Practicing PAs - professional satisfaction?

[mrdespair]

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Hi everyone,

I am a premed currently considering switching to PA. I am non-trad, and I feel that PA could give me the opportunity to do clinical work but also have time for other things in life. I plan on going into primary care regardless of MD or PA. I am relatively recently married, and financially, this would also be a lot less burdensome.

I have heard some stories of MD regret, MD satisfaction, PA regret... But I have yet to hear from PAs who are currently satisfied with their choice in profession.

If you are a practicing PA and are happy with what you do, would you mind telling me a bit about it? I would really love to hear about your experience.

Thank you very much for your help!

 

[deleted6669]

I've been a PA for almost 20 years. I like my job now, but did not for much of the first 10-15 years. it took moving into solo coverage jobs in rural departments for me to reach the level of autonomy and scope of practice I wanted right out of school. If you want to do primary care you can be very happy as a PA. harder to do in specialties without a residency or many years in practice. see www.physicianassistantforum.com for more info on pas at this forum with over 20,000 members.
In retrospect if I had to do this over again I would have gone to medschool.