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21. Why become a PA?
183 Plays2 years ago
I talk about some exciting news as well as some of the many reasons why anyone should become a PA.
Patreon: patreon.com/ThePAExperience
Email me at thepaschoolexperience@gmail.com
Youtube video: https://youtu.be/jmtKaMEwYeM
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Transcript
Introduction to PA School Experience Podcast
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome to the PA School Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Sebring Sands, and I take you through the behind the scenes look of PA School and explore what it takes to become a PA.
Using Anchor for Podcast Creation
00:00:33
Speaker
If you have been wondering how I could do this podcast in PA School, I'll tell you, I use an anchor. This is the easiest way to make a podcast. Let me explain. First, it is a free hosting platform which allows anyone to start a podcast with no upfront cost. It has built-in tools which allow you to edit and record a podcast. You can even record it from your phone.
00:00:56
Speaker
Anchor will distribute your podcast for you so it can be heard on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and other major podcast platforms. You can make money from your podcast with no minimum listenership. Anchor has everything that you need to make a podcast. They make it so easy for you. Download the free Anchor app or go to anchor.fm to get started. That's anchor.fm A-N-C-H-O-R.fm to get started today.
Monetization through Patreon
00:01:28
Speaker
Welcome everyone to another episode of the podcast.
00:01:32
Speaker
Today I have some pretty exciting news. So as you noticed a little bit, I'm kind of changing things up for the podcast. I really want to level up the podcast and I really want to do some cool things with it, but I need some capital in order to grow a little bit. So what I'm gonna do is I started a Patreon for myself.
00:01:59
Speaker
So there's three different tiers. So $1 tier, which pretty much everything you'll ever need for bonus episodes that I want to do, some other documents, bonus documents that I feel like will be very helpful and very much worth the $1 a month that people would pay in order to get there. And some really awesome other things in the pipeline too. For instance, I am planning on going in depth and doing my
00:02:29
Speaker
student loan repayment analysis. And that's going to be in the five tier one. I was telling my wife this and she believes that it'll be best served in the $5 tier. It's a little more sensitive. And if people didn't want to subscribe for $5 a month, I haven't put it in the title. I give you extra money to burn. This is a tier for you basically, but you can subscribe for five and then cancel.
00:02:53
Speaker
to get that analysis i think it'll be very beneficial i break down i'll break down my total loan balance and well be paying monthly for the last several years um what plan i'm repayment plan i'm planning on doing into the total amount i'll be repaying stuff like that i think it'll be very interesting and very helpful for a lot of people so stay tuned i'm going to be putting up some episodes on the tiers every every tier will get everything um the
00:03:23
Speaker
The $3 tier and the $5 tier will have some extra stuff. It's not necessary, but if you wanted to support the podcast a little bit more, there's options for you. So stay tuned for that. I'm really excited for the future of the podcast.
PA vs. Medical School Entry Requirements
00:03:39
Speaker
Um, so today I'm going to be talking about why does anyone want to become a PA is a good question for lots of people. That was my question. When I first learned about the PA profession from a fellow PA students way back when 20, I think it's 2018, I think that's my kind of starting my path a little bit. There's a few areas that I want to talk about that I think are very
00:04:09
Speaker
essential to know about the PE profession a little bit to really understand why this is so awesome. So the first one is education. One thing that attracted me to PE school is a lot of schools don't require an interest exam. A lot of schools do require the GRE. There's several schools now that do require the PA-CAT, which I totally not...
00:04:30
Speaker
That's just, I think it just adds another barrier to getting into P-School, which is hard enough. And I feel like tests, especially entrance exams might not necessarily make sure, prove that you'll succeed in P-School. I feel like you can prove yourself there's lots of time to grow in P-School to help you succeed in P-School.
Advantages of PA Career
00:04:50
Speaker
So I'm really against that a little bit.
00:04:53
Speaker
Also, it's usually 27 months. Some are a little bit longer than 27 months. My program was 27 months, but you're going to be out working two and a half years after you're done, after you start PA school. That's very exciting. Also, there's no residency required, which is amazing.
00:05:11
Speaker
If anyone has worked with residents, you know, this is, if you can avoid it, avoid it. Cause they get paid hardly anything. They work like crap and they work so many, so many hours. They're burnt out. Luckily they get, I think they get some good vacation time because they work so much and you can avoid all of that and start working at a higher salary, getting on the job training and not be having a reduced.
