How much does it cost? As far as I know Duquesne costs $50,000 a year for PA program.
That would be $250,000 for 5 years. Did your D get merit from Duquesne? The top amount they gave last year was $20,000
Also check into St Francis University in Loretta PA, they give merit and have 5 year program.
The first three years are at undergraduate tuition and the last two at graduate tuition. A friend of my D’s can afford the first three years after merit and need based aid and only has to borrow about $100,000 for the last two years.
Gannon, Seton Hill.
If she is absolutely sure she wants PA then direct admit is advisable. But if not and the costs are much higher then a 4 yr/2yr program may be better. Do they get a Bachelor’s degree after the 3 yr part in a 5yr program?
Hello,
My son is currently in this 3rd year in the PA undergraduate program at DeSales University. He originally had to interview as a senior in high school to be admitted to the program. To stay in the program, he needs to maintain a certain GPA in his science classes as well as overall. He started with a class of about 50 students, but it has dropped to about 25 students due to students changing majors and dropping out of the program due to a lower than acceptable GPA. He does not need to take any graduate level tests to begin his Master’s level classes which will begin in August. He will graduate May of 2016 with a B.S. in Medical Studies, and will graduate in August of 2017 with his Master’s degree. He was offered a nice 4 year scholarship. Since his 4th year also counts towards his Master’s program, this scholarship is so helpful.
In my opinion, going the 3+2 route makes so much sense. You are saving a full year of tuition at the undergraduate level. Also in my son’s case, he does not need to worry about applying to get into the Master’s level program. He is currently an EMT and had no difficulty getting in the required number of patient care hours. I agree that the student should begin accumulating health care hours as soon as possible.
The undergraduate program is pretty intense. Students have several semesters with 18+ credits.
I have a daughter who is a junior in college, hoping to go to Physician Assistant school. She is majoring in Biology and intending to apply to a P.A. school here in our town which only requires 100 hours of health care experience. It is extremely competititve though and her GPA is probably good enough to get into medical school (which she doesn’t want). The program is 27 months. There are lots of schools that do not require the 500-1000 hours of health care experience. My daughter has been working summers in a clinic and has more than 100 but it is not required by the university.
The two universities are close enough. She can try to make some friends at Pitt and hang out at Pitt activities and sports events, while getting the 5 year degree.
Another factor would be to total up the comparative net costs of 5 years at Duquesne vs. 4 Years of Pitt and 2 years at an averaged priced masters program. The 2 years at a masters program may be at a college in a much more expensive city. Also, you need to consider the extra year of income that you can receive by graduating a year earlier.
It is also nice to be able to stay in the same city for 5 years.
I understand that it’s important for a school to be a good fit for a student and for them to feel comfortable there, but students entering a 3+2 or 4+2 BS+MS/D program need to understand that they are going to be entering a very intensive program and may not get to ‘enjoy’ the college experience in the traditional sense. Duquesne may go from feeling ‘too small’ to ‘just right’ when a student is constantly pressed for time to keep up with studies, shadowing hours and other commitments.
I agree with many here that if your daughter is quite certain she wants to be a PA, then the 5 year program is the way to go. My DD got her undergrad and then worked as a medical scribe in the ER for a year, in order to get her patient hours. After that year, she continued working as a scribe and applied to 10 PA programs. She had excellent grades, 2000+ patient hours, a lot of volunteer hours. She got 4 invitations to interview, and was put on the waitlist for all 4 of those schools. She was recently offered a spot off the waitlist at one of the schools and will be starting there in June. PA school is very competitive. Many schools receive well over 1000 applicants for 40-ish spots. So, if you can get an auto-admit and a 5 year program, I think it’s well worth it!
BTW, from what I understand, most schools want to see 2000+ patient hours. There are a few schools that require less than that (or don’t require any), but the majority of students accepted in these programs have well over 2000 hours anyway.
A nursing major is an excellent major to prepare for PA school.
