6669]

If you don't want CNA then EMT or medical assistant are your best bet.

 

[CuriousDrifter]

Hi guys, I'm sure this topic has been asked before but I couldn't find the answer to my particular question. I'm thinking about going to PA school. I work in finance and I'm not happy.

A little bit about me:
Age: 28
Gpa: 3.2
SGPA: 3.3
Still missing about 4 classes from pre-reqs.

I have about 250 hours of volunteer experience in the ER and I know this isn't enough.

I was thinking of doing an ekg/phlebotomy certificate since it takes only 6 weeks to complete.

My problem is that I couldn't find any entry level jobs for an ekg technician without experience required. There also didn't seem to be many jobs online to begin with. I couldn't find too many jobs as an EMT either.

What I'm looking for is a certificate I can take quickly and where there are jobs available because in the end I don't want to take a certificate and not be able to find a job to get those all important hce hours.

The only solution I came up with was medical assistant. The problem is that the program is six months long but there seem to be quite a few jobs available

Does anyone have suggestions for hce for me?

I would avoid going the MA route, it's expensive and imo not worth it if you're simply trying to rack up some HCE to get into PA school.
I would say go CNA. You want to find a job that is going to give you an good amount of DIRECT patient interaction....being a CNA ranks up there. You don't necessarily have to work in LTCFs...I got my CNA cert and I got a job working at a GI clinic (I still work around poop lol, but it is not too bad!). I get a lot of patient interaction when prepping the patients for their procedures and during recovery. If you get picked up by a hospital or clinic you'll get on the job training and you'll get to do more things than a typical CNA working at a nursing home. For all intents and purposes, I function as an MA both in clinical and administrative duties.

I'm currently taking an EMT-Basic course, but this is for volunteer purposes. I'd say go EMT-B if you're looking to volunteer at a rescue squad or want to pursue being/working as a paramedic......trying to find a job as a EMT-B (with no healthcare experience) can prove to be difficult.

 

[oldiebutgoodie]

I would suggest the CNA route. Yes, you will see poop (a natural body function, by the way), and be up close and personal with patients' bodies. But that is the advantage. You will see up close what various disease processes can do to a patient's body. Another HUGE advantage is that you will learn the culture and politics of the hospital (where I suggest you do your CNA work). You will learn how the docs treat the patients, how the nurses treat patients and health care providers, what to say and do, etc. You will have a lot more street cred if you have actually done the dirty work. I recently witnessed a very well dressed PA waltz into a room and ask that the nurses turn the 400 lb patient (who was paralyzed) so she could see his butt, right after he had just been turned (took 3 people) to clean him up. Being a CNA will give you other perspectives. It's not just about the poop.

 

[pamac]

The providers everyone respects are the ones that aren't afraid to get their hands dirty. Nobody expects a doc with a suit on who is seeing a patient during clinic time to delve in and get feces or fluids on their nice threads, but even other docs make fun of the providers who are pansies. As a nurse, I'm the first one to do my best to keep a provider from getting barfed on. But if you think you are too good for messy work, you probably aren't. You might need to be a CNA more than anything else. Besides, you have no skills to do something you think is more appropriate for you.

The cna's who help me only work "poop duty" on occasion. The ones that are planning to go on to become RNs and PAs get great exposure, and I do a lot to get them in to see cool things. When a PA is in to round or do something, I try to pass along that a certain aid is thinking about PA school, and help network them. One aid got to shadow and get a recommendation from a PA like that (which is more than they would have got on their own because a lot of practices here have disallowed shadowing requests from all the undergrads they don't know, since requests have gotten out of hand). That particular aid will get into PA school because of things like that, as well as have great things to put on an admissions essay, whereas any PA wannabe that does something less in depth will have to struggle to stand out. But "oh no!... Poop duty!". Lol. You don't get it. Go write a compelling essay about an EKG you did while my CNA friend talks about the terminally ill patient they took care of for a week. The PA they WORKED with on that patient (that happens to be writing their recommendation letter) will also have compelling things to say.

