Should Physician Assistant profession become a doctorate degree?

Physician Assistant profession is very unique because, of its flexibility and education. Unlike any other profession, PA’s have the option of working in various clinical settings as well as in different clinical specialties. The profession is taught at two intensive university level years. PA’s are taught with a mindset that a new graduate student, with provided training, can take on any medical specialty and start working at the resident level. The idea of this profession is to fill in those geographic locations in the greater need of medical care. Because there are other professions like Nurse Practitioner and Physical Therapist who are masters degree options and in the near future will be doctorate degree, in comparesome PA profession may seem as less qualified career to practice medicine. As a result, PA education fell under the microscope. It is suggested to increas the requirements for PA school admission, and shift PA education from certificate/bachelors option to master and doctorate degree level. This change will influence the profession in its role, PA-Physician relationship, and service to underserved communities.
The role of the physician assistant is to provide healthcare to people that of the same quality and detail as a medical doctor. PAs practice under supervising physician, performing the same diagnostic and treatment tasks while supervising physician approves the course of their decision. Because PA’ss and MD’s education is of the similar curriculum, increasing the PA qualifications to masters or doctorate degree will trigger new controversy of PA capability. A doctorate degree PA will have the same amount of education as MD, therefore will be argued, “should the PA profession be governed by a supervising physician? Or should they practice independently without constraints?” and “should the PA title be moved to Doctor?” With that in mind, PA education will become nothing less than another medical school program, which defeats the purpose of having PA profession. We may as well have a traditional medical school and accelerated medical school. Also, because PA applicants will be held to a higher standard, the application pool will deplete of well experienced healthcare professionals who know and understand the PA role, and people with BS and MS degrees without any clear understanding what pa profession is will dominate. Again, applicants will resemble medical school application criteria.
Because the education gap between MD and PA will narrow, the relationship between the two will become less collegial and more autonomous. Eventually, this will lead to the demand for pay increase as PA will have the same amount of education as MDs. Increasing the PA pay will eliminate yet another advantage of having a PA profession that is keeping the healthcare cost down.
Applicants who come from underserved communities to train as PAs usually return back to their homes in small communities and provide healthcare there. This is a huge contribution to those areas as it is very challenging to attract a physician to establish a practice on or about farm lands. Statistically, people from underserved communities do not hold a college degree. Setting the bachelors degree as a requirement for admission to PA program will eliminate those applicants from underserved communities. Therefore, reducing the number of PAs in rural areas.
In conclusion, shifting the PA profession from certificate/bachelors degree option to masters/doctorate degree will trigger a chain of movements that will significantly change the PA role, PA-MD relationship, and service to underserved rural areas. PA role will be so significantly influenced that there would hardly be any difference between job descriptions that of a medical doctor and physician assistant. PAs will become autonomous and the need for supervising physician will be eliminated, therefore eliminating the PA-MD relationship. Finally, the underserved communities will be influenced the most, since their provider numbers will decline significantly. Rural towns don’t have the resources to fund a doctorate level PA. Healthcare cost will rise. PA profession was designed to fill in those gaps where providers are needed most, and to bring the healthcare cost down. That’s why PA education is modeled after medical school, condensed into two years of intensive studying. PA’s are excellent healthcare resource, proven to be very successful with certificate/bachelors degree. PA’s are successful because of applicants’ broad medical background and knowledge. Moving PA profession to masters or doctorate degree will hinder profession’s success, variety, and growth.

The cost of PA school

The average PA school cost about $60,000.00 When you add cost of living, travel, equipment, and miscelanious stuff, over the course of two years this may add up to $120,000.00. WOW! The physician Assistant school is almost half as long as medical school, but the cost may seem the same.
There are scholarships, but what I've noticed very little people bother to apply. Why? because no one seems to think that they may get any scholarships, not to mention the average money granted is about $1000 bucks. Not a whole lot of help. And did you know that if you do get scholarship, it has to be reported to financial aid office? They recorded and deduct it from your financial aid disburstment! A little unfair, I know. But look at the bright side, you'll have $1000 less to worry about after graduation.