The PA requirements are actually not the same requirements as medical school. They tend to require a year of anatomy and physiology, a year of general biology, a year of general chemistry, microbiology, and a semester of math (statistics is recommended). Some require general psychology, abnormal psychology, and English (plus some social sceinces and humanities courses which you’d get in ge ends.) Nursing majors do, in fact, have to take all of those classes in the first two years of a BSN program or as prerequisites to a 2-year nursing program.
I have checked out several PA programs and have yet to find one that requires any physics, biochem, or o-chem. But many nursing majors require organic chemistry too.
However, the most difficult to get component of a PA application is the hours of direct patient care. Most PA programs require at least 500-1000 and at many programs the average is more like 2,000-4,000, which if I remember correctly is the equivalent of 1-2 years of full time work. That’s the reason why so many PAs are former nurses, EMTs, paramedics and other allied health professionals. A student who doesn’t go to a combined BS/MS program for PA would be really well-served by a nursing degree; it would be the best way to get the direct patient care hours at a high level. Plus the nursing BSN is a degree that is widely useful in a diverse array of areas; even if the person decided they no longer wanted to be a PA, there are lots of other options - nurse practitioner, nursing education, nurse leadership, healthcare administration, research nursing, health care consulting, etc.
And yes, there are major philosophical differences between the medical and nursing model. But nurses and doctors work together every day, and most of the PAs I’ve met were nurses before they became PAs. There’s definitely a way to reconcile the models.
Just wondering how she likes Quinnipiac. My dtr was admitted to that program for fall 2016 but can’t decide what to do bc she really wanted a big rah rah school experience
Looking for feedback on the following direct admit 5/6 year programs by DD was admitted to - each has a good scholarship associated with them so not really looking at the financial side so much as the schools themselves - RIT, Gannon, Albany Pharmacy, Oneonta, and Lemoyne. Thank you!
My daughter loves QU, it’s a tough school for PA but it’s a close knit group in the ELMPA program. They have a pretty difficult schedule up to Junior year and it definitely requires many hours of studying. It’s a well thought out program that will give you the skill set for the graduate program.
They help each other out and since they all have a spot there is no competition.
QU is ranked # 1 in hockey so there is a lot of school spirit and rah rah … I think if she is going PA, it’s hard to pass by…
With regards to your answer on curriculum most PA schools require Organic Chemistry , BioChemsitry and a course in Physics. Nursing majors have the water down version of either bio or chemistry … It’s definitely more premed and challenging then nursing … Sorry that’s just the facts!
I certainly wouldn’t say the undergrad curriculum is more challenging, although it probably is more hyper-competitive. But if forced to pick between O-chem and Med-surg? Not sure I wouldn’t take O-chem!
Here’s my question–why would a nurse pick a PA over an NP? (BTW, I do know one who did make that choice) In many instances, both mid-level provides do essentially the same thing, BUT a PA is always going to be under a physician. An NP can practice independently in many states.
My D is just completing a 5 year BSN/MSN to become an NP. We picked that in part because of the automatic admission to the NP program. She is looking at moving to Oregon, which seems to allow NPs to bill independently of doctors. I believe there is a lot more independence or practice as well, but I am not sure. The legislature passed a bill mandating that when NPs and MDs provide the same service, they get the same reimbursement from insurers. I know that she has worked very hard in courses like Med-Surg (and was a TA and tutor for it as well) and would have hated taking physics.
But, I believe she is being well-trained (despite some dumb courses she had to take ealy on). At several hospitals where she has done clinicals, doctors she has worked with have said to her (without any elicitation from my D), “You’re so bright. You should go to med school.” She decided at the start that she wanted to have children and spend time with them and thought being an NP would be much better for that than being an MD. Only time will tell. She is in her last semester and is eager to be done with school.
@shawbridge my d is in her nurse residency this year (earned a BSN last spring). She has learned that she doesn’t want to practice medicine, period. She doesn’t care for what providers do now that she’s seen them in action long-term. So, I’m very glad she didn’t do one of those 5 year programs, as her initial plan was to pursue medical school admission or a DNP. After working, her plans (at least for the moment) involve a PhD rather than a professional degree.
