Did your experience as a PA help you (or hurt you) in getting into med school?
Pa To Do
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same class as babyruth and I agree. The PA's, especially ones with clinical experience, did awesome in things like Pharm and Physical Diagnosis......
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I did very well in my first two years. I was a PA before medical school. The second two years are even easier. The PA boards are almost identical to step 2. DO schools like that I had the experience. MD schools actually told me to forget I was a PA when I get there. That proved nothing but arrogance and stupidity because it helped me more than I ever imagined. People like to feel that they are not expendible but we all are. To answer your question... it may help a little to get you in, but will help tremendously once there.
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PA for 3 years prior to going back to med school. I will Graduate this year. PA school and experience as a PA will definately help, however, what kind of student you were in PA school will probably be the kind of student you will be in medical school. The best approach to medical school would be to expand upon what you have already learned, rather than "coast" through. I actually know of someone who took the coasting approach and has not done well...actually failed boards. good luck.
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coasting works really well in high school...will get you by in college and will kill you in medical school...
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i have h eard that do schools look at pa's beter than allo's as well. i wonder why that is? i'm planning on making the transition in the next few years (i'm still a pa student, grad in a few months but made the realization about a year ago and decided to finish my pa degree). i'm not sure which path myself. it comes down to location preference for me mostly. i'm trying to learn about individual schools mroe than anything. anyone know if there are specific schools that are mroe pa friendly admissions?
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I haven't been in that situation myself, but I think LECOM's independent study program has accepted a lot of PAs (and PTs for that matter). We had both in the ISP program while i was there.
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I'm a first year DO and practiced as a PA for 3 years prior. Definitely helped with the DO schools, allo schools didn't care, even though my PA grades were top of the class and all A's, allo schools wouldn't look past the fact that my undergrad grades were a 3.1 nearly 10 years ago.
I would say that for all the basic science courses I had a little more work to do than those fresh coming out of UG with a biology/chemistry/ etc degree. However with the courses more clinically based, I feel like I have an advantage, and rotations should be easier, since I've done all of that stuff million times before as well.
Don't forget this is medical school. There are a lot of very bright people here in school, it's the cream of the crop DO or MD. I work my butt off to get good grades and put in the time necessary to do the best I can do. I work way harder than I did in PA school because there is so much more information to digest.
I would say that for all the basic science courses I had a little more work to do than those fresh coming out of UG with a biology/chemistry/ etc degree. However with the courses more clinically based, I feel like I have an advantage, and rotations should be easier, since I've done all of that stuff million times before as well.
Don't forget this is medical school. There are a lot of very bright people here in school, it's the cream of the crop DO or MD. I work my butt off to get good grades and put in the time necessary to do the best I can do. I work way harder than I did in PA school because there is so much more information to digest.
I am a fist year NYCOM student. I graduated first in my class in PA school. Being a PA helps you to get in. You just have to sell yourself really well and believe that you are worth it!!! I worked for almost four years before getting into med school. The PA education as well as work experience definitely help. What was amazing when I got to my first day of med school was to meet two more people from my PA program in the same class as me. I am close to the end of my first year. I surrounded myself with friends. We study together. I was actually talking with friends a lot about how they perceive the material that we are learning. I believe that without my past life as a PA all of med school stuff would sound like a scientific mambo-jumbo to me. It is still difficult stuff but it's not foreign for me. So, being a PA does help a great deal. You still need to bust you behind but it's worth it. Another thing is that while I was a PA, I always looked at the root of the disease. I tried to understand the biochemical and molecular nature of illnesses I dealt with. So now in med school I am expanding on this. It's like learning a foreign language for a while and finally going to live in a country where the language is native. I have most of the things in my head and now I am sorting them out. That's my take on being a PA before med school.
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Well, I sat back so that I could read your great replies before posting my own. All the advice above is spot-on!! Good job fellow PA's!! I graduated in 1998 from PA school with my BSPA (of course they converted to MSPA the next year). I was 3rd in my class. I practiced for 4 full time years in family medicine and urgent care before going to medical school (DO). I was accepted to one MD school and one DO school and applied to about 10. I actually had stellar undergrad grades and had even done the U. Neb MPAS program with a 4.0 GPA in my last full time practice year to bring my GPA up with grad school numbers (we all know how rigorous that program is....LOL).
My problem was because my PA school had been started right as I left the Navy as a corpsman (I barely had 60 hours to get in), I had not taken organic or physics. So I took the MCAT minus this knowledge thinking I could wing it. I scored a 23, which is obviously not good, but I tried to sell the fact that I had just started Ochem and Physics after the summer MCAT (had all year to take them while working full time, but wanted the summer MCAT to get in under the wire for Fall applications). It paid off because some schools looked past the score. I assured each school I attended that I would be top 10% regardles. 2 believed me.
