Hi! Does anyone on here have a child that is pursuing a Physician Assistant Program? Looking for advice on whether its best to do a 4 year pre-physician assistant major and then the 2 years of grad school, or if a 5 year program where you are accepted into a masters program right away (pending you keep a certain GPA) is best. What are the pros and cons to each? My daughter was accepted into Pitt into their Pre-PA program, but also into Duquesne into their 5 year to masters program, which is pretty competitive to get into. She prefers Pitts campus and the general feel, but would we be foolish not to encourage her to take the spot at Duquesne? Both are nice schools. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!!
I don’t have a PA child, but my son’s very good friend started PA school this fall. I’ve known her since she was 16.
If there is an auto-admit route, I would take that, and this is why. PA schools are now expecting applicants to have 1000-2000+ hands-on clinical experiences (shocking because med schools don’t require anything even close to that!). If the auto-admit route either excludes that req’t or builds it into their pre-program, it would probably be a better way to go.
This young lady graduated in 2013, but spent the next 2 years getting her 2000+ hours of hands-on clinical experience.
When you look at each school does either expect the 2000 hours? I would suspect that UPitt would.
I would lean towards Duquesne.
Looks like Pitt only requires 500 hours.
" A minimum of 500 hours of hands-on patient care experience.
The patient care experience must be direct, “hands-on” patient contact e.g., RN, EMT or paramedic, health educator, patient care attendant or nurse’s aide, Peace Corps volunteer or other cross-cultural health care experience, technologist, therapist, clinical research assistant, respiratory therapist/aide, medical assistant, or tech, PT/OT assistant."
Does being admitted to Pitt’s “pre-PA program” guarantee a spot in the PA program? If not, then I’d be concerned that your DD would be competing with other PA applicants who have the 1000-2000 hours because many other programs require or expect that many hours.
Pitt does not guarantee or give preferential treatment to their own students for the grad part. So she would need to apply to several grad schools I’m assuming, because it is so competitive. I also don’t understand why the number of hours isn’t the same across the board for all grad programs. We are going to revisit both schools within the next few weeks (we live about 4 hours from Pittsburgh where both schools are located). Just trying to give her the best advice I can…thanks for your response @mom2collegekids.
You want to go direct admit if she is sure this is what she wants to do. Otherwise, there really is no guarantee she will even get accepted to,the masters program.
I would recommend the 5 year program for the reasons stated in the above posts. Had my daughter known about a 5 year program she would have applied straight from high school. Admission to PA schools is very competitive.
DD is completing her sophomore year in undergrad as a bioengineering major along with completing the premed requirements. She is trying to earn 1000 to 2000 clinicals hours needed for applying to PA schools. Her biggest worry is not gaining admission into a graduate PA program. Direct admit to a Masters program is not guaranteed after completing a bachelors degree. Many kids work one or two years to obtain the clinical hours required for admission and also prepare for the Graduate school entrance exam. Definitely would recommend the 5 year program.
Looks like an amazing program. Your child will not the have the stress of having to apply to PA programs are obtaining a bachelors degree. That is a great opportunity.
I also recommend the 5-year program.
Physician assistant roles were created to be mid-level providers who could, literally, assist physicians by performing a lot of the basic primary care tasks a physician would normally do, freeing them up to do more advanced and specialist-level care. The profession was originally comprised of healthcare professionals in other roles who took on additional training to do perform those mid-level tasks. The career is really intended for healthcare professionals who already have some experience performing clinical care - it’s the combination of the training and the experience that turns one into a successful PA, or at least in the eyes of the medical profession. Remember that these are people who are going to be performing semi-independent primary care, diagnosing and treating the most common illnesses and conditions. I’ve heard it said that PAs can do 80% of the tasks of a GP and PAs (and nurse practitioners) are replacing physicians at a lot of clinics and hospitals.
That’s why most of the 2-year master’s programs require the clinical hours. A 5-year BS/MS program usually has the clinical hours built into the program, much like a nursing degree would.
1000-2000 clinical hours is often the minimum recommended. That’s about 6 to 12 months of full-time (40 hours/week) or 12 to 24 months of half-time work in a profession. Moreover, it’s really difficult to get that experience on a volunteer basis because you need some sort of licensure or training course to become a health professional that qualifies. The easiest thing for a college student would probably be as an EMT - you can usually complete an EMT course in a semester or so, and lots of fire departments will take volunteer EMTs.
