Undergrad and PA school in five years total. That's a 3+2.

Abby is in Gannon University's 3+2 program, which means she went from undergrad straight into PA school without applying through CASPA or taking a gap year. Five years and she's done.

That sounds great, and for the right person it is. But you have to know you want this at eighteen and then not let up. There's no coasting semester, no changing your mind at junior year without blowing up the plan, and you still have to hit patient care hours and hold your grades to keep your seat.

Abby also talks about what pulled her toward PA in the first place, which came out of her own time as a patient managing an autoimmune condition.

What we cover:

• How a 3+2 program works and the five-year timeline
• Committing to PA before you start undergrad
• Patient care hour and GPA requirements to keep your spot
• What pushed her toward the PA profession
• The tradeoffs of a direct-entry path
• Who should and shouldn't consider a 3+2

Resources:

PA Program Map: https://www.thepaplatform.com/pa-platform-map

CASPA GPA Calculator: https://www.thepaplatform.com/pa-school-caspa-gpa-calculator

Free Application Timeline: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-application-timeline

Pre-PA Counseling: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-counseling

Mentioned in this episode:

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This is episode 145 of the Pre Pa Club podcast and today we're talking to Abby, who did a 3, 2 program, so she went straight from her undergrad into her PA program and we'll learn all about it.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club Podcast.

If you want to learn how to become a physician assistant, you're in the right place.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry.

Let's get to it.

All right, before we get to our interview, we are welcoming a new sponsor on the podcast this month and I want to introduce you to Stride Funding.

Everyone always asks about how to pay for PA School and this is a very interesting, innovative alternative to traditional student loans.

Instead of being faced with ridiculous interest rates and paying for 10, 20, 30 years, Stride funding offers income share agreements, which means you would pay a small percent of income after you graduate over a shorter time frame than a traditional student loan.

So usually you're looking at about a five year plan at around 4 to 10% of your income.

No interest, no principal amount, and a grace period that will start before, well after graduation, but before payments begin.

And then there's also flexibility around some unexpected life events.

But you can go to stridefunding.com to learn more and we will have a link in the description as well that will get you straight there so that you can check it out, see if it's something that's going to work for you and maybe save you some money in the long run.

I want to thank mypa Resource and PA School Prep for sponsoring the Prepa Club Podcast.

So mypa Resource is a personal statement editing service that edits only PA school essays, only edited by PAs and most of us have admissions experience so I am one of the editors.

Definitely check them out if you need help with your content grammar flow, making sure that you are on track for turning in your application.

And you can use the code Future PA for a discount on any of their service options.

PA School Prep is an online course that focuses on the anatomy, physiology and med terms that you'll need for PA School to make sure you feel confident going into that first semester and that you are able to handle what PA school throws at you.

So check that [email protected] and also use the code future PA for a discount there.

Hey guys, thanks for tuning in.

I'm Savannah, the host of the Pre PA Club Podcast.

I'm also a Dermatology PA and I'm so happy you're here.

Thank you for listening.

Today's episode will be an interview with A student who is in a 3, 2, 2 program.

So we'll explain a little bit about what that means if you've never heard of that.

But she is on her clinical rotations and she's at Gannon University.

So this is someone who basically goes into undergrad knowing they want to become a pa and they go through three years of undergrad, two years of PA school.

So it kind of shaves a year off of schooling.

So that's kind of cool.

And I think you'll enjoy hearing from Abby.

Before we jump into that, I wanted to, number one, thank you for being here.

And if you have never subscribed, subscribed or left a review for the podcast, I would so appreciate it if you could just take a second to leave us a review on itunes.

That's what helps other pre pas find us and create this little great community that we have.

But also, I wanted to kind of make sure that you're aware of webinars and events coming up this month.

And I think I talked about them last week, too.

But we have some things in July that you may want to know about.

So on July 21, that's when the stride funding webinar will occur.

Where they're going talk about ways to pay for PA school.

July 24th is the we're going to do another mock interview live webinar.

And y', all, this one's gonna be good because I think as of right now, the plan is to get some admissions committee members to interview me live.

And I've not, you know, officially had a mock interview of myself or an interview with myself in probably 10 years.

So that will be probably very funny.

But you can go to prepaid conference.com to sign up for that.

