Hi, I am looking to apply to PA program, and I need to know which PA programs do not require clinical experiences as a part of the admission portfolio. Can someone shed some light on this issue?
Thanks in advance!
Thanks in advance!
PA program
- Thread starter whattheheck
- Start date
all the ones not worth attending....
prior clinical experience is the foundation of pa school. don't try to short cut around it as that more often results in a substandard graduate who fails boards.....how do you know you even want to work in the field without medical exposure?
having followed the pa forum for several yrs the trend is that all the posts about "I can't pass boards" or "no one will hire me" come from folks who entered the profession without prior experience.
do yourself a favor- invest a few months in a training program like emt, cna, medical asst, etc, work for a yr or so to see if you like medicine at all and then talk about applying. then you will have access to most of the 140 programs out there instead of less than 20.
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Look here on the PA forum:
http://www.physicianassistantforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13564
Around 1/3 of PA programs do not address medical experience in their requirements. For the most part they are in the midwest and northeast. You will probably have better luck with questions about PA programs in the PA forum.
David Carpenter, PA-C
As someone who's nearing the home-stretch of PA school, I have to say that EMed is right. His advice above is what's best for YOU, whattheheck, as well as what's best for the profession in general. I have lots of classmates who did better than I did on the many multiple-choice tests we took last year. Some are pretty young, a few are right out of undergrad, and all are really good students.
But I have the prior experience, and now that I'm in clinicals I really see that I was right to think I'd be okay in the world of practice, even if the world of school is a place I don't feel at home. People who have a tough time putting it all together, who struggle to manage the nuances and the messy conflicts, tend to be people who never worked in the health-care environment before they committed years of their lives and upward of $50k to this project.
Do yourself a favor and don't short-cut something so important as this.
But I have the prior experience, and now that I'm in clinicals I really see that I was right to think I'd be okay in the world of practice, even if the world of school is a place I don't feel at home. People who have a tough time putting it all together, who struggle to manage the nuances and the messy conflicts, tend to be people who never worked in the health-care environment before they committed years of their lives and upward of $50k to this project.
Do yourself a favor and don't short-cut something so important as this.
emedpa - has given you wise info... I was originally looking at the PA programs for those with no HCE... however after time I found that I desire the slow route to acclimate myself with useful experience and will then be qualified / experienced for a better program. You need to check out physicianassistant forum... google it for tons of great info.
You can become a CNA or EMT-B in as little as 2 weeks (CNA) and a bit more for EMT-B. CNA positions are easy to find in hospitals and nursing homes. You can work full time or part time. Taking even that one extra year to get that hands on healthcar experience will be more than worth it.
Go into the military as a corpsman, get experience while getting paid, then use the G.I. Bill to pay for your schooling.
there are plenty of ways of getting paid experience that don't require getting shot at and plenty of ways of getting your education paid for(national health corps scholarships, state scholarships, etc).
Here is the otherside of the coin and from a different view point, I am graduating in PA school in 2 weeks. I went to a school that required very little clinical experience because well I didn't have much. However, I didn't need 2000+ hours/year+ "health care" experience to figure out that I wanted to be a clinician. I did very well academically, did very well clinically and have no doubt I will be passing the boards in a few weeks when I take them. I already have a job. In other words it all worked out just fine, PA school teaches you what you need to know. I see no difference in my class between those with and those w/o experience.
Would years of clinical experience been beneficial, absolutely. However, after spending a year on rotations I am not really sure how a year as a CNA or a medical assistant would make me a better PA if I had to do it again and how that would help me a get a job if I had.
There is no reason you need to delay your life instead of starting school and just doing it and if it is something you want to do.
MWPA
Would years of clinical experience been beneficial, absolutely. However, after spending a year on rotations I am not really sure how a year as a CNA or a medical assistant would make me a better PA if I had to do it again and how that would help me a get a job if I had.
There is no reason you need to delay your life instead of starting school and just doing it and if it is something you want to do.
MWPA
while this may be true for primary care there is a strong association in the specialties(especially em and surgery) with those with prior experience getting the best jobs with the most pay and broadest scope of practice.
trust me, as someone who has trained, evaluated, hired, and overseen pa's in practice for many years, there is a significant difference in initial quality between a pa with significant prior experience(medic, rn, rt, etc) and one without. granted 1 yr as a cna probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference but many quality programs will not even consider this as significant experience either in quality or quantity.
the major difference is seen in the ability to "hit the ground running" vs being a drain on a practice for the first 1-2 yrs as you get up to speed.
trust me, as someone who has trained, evaluated, hired, and overseen pa's in practice for many years, there is a significant difference in initial quality between a pa with significant prior experience(medic, rn, rt, etc) and one without. granted 1 yr as a cna probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference but many quality programs will not even consider this as significant experience either in quality or quantity.
the major difference is seen in the ability to "hit the ground running" vs being a drain on a practice for the first 1-2 yrs as you get up to speed.
