Should I do PA or Nurse Practioner?

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RB_Dez

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Hello, this is my first post and I am new here, so what's up lol.


I just graduated highschool, and I want to become a PA like my dad. I am going to major in Biology, and getting all my prerequisites for the PA school I want to attend that my dad attended. But I was researching stuff about PA school's, and I noticed I needed alot of HCE to be accepted to most schools. My dad did not become a PA until he was like 35 ( he used to be a teacher), and now I am in a pickle. He told me alot of the students in his class where also in thier mid-to-late 20's with bunch of experience in the health field. How would I stand a chance freshly graduating college applying to med school with very little hours in HCE vs older people?

I know that NP and PA's are pretty much the same in the sense that they both get paid equally and nearly do similar work. Should I just major in nursing, and work as an RN for a while, then apply to become a Nurse Practioner? I think it's a better route since I can find more highly paid jobs as an RN, then a biology major before PA school.



thanks for the advice/help

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Go to PA school. The only reason to do NP is because you're a nurse already or you like the NP educational system. You can acquire HCE over the 4 years of college it's definitely possible. Many people are accepted into PA programs that are fresh graduates. I was accepted into NYIT PA program prior to graduation. Your dad was probably part of the tradition era of PAs. Correct me if im wrong but I think the PAs entry age was much older back then because the PA profession was for people who were paramedic or army medics for X number of years and decided they want to advance their education but didn't want to attend medical school. Back then all the young people went to medical school. However, I believe times have change and now its more common for fresh graduates to attend PA school.

Volunteer over the summers for HCE and by the end of your junior year you'll should have 1000+ i mean that's just 333hr per year.

I dont know if you know how hard RNs have to work and the tasks they have to complete on a daily basis. Personally I would not enjoy doing the work RNs do. It is true that you won't find work with a BS in biology but you wouldn't need to as long as you get accepted into a PA program before graduation.

Hello, this is my first post and I am new here, so what's up lol. How would I stand a chance freshly graduating college applying to med school with very little hours in HCE vs older people?
Also med school is not PA school. two completely different institutions. Med school produce medical doctors.
 
^ haha thanks I meant PA school, it was typo my bad.


My dad barely graduated from PA school about 7-8 years ago haha so I think it's pretty much the same now. I just don't want to be left out of PA School because I will be an inexperienced college graduate. According to Duke's PA Program, less than 5% of accepted individuals in their PA Program were college seniors. I think working as an RN then becoming a NP will be a better route than working lower waged jobs to gain experience for PA school.
 
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Duke's PA program is also rank 7 nationally in 2015. That's similar to a premed student saying I don't think i wanna go to medical school anymore because Harvard Medical School's average GPA of accepted students is 3.8 and the average MCAT score is 38.

The average age for most schools ive research is around 27.

I just don't want to be left out of PA School because I will be an inexperienced college graduate
If a PA school accepts you its because they believe you have what it takes to go through their rigorous program regardless of your experience. They wouldn't have accepted you in the first place if they don't believe you're experienced enough.

Again you can gain experience during undergrad. I volunteered for part of my junior year because I was so lazy and unprepared during my freshmen and sophomore year. You might not get into the best of the best but what's wrong with mid tier institutions?

Anyways best of luck to whatever you decide. You're still young. All you got is time.
 
If you say the average age for PA School is 27, what am I supposed to do during those 4-5 years after I finish college? Wouldn't it be better working as an RN getting paid ~60k a year then going to NP?

thanks for the advice so far man
 
Just because thats the average age doesn't mean you have to follow it. The average age of life expectancy is 71 but that doesn't mean you're gonna kill yourself at age 71 but it doesnt mean you're gonna live to age 71 either lol. Work hard... nvm just work DECENT during undergrad and you'll get into a PA program by the fall semester of senior year as long as you apply during the summer after junior year. If you want to take a couple gap years then yes, go RN. Gap years isnt required to enter PA school and they won't reject you cause you're a 21 year old applicant.
 
So as long as I have a high GPA, and some HCE coming out of college, I should be somewhat competetive against older individuals who has way more HCE?
 
If you can get a 3.8+ GPA in any major and a 3.8+ sGPA and lets say 1000 hours of HCE by volunteer or whatever, youll get in with a high chance if you apply wisely. Duke is probably out of the picture along with seattle's program and others on that level. PA schools' HCE requirement ranges from 0 to 3000. Research them and apply wisely. I personally think programs now value GPA over HCE.
 
If you aren't already an RN I would go PA because it is more direct and there are less hoops to jump through education wise. As for skills I really don't notice a difference between the two at work, both seem to be on the same level after a few years.

