.

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

Steelgrave

New Member
5+ Year Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2018
Messages
10
Reaction score
2
..

Members don't see this ad.
 
Last edited:
I think you will end up spending 4 years and thousands of dollars, not to mention sacrificing lots of personal time, and adding much stress to your life only to find out you are a PA who faces many of the constraints that you don’t enjoy about engineering (like repetitiveness and cookie cutter work). It will be compounded upon by dealing with unhappy sick people. If you are looking for more creativity, more flexibility, look around in engineering, or focus on a hobby. Don’t change your entire career on a whim. When you read about how you can get your PA degree in 2 years and make $115k per year, that doesn’t tell the whole story. People with no medical background are intrigued by that career for some reason, but it’s a long road unless you have a great GPA.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Hmm, so you are saying this is much repetition? Like seeing dozens of patients with the same illness?
 
Members don't see this ad :)
I'm suggesting that you will be seeing a conveyor belt of patients coming in where you evaluate them, prescribe, and then document, next... evaluate, prescribe, document, next... evaluate, prescribe, document, next.... evaluate, prescribe, document, next....

Anything that is more complex that is presented to you will require more time for you to make up for over the next few patients. Your creativity might not be something you wield in an enjoyable manner, but will be a skill that will involve wielding it to accommodate limitations that you would rather not accommodate, like a patient not wanting a certain medication that you know will work best, but is too expensive for them (they would rather get another tattoo, or medicinal cannabis gummies... or they are just too poor), so you have to give them something else that isn't what you would really rather give them. Your decision making will be based on criteria and presentation of symptoms, and a lot of the solutions to a lot of problems will be weight loss, moderate exercise, appropriate life choices, and common sense, but people will ask for (or demand) a pill or a joint from you. But overall, your value will depend on you keeping a steady stream of people heading out the door every hour, whether you exercise your creativity or not.

I just fear you will spend several years of your life and much treasure pursuing something that won't enhance your sense of fulfillment, and probably interfere with your ability to enjoy your time outside of work. Currently you work at a job that pays you well, and probably allows for good work/life balance. Instead of taking on an entirely different career that will end up being a completely different kind of experience than you currently expect it to be, I would use my energy to find ways outside of work to feel more satisfied.

I'm currently a nurse. My job is nothing like A) what is seen on TV, B) what is seen by my patient's, and C) what even most non-nursing hospital personnel even think it is unless I explain it to them. The same will be true of being a PA. An example of RN duties that nobody appreciates is paperwork. At best, I know that paperwork will take a certain amount of hours. Its this rock sitting in the middle of my shift that I hate, but I know I have to do it no matter what. If the shift is exciting, then that actually means I am going to have more things to document. If my stomach is upset and I don't feel like even talking to anyone, I still have to be nice to people, find time to do my paperwork, and get everything done that my bosses really don't give me time to do. If a patient doesn't see me, its because I'm doing paperwork, or doing something that will require me to do more paperwork... or talking on the phone to someone I don't want to talk to, or waiting for someone I do want to talk to to call me back. I wish that all I did all day was flirt with hot nurses that didn't have extreme amounts of baggage in their personal lives (the hottest nurses are the craziest... I can't imagine how awful a real hospital would be if the employees were as hot as they are on TV). But I do a ton of paperwork, and pay attention to keeping in line as far as obeying a ton of procedures and regulations. Its almost as repetitive as any other line of work, just in a different way. There are many days that I wonder how awesome it would be to have a job on an assembly line doing the same thing over and over again that was straight forward and had concrete goals.

That’s just my take when someone wants to have their first foray into the medical field be a relatively short program that ends up with a relatively high salary, and what they think is a relatively decent level of prestige. I'm not knocking you, because its perfectly natural to feel that way after seeing “physician assistant” in a mass media list of top 20 careers. Its kind of like wanting to play football, but only being willing to be a quarterback or a receiver because they seem to have the most fun, and nothing else will do... so folks want to do that, irrespective of their skills or ability. A lot of times, those kinds of players don’t have the talent to roll in a quarterback or receiver position, but feel like it’s a perfect position for them because it reaps the most glory. Its the same with the PA profession... people gravitate to it because of the aspects of it that they feel require less of them, and give them more in return.

Maybe the best thing to do before cashing out your savings bonds is to look for a promotion in your current work, or apply broadly to other engineering positions. Or before showing up for tryouts to be the wide receiver, decide if maybe being a left offensive tackle is what you are really fit out for... or even if it’s football you really want to be playing.
 
Last edited:
If I were unsatisfied with nursing, would you suggest that I consider going back to school and start from scratch to become an engineer?

An approach along those lines would be irresponsible at best. You worked hard to get that engineering degree. I’d exhaust my options there before I took the plunge and pursued something that involves as mich investment as PA does. I’d advise that before suggesting you take on any kind of second career.
 
Top