Doctor or Physician Assistant?

KKmama
Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:35:03 +0000

Do you have any idea what you might want to specialize in? That could be one of the biggest factors in making a decision. other than expense/time of education vs salary/demands/advantages of PA vs MD

PA’s have greater or lesser responsibilities and freedoms depending on what specialty they practice. Some fields may limit them to initial exams or follow-ups or to assisting in surgery or other procedures. Other fields allow them to be the primary medical professional working with a specific patient.

My daughter is a PA in a family practice. She does everything the doctor does and is pretty much independent - he goes on vacation up to two weeks at a time, and she is then the only provider at the practice (“supervision” in NYS means that the doc has to review a very few of her charts every month). She consults with him only if she comes up against something that she is not sure of, and she has caught things with the doc’s patients that he has missed when she covers for him (usually heart conditions, as she seems to have a better ear for murmurs and leaks than he does).

My kid chose the PA route because she wanted to get out and earning sooner and she did not want the responsibilities associated with being in charge of a clinic. She had considered letting Uncle Sam pay her way through med school but did not want to try to balance a family life around military service.

There is one advantage of PA over MD: it is very easy to switch specialties as a PA. They are licensed for every field of medicine, unlike a doctor who would have to do much more preparation to gain certification in a different specialty. If my kid wanted to switch to cardiology, she could send out applications today to cardiologist practices.

One thing about going the PA route - it is a LOT easier to go through the 3+2 programs than it is to be admitted into the graduate phase. The 3+2 at most (but not all) schools guarantee grad placement for undergrads who have the grades and patient contact hours required for admission. The school my daughter attended had well over 1000 applicants for a handful of graduate openings - those openings come about only through students who drop out or transfer out of the undergrad class.