PAs in my area dominate: ED, ortho, UC, general surgery and GI
NPs in my area dominate: hospitalist, ICU, palliative, OB, Peds. FP
 
It sounds to me like you're not certain which role you want. I think becoming an RN or RT could be a good idea, that way you can make some cash and spend some time figuring out what it is you actually want to do. Or just go to PA school. PA/NP are both great career options, so you can't really go wrong.
 
So you're 18 right?

Medicine is fun. It's exciting! Filled with challenge and intrigue. Disasters lurking around every corner, waiting to spring fourth from the depths and claim some poor souls life at any moment. There's drama, and laughs, tears of both sadness and joy. You'll go home at the end of the day feeling as if you've tipped the scales of the universe just ever so slightly more in the "We're gonna be okay" direction.

Oh yeah, medicine is also awful. It's boring. Repetitive. Filled with bull**** paperwork, bull**** bosses, and bull**** patients. Patients who can't wait to sue you and ruin your life. Long absolutely soul-crushing hours that make your back hurt and your knees ache. Tons of futile care, purposefully wasting millions of dollars to keep some skeleton alive and all you can say to the family is "Yes sir/ma'am we're trying our best!". It will upset you, make you bitter and jaded, and some days you'll go home at the end of the day and just wish the world would burn behind you.

Point being...are you sure medicine is what you want to do? Medicine is extremely challenging on a personal, professional, and academic level. You have to want it. But you've never worked a day in a hospital, and no, listening to your dad's stories and/or shadowing/volunteering in a hospital doesn't hardly count if at all.

What I mean is, medicine can be either the best or the worst thing to ever happen to you. Don't go planning the rest of your career right now. And for god's sake definitely don't go to nursing school if you don't want to be a nurse!

You're 18. You've got plenty of time. I'm 7 years older than you and I've been in the medical field for 7 years and I'm still going to school and figuring it out as I go along!

Go to school. Get good grades. Volunteer. Explore your options, live your life, and explore yourself. PA or NP school? RN or not? Volunteer or something else? Don't trip about any of that right now. Trust me, you'll find that as long as you keep an open mind these questions all tend to answer themselves eventually.
 
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Grades will be the key to success. Don't expect to get anywhere without good marks, because the competition is so high. You won't have a chance otherwise. I'd suggest going to PA school. You ace your classes and do some token volunteering, you'll get into the lions share of the PA programs out there. There are still about 1/4 of the PA programs out there that require a modest amount of experience, but even they require excellent grades, so there's becoming no fallback for struggling through school. And expect things to get worse when the next economic downturn hits, because people will flood back to trying to break into the "safe" career sectors. Folks around your age who saw the grown ups around them struggle with the job market over the last few years, and never had jobs through high school, will want some security on the other end of their university education. All the brand new young nurses around me are folks who are quite bright and would have typically majored in other fields and chased their dream job. Now days, people are realizing their dream job isn't feasible, and they can chase their dream on their time off from their day job (provided they have a day job that pays the bills). So instead of becoming a graphic artist, they will do graphic arts as a hobby or hobby job on the side. Or if they want to run a business, they will dabble in it on the side. I have a peer that is a writer, another that is an outfitter, another that owns a pizza franchise, another that farms, another that runs a lucrative blog (pays them more than nursing), another is a paramedic, another is a cop, another is a crossfit instructor with a gym, another is a contractor. Several peers just go out and travel and do outdoors stuff on time off. But overall, it seems everyone is chasing health care as a primary career that is safe and flexible, and dabbling in things that interest them without the pressure of making a living hanging over their head. That means you end up seeing PA schools with 30 seats and 1300 applicants, and nursing schools turning away folks with 3.7 gpa's. My buddy has tried 2 cycles to get into my alma mater RN program... With a gpa around 3.8. There were 700 applicants for 30 spots.... To be a nurse, often making $22 dollars an hour to start. My point is this.... Get the best grades you can, and treat school like your future depends on it, because it's turning out to be the case. The folks that succeed are the folks that don't treat college like they treated high school.

Nursing will make you solidly middle class wages. It used to be that a career like that wasn't the dream job for the masses. But 1/3 of the population is out of the work force, not to mention those underemployed or stuck part time. Folks that can get full time, as well as plentiful overtime are looked at like the new rich. Nursing offers that, and PAs generally are also seen as being a quick route to even better pay. Gear up and be ready to compete, whatever route you take.
 
I would do CRNA if I went the RN route. You can do CRNA in the same time it takes to become a PA.
 
AA PA and CRNA can be done in 6 years if you prepare accordingly.
 
I would suggest NP unless you have a certain specialty you want to do such as ortho.