 

[futurebsn18]

Check on craigslist. It sounds sketchy but I have many friends who have gotten medical assistant jobs without previous experience from responding to doctors offices' posts. They work in dermatology and rheumatology. It seems there is a new trend where offices are hiring the college grads to work a year or two before going on to grad school, instead of those who went to medical assistant school after high school. I recommend checking it out!

Hi guys, I'm sure this topic has been asked before but I couldn't find the answer to my particular question. I'm thinking about going to PA school. I work in finance and I'm not happy.

A little bit about me:
Age: 28
Gpa: 3.2
SGPA: 3.3
Still missing about 4 classes from pre-reqs.

I have about 250 hours of volunteer experience in the ER and I know this isn't enough.

I was thinking of doing an ekg/phlebotomy certificate since it takes only 6 weeks to complete.

My problem is that I couldn't find any entry level jobs for an ekg technician without experience required. There also didn't seem to be many jobs online to begin with. I couldn't find too many jobs as an EMT either.

What I'm looking for is a certificate I can take quickly and where there are jobs available because in the end I don't want to take a certificate and not be able to find a job to get those all important hce hours.

The only solution I came up with was medical assistant. The problem is that the program is six months long but there seem to be quite a few jobs available

Does anyone have suggestions for hce for me?

 

[hughesn2]

CNA route. If you want to weigh out the options it is this:
CNA: Crappy jobs, low paid, may be midnight shifts, CHEAPER and shorter certification class, Lots of job oppurtunities
EMT: Sounds like a fun job, Could be midnight shifts, not that many job opportunities, Still not that great of pay
MA: More hands on experience, Higher pay, Not that many job opportunities as compared to CNA, Expensive and long certification class.

If your goal is to get into PA school in the next year with some good HCE then go down the CNA route. Yeah you will most likely work at a nursing home unless you know someone high up at a hospital, but all you should care about is getting the HOURS of experience, which is what the schools care about.

A good idea could be to have a backup plan as a paramedic. Go through that course and if you don't get into PA school you have a decent job in being a paramedic. Again, sometimes the pay varies from certain places. I know one firefighter that is a family friend who tried to recruit me to become a paramedic when he learned I was going into healthcare and he was telling me about the pay, but then I asked him how the pay was in other cities and it wasn't even close to what the city this guy worked for. You could go to one city where it is a $40K salary and then one 5 miles away it is a $60K salary.

I was a CNA at a nursing home for midnight shifts as my first "job" after graduating college back in December and I was there for 2 months and I started looking for new jobs. It was the midnight shift and the place was very nice looking, but the issue was that the RNs were all lazy and the only thing they did during the night was give out a pill to someone every hour while I had a call light going off every 10 minutes and most of them were bed wetters. Yeah it sucked and I realized that since I no longer wanted to go down the PA route I looked for a job in a lab. I was offered a job at a major hospital as a nurse aide for midnights (again) and I turned them down because of the hours. Really, if you were offered any shift it would go in order for me: Morning (7am-3pm), Midnight (11pm-7am), Day (3-11pm). I would never take a day shift for my regular shift. The worst thing about the nursing home I worked at was that they only scheduled enough people to get to the maximum patients allowed per CNA, but literally every other shift someone called in sick so the laws that say you were max allowed 15 patients per CNA for midnight shifts turned into 20 patients per CNA and then they said they were allowed to give you 22 patients because parts of the facility was a "rehab" facility even though you were working in the nursing home part of the building. I hated it because when a nurse asked for my help I had to drop everything and help them, but when I needed help and had 7 call lights going off and they were sitting on their butt for the last three hours doing nothing they would refuse to help me. The nurses you will be working aside of are not the one's with BSNs but rather an Associates Degree and really hate their life because nobody rejects an RN job at a hospital to go to a nursing home. The joke of what I hear from nurses at hospitals is that if you become an RN at a nursing home it pretty much is saying that your career is at its lowest point.

 

[pamac]

That might be true of nursing home positions not being desire able for RNs, but I do know some RNs that make pretty good money at those. Benefits are low, but cash seems to flow somewhat freely. But I have no desire whatsoever to go to that environment.