And it'll be at 8pm Eastern.

And then on July 25, to keep the party going, we have the Northeastern Virtual Pre PA Conference, which will be, you know, so many great speakers.

Definitely check that out.

Links to all of this are in the description of the podcast.

And you can always reach out on social media, too, on Instagram or wherever to get more info if you need it.

So that would be at the PA platform.

Other things just to keep in mind, if you are in the Pre PA Club Facebook group, we recently started a thread of where people are getting interviews.

And y' all, like, there are so many interview invites going out and I still, I just think everything's happening a lot sooner this year, but because so many interviews are virtual.

But if you are kind of trying to figure out where you're at and if your school has started doing interviews, definitely check out that thread, join the Facebook group.

It's called the Pre PA Club.

But yeah, so many interviews going out.

And if you need help with interviews, we do have the mock interviews.

We have so many great coaches.

We've added a couple this year.

We even have a coach in Hawaii, which I think is so cool.

But if you need help with your inner interviews, definitely consider that if you go back a long time, we have a, an interview, like a live mock interview that we did on the podcast.

And I may be sharing some kind of parts from the webinar we did as well coming up.

But you can use the code future [email protected] for a discount on any of those mock interview services on the PA School interview guidebook, the PA School interview course.

Any of that is fine.

So, and as always, if you have any issues or questions, please reach out.

But we'll jump into our interview with Abby and I hope you enjoy it.

So my name is Abby Prince.

I am a physician assistant student at Gan University, which is a college up in Erie, Pennsylvania for people that don't know.

I am in my final year school, so I'm in clinical rotations right now.

I'll be done in August if this Covid stuff kind of, you know, calms down, hopefully soon.

But I'm hoping to probably stay in the Pittsburgh area since that's where I'm originally from in probably a specialty.

I've really liked obstetrics.

That's been my favorite.

But I would be happy to have a job in women's health or family medicine.

So that's kind of where I'm headed right now.

Awesome.

Okay, well, so your program, you may have said, this is what they call a three plus two program.

So essentially, what would your major be considered in that type of program?

I always been considered a physician assistant major.

Okay.

But what's kind of different is my undergraduate degree is in a bachelor's of Health science.

So if you're getting technical, I guess health science is what I was.

But I've always been registered for like specific classes, so.

Gotcha.

So what?

I guess I don't know which way to start because most of the time kind of asking, you know, how did you find pa?

But you, you had to know, you know, going into college that that was a hundred percent what you wanted to do.

So I guess, how did you get to that point?

Yeah.

So I guess kind of halfway through high school, I knew that I was going to go into medicine, but I wasn't exactly sure which type of medicine I wanted to go into.

And the reason, I guess I chose medicine, just in general, is because I loved helping people.

I loved learning about anatomy and all kinds of physiology.

It's related to the human body.

But the main thing that was kind of my reason for picking PA is that growing up at the age of two, I was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease called juvenile dematomyositis.

And just for those who don't know what that is, it's just a autoimmune disease where my body basically attacks my muscles and also my skin.

So I had to go through treatments for that until I was 16.

And, you know, I was at doctor's offices a lot.

I was hospitalized a lot of times, too, getting ivigs and medications and all that stuff.

So I was very, you know, kind of exposed to the medical field my whole life.

And I had had PAs that treated me.

I had doctors that treated.

Treated me.

I had a ton of people that did.

And, you know, as I kind of looked at the people that had treated me, the PAs really stood out to me.

And also, as I talked to a lot of PAs that I knew who were either going through school or had already graduated, I just kind of fell in love with the profession.

You know, I just kind of did more research on it.

And then kind of my junior year of high school, I really did some soul searching, and I figured out, you know, PA is perfect for me.

I love that I can switch specialties, and I love that, you know, the school, the program I picked is only five years, as opposed to six.

That was another thing.

And then I also just love, you know, the team approach, and I'm immersed in medicine.

That's awesome.

Okay, so you had a very personal connection to medicine, which kind of brought you to this, which is interesting.

What?

So one of the criticisms that people have about these three plus two programs is that when you graduate, you're so young, you don't have any life experience.

How can you be ready?

What are your thoughts on that?

I mean, I can see their point, you know, because I haven't really.

I mean, I'm.

I guess I'm a little different.