BS degree for PA school prereq

BS to become PA prereqs

     What future is there for potential PA applicants? It’s not the best news! Soon, in less than 5 or 10 years, all accredited Physician Assistant schools will require a bachelors degree. This is a huge set back for PA profession in my opinion. Here is why, people with more medical experience will be pushed out of application pool by bachelor’s degree students who have less or not at all medical experience.
     Why medical experience it important to PA students is because the program is designed for people with broad understanding of medical profession. This is its strength. Students from various medical backgrounds can assist each other in learning new subjects. Those who have no medical experience, but with bachelor’s degree will have a much harder time in such fast paced learning program, and wouldn’t be as successful. The other reason is people without medical background have no idea what they are getting into, therefore may find out alone that Physician Assistant profession is not for them. Some may feel that they should have tried for Medical School, which is different from PA school, although part of the school of medicine.
     The bachelor’s degree restriction will also narrow the pool of applicants. So limiting the option of selecting most appropriate students.

Test taking technique

Test taking techniques

I’ve been a student for a while now, and I came to realize that there are smart, gifted people who don’t further their education because they are led to believe that they are bad students. This is usually expressed through test scores. I for example, have problems with multiple choice tests, but I love short answer tests and writing papers. I too thought that I’m a bad student, until one day in class I was in the center of attention. My group study had a hard time understanding the mechanics of heart and blood flow and I have a clear understanding of it. So I stood up and explained everything. On the test, everyone did great, except for me, because the test was multiple choice. Obviously the problem wasn’t that I didn’t study or couldn’t understand the topic, the problem was my test taking technique. I spoke with a dozen of people about it and got some good advice, but none of it worked. Finally, one guy in my class told me his way and since then I’ve been passing every multiple choice exam with 80% or better. So here is the technique:
1. Read the whole exam before answering any questions. Mark the easy question and hard questions. This will give you an idea of what the test is about, what questions are stressed the most.
2. Answer all easy questions first, skipping the hard questions or questions you don’t know. While doing that keep in mind what questions you don’t know or understand. There are answers within questions, keep an eye on it.
3. Now, that you’ve done that you get a “warm fuzzy” about the test. Just by looking at your scantron sheet you’ll see how much easy stuff you already answered.
4. Now, go back to the skipped questions and start answering. If you get stuck on a question, don’t sweat it! Skip it again and move one. Come back to it later. You should be able to answer the other questions.
5. On the questions that you’re still stuck, start your reasoning by crossing out the definite wrong answers. You’ll be able to think more clearly.
6. Out of the answers you have left, try to define each answer and see if that makes any sense or “rings a bell.”
7. Most importantly don’t work yourself up before or during the test. If you studied hard, if you understand the topic, than you should know everything on the test. The problem is the questions. They may be asked in an awkward way, and you get confused. So sometimes rephrasing the question helps.
Remember that each person has their own learning styles and test taking technique that works for them. So don’t think that my technique will work for you, it may not. Explore, ask others, talk to teachers, don’t give up!

test

Why ER takes forever

It’s a common story. A person gets headache, stomachache, cuts his finger, falls off a bike and breaks a leg. Where we all go, ER to sit for hours to see a doctor who doesn’t do much. All of us have been there at one point or another. I’ve been there a number of times myself.

I have had the pleasure of working at ER as a tech, and I will answer the irritating question of “why does it take so long to see a doctor?”

Well, besides the fact that there is a shortage of medical staff there are hundreds of people who visit ER for minor reason. But first here is how ER works.

Patients check in and the triage nurse will asses the patient to see if it’s an urgent or emergent or non urgent case. Based on that they will put you in the corresponding wait box. If it’s an emergent case, which mean patient requires an immediate attention or he/she may die, you’ll get seen right away. In some cases even skipping the triage nurse. If it’s an urgent case, than you’ll get seen within an hour most likely. And lastly if it’s a non-urgent case, than good luck waiting.

The doctor will see all of the emergent cases first than urgent and then non-urgent. So if urgent and emergent cases keep showing up, your non-urgent patient will be shifted the end of the line. Sorry, but sick people need to be seen first.

So this is why people spend 5 hours waiting in the ER.

College is nothing more than a filtering process

Filtering process

Over the years of studying in college I came to realize one ironic thing. It’s not the smartest people who graduate. It’s not the people who have rich parents or football scholarship graduate. The people who graduate are those people who have had enough determination or initiative to do homework.

I say this because in every class I had at least a dozen students who have quit school or changed their major because the subject was hard, or because they hate math and so on. Those who decided to stay, fail and retake, and than fail and retake the same class again will make it to the top.

It’s unfortunate that there are gifted people who couldn’t tolerate school’s challenges, because there are plenty of people without any common sense who stuck long enough in school to graduate and now they are managers, making more than they worth.

I can’t say that I’m a perfect student. I had my share of failed classes. Either it’s my sick child, or trouble at work, or sleep deprivation, I studied long late-night hours, tackling one or two classes at a time, it finally paid off. I got excepted into the program and I will excel.