00:05:38
Speaker
having reduced salary and good work-life balance, good hours without going to the residency program. There are residencies, but I feel like you can get any job without having a residency, so why go? I know it might make you more competitive maybe in some markets, but there's jobs out there you can get without a residency, so why do residencies? No incentive to do one knowing that you can get the job without it. So that's my take on it.
00:06:09
Speaker
Also time.
00:06:11
Speaker
So I kind of talked about this 27 months, but if you really think about it, it's seven years total for a primary care physician. Your four years of medical school and three years of residency minimum, maybe more if you want to do something else. Space school is just two years, and then you're working on the job clinically, because I feel like that is where you do a lot of the learning. You kind of learn all the fundamentals and kind of navigate in the healthcare system in PA school, but you really know how to practice medicine.
00:06:41
Speaker
when you're doing it. When you first get out, it probably feels like a residency without the work hours. You're learning, you're being trained and all these things, but you don't have to go through the rig and roll. And that kind of leads to the money aspect.
Earning Potential: PA vs. Medical Students
00:06:57
Speaker
Yes, we do get paid less, but I feel like we get paid well for our time. We don't have to spend as much time working as physicians do. We're not really on call as much.
00:07:09
Speaker
If we are on call, it's not crazy. We're not the sole provider that knows everything like physicians need to be when they're on call. So when we're on call, we're just covering shifts basically as PAs. So it's less demanding that way. And also our earning potential is a bit more not
00:07:30
Speaker
the whole lifetime of the profession. But in the beginning, we get a jumpstart on earning potential two years instead of four years for the medical students. But when we do, when the medical students do hit their earning potential, it's like 60,000, 50, 60,000 for like three to five, six, seven years, depending on their residency. And we're making, we can make up to a hundred thousand or more by then. So we have, by the time they're making their full attending salary, we're
00:08:00
Speaker
We're in it maybe five, six, seven, 10 years. And that is a lot of earning potential that they kind of miss out on because the training is so long. So that's another aspect of it. And money is not everything. I feel like the PA profession is a comfortable salary. It's going to, I'm pretty much the sole provider in my family and it's going to take us to places that we want to be in the lifestyle. I want to be, yeah, we're not going to be
00:08:29
Speaker
billionaires or millionaires, but you don't pick healthcare to be a millionaire. It's just not the avenue. It's not the smartest. It's, it's very hard to get that way. And if you did get that way, probably, you probably only enjoy for a few before you time it anyway. So.
00:08:46
Speaker
So there's that. And the flexibility, this is a big one.
Flexibility and Job Security in PA Profession
00:08:50
Speaker
This is kind of understood a little bit when you're applying for preschool, like the lateral mobility, but this is even more deep than lateral mobility. This is the flexibility of getting supplement income if you want to, for instance, here in Connecticut, I'm sure lots of places, there's a ton of urgent cares. And I know a lot of people take a second job, maybe per diem,
00:09:15
Speaker
working at urgent care, making several thousand dollars extra a month, doing a couple per diem shifts. And it's not super demanding of a job. You probably work 12 hours and you might see some more difficult cases. You might send someone to the emergency room occasionally, but you're making a lot more extra money that you probably wouldn't have had time for if you're in attending.
00:09:39
Speaker
And there's a lot of ways we can work and be flexible as a PA. And we don't have to take extra schooling or residencies to get really any job, which is amazing. And we can work anywhere. And it might be different in states. Connecticut, I'm a little biased. Connecticut is a very P friendly state. They need PAs. There's so many opportunities here.
00:10:06
Speaker
And it's, it's really awesome to see if you have just a little bit of experience it's so easy get a job. And I feel like that's the same thing with most PAs positions in the country. Feeling the first one's a little more tricky.
00:10:21
Speaker
But after that, you know, the world is your oyster. There's so many things we can do as PAs. This is the true lateral mobility. Yeah, you know, you could do surgery one day and then move to primary care, but that usually doesn't happen as much. It's the flexibility of just so many options to work, to move around, finding your job security, I feel like is
00:10:47
Speaker
perfect almost, because even if you do get laid off, which is highly doubtful, you can just get to find another job unless you did something really like disciplined or something like that. But there's so many jobs and even into retirement, there's so many avenues you can go into teaching. Lots of lots of different options, which I really feel like is one of the biggest strengths of the PE profession. So that's kind of
00:11:16
Speaker
What it is, it's a bit different than medical school. It's more, I feel like it's more focused. We don't learn the minutiae. I've been listening to Vinay Prasad. I would check out his YouTube channel. It's amazing. But he's talked about how they should shorten medical school to like two years. That's what PA school is. It's like a two-year version of medical school. And it's almost as hard as medical school. I think with medical schools, they really go deep into minutiae of things. And they test more.