During the summers, between my programs, I chose to do jobs that were more clinical.

So I was a patient access representative in the er, and I worked physical therapy.

So I still was immersing myself in different types of medicine.

So for me personally and a lot of my classmates, they did that.

They were still getting patient contact hours.

So I guess that's kind of one thing where most of us still do get some type of clinical experience one way or another.

So, okay, how do the requirements compare to like a traditional applying to PA school?

Did you still have to have things like patient care experience and shadowing?

Does that type of program help you get that or is it still kind of on your own?

So in order to start my very first year, so like five years ago, I had to have, I forget how many hours it was, but I had to have a certain amount of patient contact hours.

I even started.

And then also when I applied, they obviously wanted to know that we were gonna carry this profession out or the studies out for five years, not drop out like halfway through or whatever.

So we really had to prove that this is what we wanted to do.

So a lot of us had had patient contact hours.

We had letters of recommendation that were very strong.

Our essays had to be strong or GPAs and ACT SATs.

So there's still obviously a lot of requirements to get into this type of program, which, you know, I considered doing a four year program and then going into a two year program like a lot of people do.

But for me personally, I figured out that the three plus two program kind of worked for me personally.

Okay, so once you're in the program, is it kind of like if you meet your requirements and I guess do well in your classes, kind of do what's expected of you, you just move straight into that PA program?

Part of it, yeah.

We had to reach a certain GPA in all of our science courses and all of our liberal arts courses.

So as long as we passed all of those at a certain grade, then we were good to go starting our last two years.

Okay, and is the PA portion just those people from the three plus two program or do they accept outside applicants?

Do.

Yeah.

So we actually had six, I think six post baccalaureate students.

So anybody that doesn't complete the whole the first three years and dropped out for whatever reason, they accept in, you know, other students.

So we had quite a few people that were, you know, previous EMTs or whatever, and they applied and now they're in our program with us.

So they just kind of jumped in and it was pretty seamless.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

So kind of cool.

Okay, how many people are in your program total?

I think there's 63 of us.

That's pretty big.

Wow.

Yeah, they kind of, when they lecture us, they kind of split us into two groups and then obviously our labs are like five or six people, so they kind of break it down as we go.

Okay, that's awesome.

What type of person or student do you think a three plus two program would be good for?

And I guess on the flip side that maybe not good for.

I think you definitely have to know that PA is the profession you want to do if you're going to do three plus two.

Because obviously the people, they accept, they want you to stay for the whole five years.

So that's obviously a big thing.

I think another thing is the people that apply have to be willing to be able to go 5 years non stop off without any type of a break.

Which I know a lot of the four plus two people sometimes have like a gap year for whatever reason, which there's absolutely no problem with that.

So it's just, you know, your preference.

So maybe people that, you know, need a year to figure out or a couple years to figure out if PAs for them.

I know there are a lot of people at my school that were pre PAs, so they, you know, either went in just being a biology major or chemistry or, you know, whatever, and then a year or two they decided, oh, I definitely want to do pa, so I'm going to be a PPA major.

And then they were able to sometimes get into Gannon's program or whatever.

But you know, if you need that extra time to kind of figure out if pain free, that'd be a reason to maybe not do a 32 program.

Okay, what do the first three years look like?

So the first three years we kind of just take all those general classes.

So I took biology, chemistry, gross anatomy.

What else?

A bunch of just liberal arts classes.

Because getting into a Catholic school, so they have us taking all philosophy and sociology and all those things.

So that was mainly the first three years.

And then the last two years.

Our first year was kind of what most people are eating PA schools.

We had our first year of didactic year, which was all the book studies, all the lectures, and we had some labs and things like that.

And then obviously the last year is all clinical stuff.

So I've been on rotations for the last couple months.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Did you feel prepared moving into the PA portion or did you?

I mean, I guess my question is like, when I think about my undergrad, you know, I had to pick all my classes.

I had to like figure out the best times and if I couldn't get one, I had to take it at a different school.

Do they kind of make sure that you're getting everything you need and like set it up for you a little bit?

More or is it different?

Yeah, they, when we, as soon as we came in, they basically gave us our schedule for the five years.

So all I had to do was, you know, register for the classes and if for whatever reason somebody wasn't able to get in, they would figure it out somehow for us.

