Need help deciding with career path

[angelasmith]

After figuring out that optometry or medical school would be too long for me and would not provide me with work flexibility I'd like, I'm trying to weight PA or NP options. What id like to do is have interesting work and work no more than 3 days a week. Once I come home, I'd like to be perfectly disconnected from my job. I'm a cpa working for a very demanding clients and literally sometimes I feel like I never stop thinking about deadlines, demands etc. not to mention I work late every day and weekends and I don't think I'd enjoy 8-5 regular boring accg job.

I'm more leaning toward PA option, but first I'd need to get prereqs done and get direct paid healthcare experience but it still seems faster than going NP route and I don't think I'd enjoy being an RN for a year or so.

What do you guys think? Would PA provide me an option to work no more than 3 days a week? Will I be treated bad by doctors and patients all the time? I've always been interested in medicine and science aspect of it, not sure how the real life experience is going to be. Any feedback is highly appreciated.


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[precisiongraphic]

I think if you're doing it from zero (e.g. not an RN yet) then the PA route can be faster/better and as you said you don't have the uncertainty of being an RN yet. But you have to have medical experience which is a detour. I'm not sure about the three day a week request but I think a lot of CNRAs, NPs and PAs work 3-12s or 4-10s so that shouldn't be a problem. The other thing with PA is that you may have to move for school.

There are NP programs that bypass the RN work period entirely though. Vanderbilt has a good program, University of South Alabama, St. Louis University, Boston College, MGH Institute all have programs that take Bachelor's degree holders with prerequisites and get them out with an MSN/NP in 21-24 months and there are many more programs that I haven't listed. These are competitive programs but prepare students very well.

Another thing is that experienced PAs here have said that PA is better for some specialties in some areas. @emedpa is one who has a lot of experience maybe he'll weigh in. For example NPs don't do a lot of surgeries but PAs do. So it would help if you knew what area of the county and what specialty that might make a difference.

 

[angelasmith]

Thank you for the feedback, decisions, decisions. Sometimes it feels after reading all the forums about nursing and PA jobs, the grass is not always greener...


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[deleted6669]

see www.physicianassistantforum.com for more info on the pa profession, specialties, schools, etc.