Bio major for PA? or nursing...

College Majors
1

hi i m a freshman in college and i m planning to get my bio degree and go into med school. however, i found out about the work hours and off calls that doctors received and changed my mind, so i decided that i would like to become a specialized pa… so my questions are

  1. what is the path to become a pa
  2. should i apply to become a ma right now? and then work my way to become a pa? will that affect anything?
  3. or should i go into nursing?.. with a bio minor?

thanks :slight_smile:

2

um, aren’t there bachelor’s degrees in PA? It would be nice to check? You could go to nursing school and get a master’s in nursing and become a nursing practitioner too

3

I googled Physicians Assistant. It looks like a PA program is a 2-3 year masters degree. Your biology major would serve you well, however, there may be additional courses required to be accepted into a PA program. The programs are I imagine quite competitive.

http://explorehealthcareers.org/en/Career/19/Physician_Assistant#Tab=Requirements

4

There are a few bachelor’s degrees in PA: the Sophie Davis school at City College is one of those programs.

However, the more usual path to become a PA is to get a master’s degree (typically 2 years) in PA. Most PA program require a set of prerequisite courses, but they also require a certain number of hours as a direct health care provider. As a result, most PAs are former nurses, paramedics, EMTs, CNAs, and other allied health professionals who have returned to get a PA degree. In addition, because PA degrees are very competitive, most people exceed the admissions requirements. For example, one program I know of requires 2,000 hours of direct care provider work (which is about 1 year of full-time experience), but says that the average for their admitted applicants is around 4,000 hours (2 years).

So no, don’t become a medical assistant - that won’t help you, as the kind of assistance medical assistants provide usually doesn’t count for PA programs. Nursing school, however, is an excellent preparatory career for work as a PA.