Many schools have accelerated programs for pre-med majors. You go 3 years full time. You get your BSN after the first year and then the last 2 years you get your FNP. You will not be able to work while doing these programs though.

The other option is spend the 2 years getting your RN (I was doing this and working full time and after being bio premed it was a cake walk in nursing school!) then go work somewhere making around 40-50k as an RN and getting experience while doing the online RN to BSN bridge which will take you right around a year, then do your 2 year FNP program. Many universities set up their NP programs for working RN's so you can still be working full time and going to school part time. If you're smart you can get into the VA system as an RN and they will pay for you to get your BSN and your FNP, but you will owe them a few years of employment.

It really boils down to, how many years you want to put in and whether you want to be just a student or an employed student, and what your end goal will be (if you want a specialty then I recommend PA. If you think just general med then I say NP).

I will say with nursing and the alphabet soup of specialty nursing degrees you have a lot more options in nursing for career growth.

Just 2 cents from someone who did this whole exploration thing several years ago. If I had not gotten a very sweet gig at the VA and had a child I would be an ?NP right now.
 

I actually was an audiologist before I went back to nursing school. I like to learn. I like to be challenged. The hospital I worked at treated me like crap and worked me like a dog, but they had free tuition assistance so I applied for the local RN program and was going to school for free. If a better position with a much higher paycheck did not come along from the VA I would be an FNP right now in the VA rather than an audiologist. When someone offers you 4 day work weeks with every major holiday off and you get paid what a nurse practitioner with a few years experience makes then it's hard to pass up.

If I could do it all over again I would have went to nursing school in high school and got my LPN. Then got a full ride (with my grades it would have been easy) to an RN associates program. Then went to work for a hospital and had them pay for my BSN and my MSN FNP. Then I would have tried for the VA or joined the Army nurse corps.

As they say hindsight is always 20/20.

I won't complain though. I have met some amazing people in Audiology and traveled many cool places for trainings. I love my job. The VA is a good boss. Yes I put up with a lot of administrative BS I do not get paid for, but hey I was doing the same thing in the private sector for a much lower paycheck and less time off. I also work contract work so I am making great money.
 
Does anyone know if there are any military scholarships for PA school and what's the process of getting one?
Thanks
 
Does anyone know if there are any military scholarships for PA school and what's the process of getting one?
Thanks

I do not believe that HSP is available to PA's or NP's. I believe it's only for DO's and MD's. You might check with the military forums on here.

My recommendation if you want to really go the PA route and don't mind serving;
Enlist into the Army and try for 68W Combat medic. You will have a lengthy AIT school for it, but you will get good experience in emergency medicine and this will be beneficial when trying to PA school. Also depending on what route you go you could get your PA school paid for.

If you know what state you want to go to PA school in, you could look into joining the National Guard for that state and many have free tuition to current national guard folks. You would need to check with a recruiter for the National Guard for that state to see if that MOS is available and of course you would have to meet the physical requirements.

The other option you could do is if you have not started college yet you could look into enlisting into the Army in the ROTC program. You would get a stipend and possible scholarship as well to get your undergrad, then go in as an officer after you finish your college and ROTC, then after you complete your contracted requirement to the military, you could use your GI bill monies to go to school with for your PA school. Also you would have veteran's status so in some states (South Carolina and Florida) you get in state tuition as a veteran.

Just something to think about. I'm not military, just going on what little bit I know from talking a lot with recruiters. Your best bet is check out the military med forum on here and then talk to a recruiter for either then National Guard or Army Reserves.
 
I do not believe that HSP is available to PA's or NP's. I believe it's only for DO's and MD's. You might check with the military forums on here.

My recommendation if you want to really go the PA route and don't mind serving;
Enlist into the Army and try for 68W Combat medic. You will have a lengthy AIT school for it, but you will get good experience in emergency medicine and this will be beneficial when trying to PA school. Also depending on what route you go you could get your PA school paid for.

If you know what state you want to go to PA school in, you could look into joining the National Guard for that state and many have free tuition to current national guard folks. You would need to check with a recruiter for the National Guard for that state to see if that MOS is available and of course you would have to meet the physical requirements.

The other option you could do is if you have not started college yet you could look into enlisting into the Army in the ROTC program. You would get a stipend and possible scholarship as well to get your undergrad, then go in as an officer after you finish your college and ROTC, then after you complete your contracted requirement to the military, you could use your GI bill monies to go to school with for your PA school. Also you would have veteran's status so in some states (South Carolina and Florida) you get in state tuition as a veteran.

Just something to think about. I'm not military, just going on what little bit I know from talking a lot with recruiters. Your best bet is check out the military med forum on here and then talk to a recruiter for either then National Guard or Army Reserves.

Thank you
 
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