So that was really nice that we didn't have, I mean, we had a little bit of wiggle room whether we took it our first year or second year, certain classes.

But generally it wasn't too much of a problem.

So it was definitely nice.

That is really interesting.

It would take a lot of stress off of trying to make everything work out.

Wow.

I think I did this completely wrong.

There really aren't that many, I think.

And I think there may even be getting less and less of the three plus two programs though.

Like, I know in Georgia we don't have one and I can't even really think of where the closest one would be.

So I mean, that would, I think, be maybe a limiting factor for some people is just location and not having, you know, good access to the.

Unless they were willing to kind of move for that.

What happens in that type of program if you do struggle with something, do you end up having to remediate or how do they kind of.

I'm not exactly sure.

I think there is like a process of like you can retake courses because usually you're not taking 18 credits every single semester.

So if there's something you need to retake, you can either, you know, take a summer class and then have room to retake it, you know, but not too many people had issues with that.

Usually like any faculty that you're taking a class with and if they recognize you're struggling, they'll get you resources to help you.

So whether it's tutoring or you know, one on one sessions with the professor, they are pretty active in making sure we meet our requirements.

Requirements.

Gotcha.

Did you find that you had to change how you studied between kind of the undergrad portion and the PA didactic.

Portion a little bit?

Definitely PA school.

You know, when you're in didactic, you're just getting a ton of information.

You just have to remember all of it.

Whereas some of the other classes, you know, an undergrad are just like, oh, here's a chemistry, you know, problem, just do it.

And you just kind of have to know the process.

So definitely I had to.

Quizlet was my best friend.

So I used a lot of quizlets and I wrote my notes out and just kind of, you know.

Yeah, I Definitely just changed things like that.

Yeah, I think you have to adjust at least a little bit.

And then how have clinicals been so far?

It's been good.

I've really, really enjoyed all my placements.

Kind of sad, you know, things have been halted right now, but.

Yeah, what have they done with that?

I mean, was it the clinical rotations that said you can't come anymore or more the program?

Yeah.

So I was on my sixth rotation and the site I was at, I was on labor and delivery, so, you know, kind of high risk patients and they just weren't comfortable with having students there.

Just in case we would transmit it to the patient, which I totally understand.

Right.

So they asked me to step off site.

And then a week or two after that, my university said that we're all out of rotations until further notice, which they ended up canceling our seventh rotation.

So that was supposed to start last Monday.

So we're just kind of on hold for right now.

And hopefully we'll be back May 11th.

And that still would allow us to graduate on time is they're just gonna, like, change a couple things in our schedule, so.

Really hoping that works.

Yeah, that's tough.

That's what a lot of students are dealing with right now.

And I mean, like you said, I get it.

I totally understand.

And it's just a crazy, crazy time, but hopefully everything will work out.

What to you has been the most surprising thing about PA school?

That's a good question.

Like, what would you want to tell someone?

Like, what would you want someone to know before they get into the PA school part that you wish you could have told yourself?

Maybe, I guess, you know, I didn't realize in some ways how many sacrifices I would have to make, which obviously this is the most important thing in my life right now.

So certain things that I wanted to be able to do, friendships that I, you know, wanted to be more active in relationships, I wanted to be more active in.

You kind of have to be okay with putting that aside a little bit.

And, you know, you obviously need support, so you don't want to go totally back off of these things.

But I wish I had been more prepared for, you know, that aspect of school, just how rigorous it is.

Yeah.

The social part is not always easy either, for sure.

Well, where would you recommend people look to find out either more information about the program or where could they contact you to kind of learn more?

So Gannon, they have their.

I guess it would be Gannon.

Edu.

So if there's any, you know, specific information about the program requirements, all those things, that would definitely be the place to go.

I know they've changed quite a few things since I applied five years ago, so I can kind of give anybody a little bit of information about those changes and my specific experience with my program, going through it.

So people can reach me at my Instagram Instagram page is probably best.

You can just DM me.

My handle is a P R I n t v 16.

So send me a message and I'll be happy.

I'm sure you'll get plenty of questions.

Well, I appreciate you taking the time to tell us about your program.

No problem.

Thank you for, you know, doing this platform.

This is really good for a lot of people.

Try to help.

Yeah.