00:11:45
Speaker
Peace school is pretty on par with medical school in terms of difficulty. You're learning a lot of information and being tested on it and having high standards of excellence and things like that. It might not be ranked, which I think is dumb anyways, because I guess you might have to compete more for residencies, spots and things like that. But we're pretty much doing an ideal version of medical school without all the minutia and things like that.
00:12:15
Speaker
Clinically, it could be a little bit longer, but there's only so much you can learn as a student. I mean, I feel like it's long enough as a PA student. The rule we're learning is in medical school and physician training residency, and for PA's actual doing the job is the most valuable time. That's when we're really getting the weeds, we're able to prescribe, we're more responsible. Things that students don't really count, and we can't really get a full,
00:12:45
Speaker
We can learn how to answer PIMP questions maybe, and might have some input to patient care, but it's not until we get into the field, actually doing our job that we can really start learning and practicing medicine. The last point before I forget is the provider role. We become a provider as PAs, and that brings a lot of autonomy that people generally don't think
00:13:13
Speaker
You know, about PAs, I think that's one of the fears that a pre-PA person might have.
Autonomy and Team Practice in PA Role
00:13:21
Speaker
I'm not having, being under the thumb of a, of attending, but at least hearing in Connecticut, um, there are PAs have a ton of autonomy, um, practice independently to some extent, obviously have still have a super supervisor physician and attendings to, to help and oversee some things, especially in surgery, but you still have a lot of PA led teams, uh, which is incredible in.
00:13:51
Speaker
really makes the profession, the way it is and, and for those that don't know we're pushing PA professions pushing for OTP optimized team practice rather than supervisory position roles, or we still are in a position that team.
00:14:07
Speaker
but we're not needing that supervisory physician in our lives and our work that makes us more hireable and makes just everything easier. So that is something that's being pushed for a lot. And Connecticut, I feel like we're almost there.
00:14:27
Speaker
Still in practice, we have to have supervising physicians, but in practice, a lot of times we do OTP and it's great. And it really, we are both able to work at the top of our alliances and not having to worry about stepping on people's toes because we're trained to do a specific job and that's very exciting. Definitely check out, I'm going to have content. I already have some content on the Patreon.
Audience Engagement and Personal News
00:14:53
Speaker
Definitely check out
00:14:55
Speaker
content in the next couple weeks I'll be posting I'll be posting this ad free everything else ad free also I'm gonna be posting it with video now I'm gonna be doing video podcasts I can really only do this because Apple came out with the video continuity where I can use my iPhone which is a 4k
00:15:16
Speaker
camera, so it actually looks halfway decent rather than getting a thousand dollar camera that looks good. So you can check those out. I'm not a, I'm not like a supermodel, but it might be kind of fun to see what I look like and my expressions kind of adds a layer to it. So it's just a little extra bonus to the people that subscribe.
00:15:38
Speaker
uh to the patreon so also i never really do this but i would really appreciate if everyone listening wherever they're doing either spotify or apple music or apple itunes or whatever it is nowadays to leave a review it really helps the visibility of the podcast so i really appreciate if you really enjoy the podcast to leave a review you know hopefully good reviews hopefully this is a good podcast and people want to review it high
00:16:08
Speaker
If you had any concerns, please reach out to me. There's there's ways I have an email address. I'll probably put it in this show notes, too. It's kind of been forgotten. I don't know if anyone's ever emailed me, but also Spotify. You can leave a question. There's a question news, new question, answer stuff. So I think in this podcast might have it where
00:16:32
Speaker
Just an answer. Like, how is it? How is the answer to how is the podcast? You can leave a response to that and I'll take a look. So, well, it's been a pleasure. I'm going to be having a baby in a couple of weeks. So that might be a little more tricky, but I might have more time to do episodes. So that'd be exciting. So it's been a great pleasure. I love doing this podcast and I'll be continuing to do in the future. Hey, see y'all later. Bye.