And mind you, the 1000-2000 is just a lower limit recommendation. Competitive PA programs may actually average more. For example, Emory requires a minimum of 2000 hours, but they say that their admitted applicants actually average 4000 hours of direct clinical care AND community volunteering experience AND PA shadowing (which does not count in the direct clinical care experience).
Because of this, most of the admits to PA MS programs are nurses, paramedics/EMTs, CNAs, or other allied healthcare professionals who are trying to make a career change (or who had always planned to be a PA but got a degree in an allied health field took a few years off to work first). Like MBAs or MPAs, they’re really intended for people who have professional work experience in the field.
So I’d recommend the 5-year program at Duquesne.
If your daughter really, really wanted to go to Pitt but still wants to be an PA, I’d recommend that while at Pitt she either major in nursing and work as a nurse for 2 years post-college, or get some kind of allied health professional certification at Pitt and do that.
Another option for her to explore - if she really wants to go to Pitt, but wants to deliver primary care in a mid-level provider role - is nurse practitioner. Nurse practitioners are also mid-level providers like PA (in fact, I’ve seen a lot of job ads say “NP or PA”); they work with doctors and prescribe medication and provide primary care. However, they are trained in nursing schools under the nursing model, and in some states they actually have a more independent standard of practice. The reason I recommend it is because there are a lot of 3-year direct-entry MSN programs popping up for students with a BA in another field. The bonus is that after the first year, you have usually achieved the RN, so she could work part-time as a nurse and earn money or she could work full-time as a nurse and attend the program part-time. (And even schools that don’t have a formal direct-entry program will allow you to combine their accelerated second-degree BSN program with the MSN program, effectively creating a 3-3.5 year program.) Some of these programs are at Columbia, Yale, Penn, Vanderbilt, Emory, etc. Have her take a look and think about it.
My D16 is facing the same dilemma…only hers is Pitt (Rehabilitative Science - Pre PT) v. Duquesne (6 yr BS/DPT). She likes both schools, although I think she is subconsciously leaning toward Pitt. I have been investigating and so far the consensus has been go with the direct entry program, but only if you are sure that is what you want to do with your life. The theory is if you have a change of heart or don’t like the school you will have your BS in 4 years and can always apply somewhere else for the graduate school.
I worry that she will find Duquesne too small after 6 years. I am partial to Pitt. But, why put yourself through the headache of applying to grad school when you are already in? I am discovering that getting in to PT school is a harder than she would imagine and I would guess the same is true of PA schools.
D16 has 4 acceptances BS/DPT programs and several acceptances to “regular” undergrad programs. We are waiting on the decisions from 2 final schools where she applied for BS/DPT. I honestly don’t know how she is going to decide in the end. All of her options are plentiful and good for lots of different reasons.
I had surgery in December and the surgeon had a PA student shadowing him, the surgeon had to leave the exam room to take a call so the PA student and I got to talking and I mentioned that my daughter thinking about becoming a PT. I said D16 had been accepted to a few BS/DPT programs but was torn between the direct entry or traditional 4year UG/3yr PT route. The PA said hands down to do the direct entry route. She absolutely wished she had done her PA training that way because no one wants to be finishing up a tough undergrad major and worry about GREs AND jumping through the hoops to apply to medical related grad schools. “You know the stress she (My D16) has been under this past year with SAT’s/AP classes and applying to college and then the worry about being accepted? Yeah compound that times 10”. About that time the surgeon came back in and said he had overheard the end of our conversation… “Don’t be stupid tell your daughter to do the direct entry program.”
It is a tough decision for sure. Good Luck to your Kiddo.
My daughter did the 5 year program. My nephew did a four year undergrad and then was accepted into the grad phase at a second school. Both had immediate job offers. My daughter is leaving her family practice job (where she has her own patients separate from the doctor) and is now heading to a walk-in clinic where there will be no doctor at all. My nephew works in a hospital emergency department.
While my nephew lucked out, it is very rare for students to go that route. It is much easier to do the 3+2 program.
The year my daughter entered her 4th year the school doubled the class size by opening 20 slots. There were 800 yes 800 applications for those 20 slots.
