Becoming A Physician Assistant

The Life of Becoming a Physician Assistant The Physician Assistant is a booming profession especially due to the shortage of physicians. College students who are looking into medicine often only see one career path, which is medical school. Students going into medical school to pursue an M.D. or D.O. will take about six to seven years of schooling. Becoming a PA will only take a quarter of the time and will still allow someone to do as much as a physician would do. There are a number of traits and skill sets required of one to become a PA such as stress tolerance and reading comprehension. These select few are ones I plan to work on through the years while I pursue my career. I personally am looking into becoming a PA after graduation here …show more content…
After an applicant earns his or her degree they must gain over two to three years’ experience in a healthcare related job before they can apply for a PA program. Once that experience is achieved the applicant is now ready to apply to a two-year master’s physician assistant program. There the student will undergo extensive training in health care services and study but not limited to human anatomy, biochemistry and medicine. Students will also train in clinical procedures in addition to their studies. It is also mandatory they gain over two thousand clinical hours before they can receive their license. Once a student has completed a program that is accredited by the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant, they must pass the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam. As a practicing PA, they are required to continue ongoing education and are required every six years by law to pass a re-certification exam in order to keep their license. Even though becoming a PA is much shorter than going to medical school it still is not an easy …show more content…
I have a few goals of my own that I have set up that I wish to achieve. I plan on finishing up school here at Kaplan and receiving my Bachelor’s degree in Health Science, then using that degree to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a PA. I hope to attend a superior PA program in California. Once I have graduated from an accredited PA Master’s program I plan to work in a hospital, I have not yet decided what specialty field I would like to practice. After all this I still plan to continue to further educate myself and continue to grow as a PA and an individual, and possibly go all in and get the Dr. in front of my name. I do plan to use much of the resources Kaplan has to offer to help me achieve my goals. The career services might be of some help but I know they focus more on helping students find jobs after we graduate. I could take some advice from some of the career specialist for when it is time for me to begin applying to hospitals. So in five years I hope to see myself either graduating or about to graduate from a PA program so I can start scratching off some of those goals I