It’s good she learned early about what interests her, @ordinarylives. Some people are happier with more academic approaches and other with more concrete things.
That happened for my D. She switched from biology to nursing and nurse practitionering. While she is interested in human biology, she is concrete – she doesn’t like learning for learning’s sake but excels when she understands how she is going to use what she is learning – and is social. So, she made the switch and transferred schools after one semester. She has found that she likes the clinical rotations and the work better than a lot of the classes.
My daughter is a PA now into her second job and by no means does she work under a doctor. In her first job she worked side by side with a doctor. By law he was required to review three of her charts every month. The doctor took frequent vacations and she was the only practitioner at the family medical clinic for a week or two.
Now she is working at a walk in clinic for a major hospital. There are NO doctors at the clinic. If she runs into anything she can’t handle she sends the patient to the ER.
-It is not true that nursing majors have the “watered down” version of those classes. My mom is a nurse, my sister was a nursing major before changing, my cousin is currently in nursing school and I have several other nurses in my family. They took the exact same Chem 101 classes as everyone else. In fact, take a look at the prerequisite courses for a non-direct entry BSN program. UW’s requires two quarters of general biology and three quarters of inorganic and organic chemistry plus microbiology - and there aren’t separate sections for nursing majors. Arizona has similar requirements - chem, bio, microbio, statistics, psychology. So does Washington State (which actually requires both organic chem and biochem) and UNC. None of these programs have special “watered down” versions of these classes for nursing majors.
In fact, that wouldn’t make sense, since the NP’s scope of care is pretty similar to the PA’s, NPs can prescribe meds, and nurses dispense a lot of meds and have to know about drug interactions. Why would anyone want them to have a “lite” version of chemistry?
I think this is a great exemplar of the difference between “by law” and “in practice.” By law, yes, she does practice under a doctor because PAs have to be supervised by physicians in all 50 states (hence the name physicians assistant). However, the laws vary from state to state, and PAs don’t always have to have their supervising/collaborating physician on-site to collaborate. Many PAs run their own clinics and the physician comes by once a week, or conferences with them over Skype or the phone once a month, or makes themselves available for consultation. Many PAs - especially in resource-poor areas or in primary care settings - function more or less independently without much actual oversight from a physician. I’ve seen PAs and NPs as a primary care provider without ever meeting or seeing their ‘supervising’ physician.
And honestly that’s also the relationship that NPs have with physicians in some states, too. NPs can’t practice independently in all 50 states. In fat, there are only 21 states where NPs can practice completely independently; there are 17 other states where they need physician oversight on prescriptions an and additional 12 where they need physician oversight to treat, diagnose and prescribe).
I think you are missing the point, PA school is very competitive and though some don’t require it, most students applying are Pre-Med and Pre-Pa majors that require this curriculum. QU Entry level PA requires Organic, BioChem and Physics. Their curriculum is online hard to dispute… Seton Hall, UNE require Organic Chemistry for Pre-Pa, Duquesne is one of the few I saw that doesn’t , though I have not looked at all of them. You are applying for limited spots with an average acceptance rate below 20% … You are foolish to not take them. Most nursing majors don’t take Organic or BioChem. In addition,
most Nursing majors take Chemical Principals with Biological Applications a different version of Chem then Pre-Pa or Premed and in some cases other versions of Biology. I don’t doubt some universities require the same version but most Nursing majors are not taking the same rigor in their courses. Pre-Pa is definitely more challenging look at the Direct entry programs and compare them to nursing … Hands down more challenging curriculum and more sciences then nursing. Nursing has a lot of practicums and hands on training and great experience but most Nursing Majors would need to take a few classes to apply to PA after graduating.
This thread is for entry level PA Programs which requirements more then exceed PA school minimum requirements and it’s no walk in the Park. No knock to nursing @ all.