I will probably be posting a very similar thread as soon as those last 2 admission decisions come in, lol!
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I worry that she will find Duquesne too small after 6 years
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@labegg do you mean that you worry that she’ll find Duquesne too small during her 6 years BS/DPT?
Is the first 3 years the BS part and the last 3 the DPT part? If so, once she moves from the BS part of her education into the DPT part, is the school’s size really that relevant? She’d still be in a major city.
I’m not that familiar with DPT programs, but don’t many pre-DPT students work with the school’s sports teams? And then once their in their DPT portion, would the school size matter?
It is technically a 4/2 but you start some DPT classes in the 3rd BS year. Duquesne’s program is unique in that you graduate with 2 BS degrees, one in Biology and one in health science after 4 years and then the doctorate.
You can literally walk across the entire campus in maybe 10 minutes, if that., so yes I feel like after 6 years it will seem really confined physically. It is on a bluff in Pittsburgh and sort of feels like it is in its own world. When we have looked at kids reviews of the school, many say that it feels “small” and if you want to get away you can always catch the bus over to Pitt. Pittsburgh as a city seems to shut down after 5pm. So while it is a metropolis it does not feel bustling.
Yes pre-DPT kids usually get to work with the sports teams, although at Duquesne BS/DPT kids can choose the dual BS degree (which is what my D16 picked) or a BS in Athletic Training. So I am going to guess that the Athletic Training kids are more hands on with the teams than the biology kids, but I am not sure. We will find out more specifics about the program when she attends the accepted student day.
Clinicals seems to start rather late in the course with the majority beginning in the 5th year. The hospitals/clinics are right near campus.
The Div I football “stadium” is located on the main walkway/path there are only bleachers on one side and it is so open that they can’t charge admissions you can watch the football games from your dorm room window. It is smaller than our middle school stadium (ok we are in Texas so you can’t really compare football stadiums as fair marker) I know that is irrelevant but it just seems weird, lol.
D16 said she liked Duquesne’s small compact campus, and that the layout with dorms on one side and class buildings on the other “make sense”. But has dismissed other schools of slightly larger size as “too small”. Clearly another campus visit it in order!
Her comments about Pitt. “It feels like how I envisioned my college experience”.
OP, Congrats on great acceptances!
I am not familiar with the specifics of combined PA programs, but my D. was in combined program that included a medical school. It makes the UG years a bit more relaxed knowing that you have a spot if you just maintain a certain GPA and get a certain MCAT score, both of which are much lower than regular route stats. However, there is a catch. My D. really liked the UG that accepted her into such program. I believe that having a great student / college match is very important and if your student does not like a college that offers a spot in combined program, I am not sure what to advise in this case. My D. ended up applying out of her program and obtained acceptance to 3 additional medical schools. She did it for the reason that I have mentioned. While the UG was matching her criteria perfectly, Medical School in her program, which was at different university, did not match D’s criteria. As I said, actually liking the place is important, it was important for my D. On the other hand, I have few friends with kids who are PAs and being accepted to PA Grad. school is very challenging, some are not getting there on the first try. So, I would give it a very serious consideration, more so knowing that these programs are very challenging, so you want to remove all other stresses.
I’d say don’t think about a nursing major as a good one for pre-PA. PA students need the same undergrad curriculum as medical students (maybe a little more bio, depending on the school–but I digress). Students looking at PA need gen chem, o chem, biochem, physics, gen bio, etc during their undergrad educations. Nurses don’t need all that, nor will there be time in the nursing program to take it. Nurses will take a year of gen chem or some chem survey courses in gen and org, not enough/not acceptable for PA admissions. Haven’t seen a nursing program that requires a year of physics (but there may be one out there). Won’t even start on the major philosophical differences between the medical and nursing models and the resulting critical thinking training.
One other advantage of a 3+2 program is the collegial study. My daughter’s school was so small that all the students were in the same class at the same time. They had a team approach that was very different from the competitive nature of most premed classes since they were not competing for graduate slots. They divided themselves into study groups based on learning style.
Three years out my daughter still has a dozen intimate friends from school who all found work in the same county.
