PA Questions

[noapplesleft]

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just graduated high school with a career in PA on my mind, im wondering is pa a good career choice.
Some people say its terrible with working hours like on holidays and being on call while also being extremely stressful which makes me want to run away from it, while others say that it has a good work schedule that can be very flexible with some stress but overall a good career which brings me back to it.

Any pa's here that can share their thoughts on the career like what your family life, daily work, work schedule

 

[pamac]

All the PA's I personally know seem really happy with their work. On message boards like these are pretty much the only places where I've seen the ones that wish they were physicians, or are dissatisfied with the level of professional respect they get. From what I've seen working alongside PA's, they are treated well, have decent work/life balance, enjoyed the fact that they didn't have to sacrifice as much as physicians do during their training, etc. I know of some PA's that work for physicians who drive them hard, but one PA in particular just left to go to a better paying job that that person got because of all the good experience they had working 55 hour weeks for salary for that doctor that paid peanuts.

The only thing I'd be wary of is going into a lot of debt. Unfortunately for my acquaintances who are PA's, most of them have a significant amount of student debt. When I was considering PA school and going to interviews, because it was a difficult process, myself and everyone around me pretty much had our eyes on the prize, which was simply getting into a program. Its difficult to really shop around and go for the best value/cheapest school because you ultimately don't have a lot of control over what school accepts you. When you have an acceptance in hand, you sometimes lose sight of how much it will cost you to go there. Lots of programs are in the $80,000 or above range. I know PA's with $200,000 of debt. Its pretty typical to run into PA's with at least $100,000 in student loans at least. There are reimbursement schemes through the government that you can take advantage of, but even those aren't guaranteed. They often involve being required to work in areas without many medical providers that they government wants to have you assigned to because they have a real need in those places. Those can often be competitive.

Whatever you want to do, really focus on getting good grades. Good grades give you options on what schools you get into, or whether you can go to medical school instead of PA school. Grades are the most important thing to focus on.