Expert: Karen Moss - 3/21/2010

Question
hey there,
I'm currently a high school senior and i've been thinking about my future career. I've been looking at becoming a Physician Assistant (PA) and i noticed that clinical experience in some sort of medical field is highly recommended. here is the link that mentioned that:

http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/fnppa/req-clinical-exper.html

To enter PA graduate school, you need to get your bachelor's degree first. This coming up part is the part i'm confused on. Since getting into PA graduate school is not easy, i believe having 2 years of hands on experience is required- in order to make sure your entrance into PA graduate school. ON that same link, it showed some options of medical fields to do hands-on work for 2 years. How can you do for example, RN, for two years hands-on work if you only graduated with a bachelor's degree?

For medical assistant, i looked it up on

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos164.htm#training

in the education/ training section and it said that medical assistant does not require any formal training but then states that some people do 1-2 years program for medical assistant. Why would the hospital hire someone who has no 1-2 years training to become a medical assistant than a person who does have 2 years of training? according to my thinking, 2 years of training to become a medical assistant is required then. If everything i'm saying is right, in order to become a PA, you need to get a bachelors degree, complete 1-2 years training for medical assistant, do the 2 years of "highly recommended" clinical experience, and finally do the 2 years of PA graduate school. that's 10 years of studying/working in order to become a PA! that cannot be right. Is this really the path to become a PA? because if it is, becoming a PA is not worth it.

Please help me clarify my confusion. thanks

Answer
Dear Michael,

I agree this is very confusing and even more so for me as I am UK based so all of this is double ducth to me!  we do not have this system but we do have nurse practitioners who have to qualify as a nurse first which seems similar.

I would advise you to seek advice from a local educational establishment such as a University that teaches all these courses and set out yur ambitions and take it from there
The very best of lcuk

Karen