Duquesne’s PA program has a good reputation they are ranked 27th in the Nation. They are (or claim to be, I haven’t checked the veracity of the statement) the first program of it’s kind in the country, one on which other schools have modeled their programs. National Exam first time pass rates are in in the 95% range.
What is their PA class retention rate?
My D is in her 3rd year of a 5 year PA program (not at Duquesne). She has a Sr. friend (not in the program) who is now applying to PA school and my D is realizing just how lucky she is! Her graduate program is expecting over 1000 applications for 30 spots. She has to apply to her graduate program, but it is just a formality as long as she has met her required GPA, GRE score and patient hours. No worrying about increasing her GRE score, spending money on apps, traveling for interviews, etc.
A bit of advice. Start earning the Patient Care hours ASAP. My D got licensed as a CNA the summer after HS and started working right away when freshman year ended. She has volunteered at a free clinic, worked at a rehab center, and done home health care. Her employers have been thrilled to give her hours when she comes home for winter break (when the full time employees want time off) and the paychecks are a nice bonus!
Do all PA programs require patient care hours before getting accepted?
Yes. All schools require patient contact hours. For 3+2 programs the hours must be done prior to beginning the fourth year. Usually the school offers projects during the first three years to help with this but much of it is done independently.
My daughter worked full time during summer and holiday breaks as a home healthcare provider to disabled children
My nephew was an EMT during his college years.
That’s why the majority of grad spots are given to people who have been out of school and working other medical related jobs.
I just read you post, my daughter was in the same boat last year ( Graduated HS 2015), she looked at six PA direct entry programs and five nursing programs and decided to go direct entry PA. Pitt is a great school, however its very competitive and there will be many kids the same caliber competing for the same Graduate PA spots and she will be at a disadvantage due to the fact a full time college student can’t compete with the direct patient hours. My daughter looked at the following direct entry PA Programs and was admitted: Quinnipiac, Duquesne, Seton Hall NJ, Philadelphia University of the Sciences, DeSales University, and University of New England. DeSales you had to interview for a spot and Univ of New England had to keep a 3.75 to guarantee admission otherwise you competed with others for the spot. She eliminated DeSales because she did not interview due to the fact she got into her # 1 PA school before the scheduled interview and she did not want to be stressed to maintain a 3.75 @ UNE. Duquesne and DeSales is a 5+ year program, going full time your Junior Summer, so no summer break Junior year or option to do a semester abroad or class abroad with this major. Duquesne does not have Organic Chemistry where all other programs you had to take Organic Chemistry. Advantage and also a Disadvantage If you decide to start at DU and go to another program you will be at a disadvantage without Organic. I am also a graduate of Duquesne and loved it, you get to know a lot of people and Sunday night mass was a social event. It a smaller campus but the City of Pittsburgh is in your backyard, easy to walk to down town and over to the South Side. Lots to do and never bored. Much better location in my opinion then Pitt, but Pitt is closer to Shady side and Schenley Park. That all being said, she decided on Quinnipiac. QU is ranked # 5 in PA, has a beautiful campus in Hamden CT, great program and separate graduate campus for PA Grad program. There are only 25 PA’s in her freshman class and the are called ELMPA’s Entry Level Master of Physican Asst. They have a PA club and its very close nit group and do many things together. Its a six +year program - 4 years B.S, Health Science + 2.3 years PA Masters and graduate in August, It has a great reputation and they will be joined by another 25 PA’s in the graduate program. They were the most generous with the scholarship, twice as much as the amount we were given at Duquesne and they gave her $10,000 for two years for the graduate portion. She must keep a 3.0 to maintain the Undergrad scholarship and program and a 3.3 in Sciences to receive the graduate scholarship. QU also requires 1,000 Direct patient like most programs by the Senior year Spring semester, However in Sophomore year your are required to take EMT course and will be certified by the end of the sophomore to help you get the hours as part of the curriculum. They also will give you limited hours for Pharmacy Techs and working in position such as life guard and Medical Front office your Freshman year that will contribute towards your 1,000 hours. Did not mean to ramble on so much… Anyway I loved Duquesne but feel my daughter picked the better PA Program. If they were a little more generous, we received twice as much from 4 of the PA programs, we may have had another Duquesne Graduate in the family. Hope this story helped. If the end result is PA, the direct entry is the best and safest way to obtain the goal.