Febrifuge said:
See, as a potential PA student (or a potential med student, still flip-flopping on that), these are some very powerful and compelling ideas. Thanks for the real-life examples, they really help in this stage of things when it's all so preliminary and abstract.
But I've had people tell me that the debt-load and the time factor shouldn't really be very strong considerations in the decision, because in the long run these things will work out. Better to suffer through 7 or 8 years now, than to get out there working in 3 years and then find yourself looking toward med school again, in another 8 or 10 years. So, not to be a downer, but do you have a high degree of confidence that the way you feel now, 3 years out of school, is likely to be the same in the future?
Great post. I graduated PA school in 98 and have worked since, but I will graduate from med school next year. James D, that quote about the person from PCOM was humorous, There are hundreds of MD/DO applicants a year that don't match, but that means nothing in the grand scheme of their existence. They ALL scramble into a program that also did not fill all their applicants, thus it is no issue. A DO guarantees you not only the same opportunities as an MD, but even more at times. As a DO applicant, the application cycle has not even started for the 2006 match and I have MD residencies all over the place asking me to consider signing outside the match instead of entering the match. And PCOM is a premier institution that has grads at Hopkins, Stanford, Mayo, Duke, Harvard, Brigham and Women's, etc... That quote was off the money.
Bottom line, you better know damn certain you can handle being a PA forever if you go that route, otherwise you will be adding more time and money to fix a mistake later. At least when I did it PA school was a BS degree so I lost no real time that route other than my working years. And don't let the debt thing or time factor fool you. Your lifetime earning potential as well as lifetime working hours will be better as a physician. My doc I worked for worked 20 hours a week while I worked 50. He made 350K a year off his 2 PA's and himself. See the logic there?
And Pat, the 80 work week doesn't hold water except for surgical and specialty residencies, and a very select number of rotations in a primary care residency. On medicine right now I pull 80 hours a week, but it is actually quite nice.
Picture this schedule.
Call Q4, meaning I come in at noon that day and leve the next day around 3PM. Every other day when not on call I come in at 6:30 and am out by noon. When I take my one day a week off, I take it pre-call which actually ends up giving me 48 straight hours off. The large number of hours in residency are spent on these call nights where you might actually get some sleep. An 80 hour work week does not mean that you average that out and work 11.5 hours per day, such as 6AM to 5:30PM daily. Like I said, when I am not on call, I have an entire half day each day to myself, to play with my kids, etc.. And this is only on medicine. On FP service and outpatient clinic rotations, the same 40-50 hour PA schedule exists. In this schedule I still moonlight like 4-10PM 7-8 times a month, so a residents salary can easily go from 42K to 70-80K!!! To be quite frank, I don't know one resident that I have met that does not make more than the average PA when it washes out. You can't use salaries like EMEDPA's as a guide because this guy is a pro and is in the top 1%. But in truth he should be a doctor and he knows it!!!
If you want to be a PA, do it for this reason only. Do it because you honestly don't want the rigorous academic challenge of 2 years of trenchwork, 2 years of clinic work, 3 years of residency, and at minimum 10 different MAJOR standardized exam/Board exam like tests to get your license. PA requires ONE major standardized test to get your license. That is the real difference
And Oh my God, who is the chiropractor saying that his first 2 years of chiropractor school would be the same as the first 2 years of medical school and that he "did not want to repeat it"? Well what do you think it will be in PA school, some new medical stuff that was somehow left out of my first 2 years of medical school? You are sniffing some serious paint fumes if you think your first 2 years of chiro school are anything similar to the pathophy, pharm, physio, histo, molecular bio, biochem, clinical medicine that we get in medical school. I hate to burst your bubble bone-cracker but even PA school is going to be an eye opening experience for you in terms of "real medicine". I knew a chiro that dropped out of PA school because it kicked his royal ass. He had been accepted to chiro school with only 90 college credits and a GPA of 2.7, and an MCAT of 16 (not required for chiro admission but shows level of intelliegence!). I now have a chiro in my school who is an MS1 and he is struggling and happily admits the material is WAY harder than his chiro-mess.
Stop BSing people and give the real reason you are going to PA school. Just admit you don't want the academic challenge like I stated above. That answer is honest and reasonable, but stop blowing smoke up people's behinds!!