I liked the people at my state DO school the best and the MD school required changing cities after the 2nd year. I was not up for that. So I chose the DO route and it was quite a good move. I graduated 2nd in my med school class and scored 99th percentile on all boards both USMLE and COMLEX. I am doing my emergency medicine residency at a large allopathic academic center and no one ever questions my ability as a DO. The center is crawling with DO's as this state has one DO school and one MD school. I just took my inservice exam as an intern and fully expect to have scored better than most of the nation's 3rd year EM residents.
Being a PA has helped me move mountains that would have been much harder to move without the experience. It was mostly about knowing what type of test questions they were going to ask. The real key though is if you were only a mediocre PA student, you will likely only be a mediocre medical student. I have seen several PA's barely get by in medical school. The competition in medical school is freaking insane!! These young kids 8 years my junior were basically having study marathons every week while I was working half time and studying 1/3 to 1/2 has much. I don't know how they did it. If I had to do medical school in that fashion I would have freaking quit for sure. My road was the long and lazy road and I am quite content having taken it.
I am hoping to do a research project where I track (retrospectively) the progress and path of several dozen PA's who go through medical school. I would hope to gather enough good info to present to med school admission committees in hopes that they would allow PA's to have an easier admission process. At this time I am not trying to persuade anyone that there should be an easier pathway for PA's because quite frankly I am not certain it would work well. You need all of 4th year to take a breather and focus on the residency hunt, while you need the first year for all the basic sciences. You need the 2nd year for all the path that most PA schools lack (like reading Robbins cover to cover). 3rd year is the only year I see they could do away with but with the inconsistent nature of PA school clinicals would likely preclude that.
One big part of the project would be to compare the PANCE exam scores with the USMLE scores or COMLEX scores to give a predicted measure of how a PA would do in medical school. To me eliminating the MCAT for PA's transitioning into med school would remove the biggest obstacle hanging over a PA's head.
Anyone want to help out? PM me and we can make this work.
My problem was because my PA school had been started right as I left the Navy as a corpsman (I barely had 60 hours to get in), I had not taken organic or physics. So I took the MCAT minus this knowledge thinking I could wing it. I scored a 23, which is obviously not good, but I tried to sell the fact that I had just started Ochem and Physics after the summer MCAT (had all year to take them while working full time, but wanted the summer MCAT to get in under the wire for Fall applications). It paid off because some schools looked past the score. I assured each school I attended that I would be top 10% regardles. 2 believed me.
I liked the people at my state DO school the best and the MD school required changing cities after the 2nd year. I was not up for that. So I chose the DO route and it was quite a good move. I graduated 2nd in my med school class and scored 99th percentile on all boards both USMLE and COMLEX. I am doing my emergency medicine residency at a large allopathic academic center and no one ever questions my ability as a DO. The center is crawling with DO's as this state has one DO school and one MD school. I just took my inservice exam as an intern and fully expect to have scored better than most of the nation's 3rd year EM residents.
Being a PA has helped me move mountains that would have been much harder to move without the experience. It was mostly about knowing what type of test questions they were going to ask. The real key though is if you were only a mediocre PA student, you will likely only be a mediocre medical student. I have seen several PA's barely get by in medical school. The competition in medical school is freaking insane!! These young kids 8 years my junior were basically having study marathons every week while I was working half time and studying 1/3 to 1/2 has much. I don't know how they did it. If I had to do medical school in that fashion I would have freaking quit for sure. My road was the long and lazy road and I am quite content having taken it.
I am hoping to do a research project where I track (retrospectively) the progress and path of several dozen PA's who go through medical school. I would hope to gather enough good info to present to med school admission committees in hopes that they would allow PA's to have an easier admission process. At this time I am not trying to persuade anyone that there should be an easier pathway for PA's because quite frankly I am not certain it would work well. You need all of 4th year to take a breather and focus on the residency hunt, while you need the first year for all the basic sciences. You need the 2nd year for all the path that most PA schools lack (like reading Robbins cover to cover). 3rd year is the only year I see they could do away with but with the inconsistent nature of PA school clinicals would likely preclude that.
One big part of the project would be to compare the PANCE exam scores with the USMLE scores or COMLEX scores to give a predicted measure of how a PA would do in medical school. To me eliminating the MCAT for PA's transitioning into med school would remove the biggest obstacle hanging over a PA's head.
Anyone want to help out? PM me and we can make this work.