I don't disagree with you EMEDPA that having a strong clinical background would make you more attractive candidate for a position as a new graduate. But you don't already have that on your resume and you have made the choice you want to me a clinician (not nurse, emt, medic ect), realistically it doesn't make sense to spend many years at those jobs then go to PA school. When you could just go to PA school, become a PA and spend those same years as PA learning on the job which to me would be a better of use of that time and ulitimately make you a better PA not to mention the income. Yes you may not graduate and get the perfect job, though from what I have seen in the market most attractive jobs require 1-2+ years experience as PA to get those jobs, reinforcing my point. There are plenty of good jobs out there though so I don't see any real issue of not getting a job or even saying you would get a bad job, because I don't think that is the case. From my experience with recent graduates from my program, they are working in emed, ortho, surgery, basically everything, I am not saying this to contradict you EMEDPA I respect and understand where you are comming from.
FYI-some of the better jobs out there will waive an experience requirement for a new grad with relevant experience and start them at a higher pay grade.
for instance I applied for an em position right out of school along with many others both with and without experience. I was the only new grad interviewed and when I was hired they started me at step 5 on a 10 step pay scale due to prior experience when any new grad without experience would have started at step 1. this meant an extra $12k/yr to start so I started at 75k instead of the going rate at the time of 63k. I don't work there anymore but that job now pays around 130k.
a few new grads with experience over at the pa forum(www.physicianassistantforum.com) have landed jobs right out of school that I would love to have right now in small rural departments with high acuity and high levels of autonomy.
an er nurse I work with just graduated from medex/uwa and got a highly sought after trauma/critical care job right out of school and was the only new grad interviewed for this position.
if someone is looking at a "long view" to becoming a pa as opposed to learning about the profession as a junior in college it really makes sense to get some relevant experience at a high level, including other certifications(rn, medic, rt, etc) so that you know you like health care and have a skill for it before you sink 60k into your education and also to familiarize yourself with the concepts, language, and traditions of medical practice. when I learned about the pa profession over 20 yrs ago they only took those with significant experience. I was working as an emt/er tech starting at age 18 through college and during the summers. I was told to become a medic or rn in order to be able to apply to pa school so I went right into a medic program after graduating from college and worked all over the country as a medic for a few yrs. that was sound advice then and now.
yes, you can do the very minimum and get into pa school and probably pass the boards but you will be a better practitioner in the long run if you go the slow and steady approach.
no offense to mwpa who I'm sure will be a fine provider, but if starting from scratch consider the experience route.
for instance I applied for an em position right out of school along with many others both with and without experience. I was the only new grad interviewed and when I was hired they started me at step 5 on a 10 step pay scale due to prior experience when any new grad without experience would have started at step 1. this meant an extra $12k/yr to start so I started at 75k instead of the going rate at the time of 63k. I don't work there anymore but that job now pays around 130k.
a few new grads with experience over at the pa forum(www.physicianassistantforum.com) have landed jobs right out of school that I would love to have right now in small rural departments with high acuity and high levels of autonomy.
an er nurse I work with just graduated from medex/uwa and got a highly sought after trauma/critical care job right out of school and was the only new grad interviewed for this position.
if someone is looking at a "long view" to becoming a pa as opposed to learning about the profession as a junior in college it really makes sense to get some relevant experience at a high level, including other certifications(rn, medic, rt, etc) so that you know you like health care and have a skill for it before you sink 60k into your education and also to familiarize yourself with the concepts, language, and traditions of medical practice. when I learned about the pa profession over 20 yrs ago they only took those with significant experience. I was working as an emt/er tech starting at age 18 through college and during the summers. I was told to become a medic or rn in order to be able to apply to pa school so I went right into a medic program after graduating from college and worked all over the country as a medic for a few yrs. that was sound advice then and now.
yes, you can do the very minimum and get into pa school and probably pass the boards but you will be a better practitioner in the long run if you go the slow and steady approach.
no offense to mwpa who I'm sure will be a fine provider, but if starting from scratch consider the experience route.
I'll just point out that this is a regional view. There have been PA programs accepting PA students almost as long as their have been PA programs. There is a strong regional variation. If you are on the west coast the expectation is for the most part that the student has medical experience. If you are in the NE then most students will graduate from programs that do not require prior medical experience. There is no study that shows a difference in any measurable variable between students with or without prior medical experience. A good PA is a good PA. How they got there is irrelevant.
David Carpenter, PA-C
I went to an east coast school(hahnemann) and the expectation was that folks have prior experience...the 2 students in our program(out of eighty) with min experience( a phlebotomist and a medical asst) both graduated but never passed their boards.....
true, there has never been a study regarding pa outcomes, there is only the experience of (many) folks who hire and work with pa's and this experience says prior hce matters.....
with the transition to an ms format some programs have deemphasized this importance but historically the early programs and many of today's better programs still value experience....