Three questions I get asked constantly, answered in one sitting.

First: how many programs should you apply to? I want you at ten to twelve where you actually meet the minimum requirements. For reference, the average accepted applicant applied to about six. A wider net helps.

Second: do shadowing hours matter if you already have healthcare experience? Yes. They aren't the same thing, and I explain why.

Third: why did I pick PA over medical school? I wrote an article for Doximity about it, and I get into that here.

What I cover:

• How many programs to apply to and why the number matters
• Only applying where you meet the minimums
• Why shadowing can't be swapped out for patient care hours
• What shadowing shows you that nothing else can
• My Doximity article on choosing PA over physician
• What still makes this job worth it for me

Resources:

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

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

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

One-on-one pre-PA counseling: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-counseling

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.

Hey there.

Welcome to episode 10.

We've made it 10 episodes so far.

I really hope that this podcast is giving you some value and just helping you figure things out if you're trying to decide if you want to be a pa, how to get there, all that fun stuff.

So it's been a lot of fun for me and I've really enjoyed the comments I've gotten about the podcast and what we've covered so far and some ideas of what to cover in the future.

So for this tenth episode, I wanted to read a few of the reviews you guys have left and answer some of the questions I've got sent in.

And then I also wanted to read an article that I did for a website called Doximity about why I chose to be a PA and not a physician.

So first off, let's look at some of the reviews.

So M. Brice O says Savannah is full of the most helpful information.

My college advisor is no help at all, so having Savannah and the Pre PA Club along with this podcast is beyond helpful.

I'm so glad you found it helpful.

I also had some issues in college with advisors.

I feel like sometimes they just don't necessarily know what all is required or involved in becoming a pa and that can be very frustrating as the person trying to get answers if you're going to someone who's supposed to be able to help you and they really can't.

So I had to take things into my own hands, plan out my own courses and luckily everything worked out.

But sometimes they take really understand what I was talking about.

Bevo67 says, thanks for doing this.

Very helpful As I work through all the various gates that keep me from my goal to be a pa. Keep up the good work.

You can do it.

We all have these gates to get through and things that seem like challenges and barriers and that can be frustrating.

But if you just keep pushing forward, I promise you will meet your goals.

So hopefully I can help you and if there's any other way I can help, please, please let me know.

Let's see.

Oh, this is a number.

I don't know who this is, but a great podcast.

Savannah packs a lot into a podcast that's a reasonable length to listen to, very informational and worth the listen for anyone considering PA school.

She has great insight and has been a practicing pa, so her opinion is trustworthy.

A great listen will recommend to friends.

Thank you for recommending me.

And I do try to keep them at a reasonable length.

I feel like that's around 20 to 30 minutes.

I know we've had a couple longer ones.

If you guys would like for it to be longer, let me know.

This is still in its early phases, so I'm open to suggestions, changes, whatever you guys feel like would be helpful to you.

And here's a question there from HobbyRx.

He or she says great resource for students that have answered the physician assistant call.

The profession has a lot less available info than MD seekers.

I totally agree.

How many programs should you apply to?

So I haven't addressed this yet on the podcast.

When it comes to choosing what programs to apply to and how many to apply to.

I think I'll do a whole episode on choosing the type of programs to look for, but I always recommend 10 to 12.

The average amount of schools that a person who was accepted accepted, applied to was six.

And so that means that people who are accepted applied to less than 6 and applied to more than 6.

And I think by applying to 10 to 12 that you are qualified for, not ones that you don't meet the minimum requirements, you are increasing your chances significantly of getting acceptance.

I mean that's a pretty broad spreading your application broadly.

Now, should you apply to 20 to 30 programs?

I don't think that that is going to increase your chances significantly.

If you meet the minimums for a program, you have a good shot of getting an interview.

There are a lot of applications that get thrown out because they don't even meet the requirements.

So when you see these numbers that schools get as far as having 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 applicants, a good amount of those are getting thrown out because they don't have the right gpa, they didn't take all the correct prerequisite, their GRE doesn't meet the requirements.

There are a lot of factors there and so you don't want to waste your time or money applying to somewhere that you aren't even going to get looked at.

And so I think if you meet the minimums and there are 10 to 12 programs that you are actually interested in and would be happy going to.

That's kind of my number that I recommend.

So I hope that helps answer your question.

And now let's go to a voice recording question.

So if you didn't know, if you go to www.thepaplatform.com podcast, there's a button on the right hand side where you can click and leave me a voice recording to be answered directly on the podcast.

So if there's something you want answered, go sign on there and it'll send it straight to me and we'll get it incorporated into a future episode.

So here we go.

How important are shadowing hours if you have many, many hours of working in healthcare and other kinds of things that are related to healthcare?

I did some shadowing in an er, but it didn't seem enough compared to the numbers that I've read about.

So if you can please let me know.

Thank you so much.

Okay, so I discussed shadowing some in episode two and episode three, but when it comes to shadowing, the purpose of there are two different reasons.

So the reason you shadow is to get a feel for what a day in the life of a PA looks like.

And you have to be able to show that you understand what the roles and responsibilities look like, what the relationship with the supervising physician is like, and how PAs actually interact with patients and co workers.

And so even if you're working in the healthcare field and even around pas, unfortunately you can't double dip in those hours.

So I'll use my medical assistant for an example.

Her name's Taylor.

I've talked about her before.

She's one of my really, really good friends and so I'm lucky to get to work with her every day.

But.

But she is currently thinking about going to PA school and applying and all of that.

So even though that she has worked with a pa, myself and the PA before me every single day for the last five years, that does not count as shadowing hours.

Obviously she knows what a PA does.

She is literally by my side the entire day and makes sure that my head is on straight.

But when it comes to actually putting those hours into caspa, you cannot double dip.

You can't say, oh, I've been around a PA for this long, that's shadowing.

And I was working as a medical assistant.

You got to differentiate.

So if she wanted to take a week out of her medical assistant hours and use that as shadowing, she probably could because essentially that's what she's doing.

But it is ideal that you have both shadowing hours and healthcare experience hours.

And that's just something schools want to see and they want to see those shadowing hours varied.

They want to know that you've been exposed to different areas.

So whether that's a hospital, an or a private office, and different specialties, primary care, urgent care, emergency medicine, like you mentioned, dermatology orthopedics they want to know that you have taken the time to explain, explore this career fully, do your homework, do your research, and that you really know what you're getting yourself into.

I think as someone who does have a lot of healthcare experience hours that can be frustrating at times because you know that you know what a PA is, you feel very confident in that.

But it is something that schools are looking for and so it is something I recommend trying to do whether or not you are working exclusively with a PA or, or have a lot of exposure to PAs.

So I hope that answers your question and I hope you'll be able to find some more shadowing opportunities.

If you work in healthcare, you may be able to use those connections to get you some more hours.

But yeah, if anyone else has any questions, head over to the website, leave me a voice memo and we'll get them into a future episode.

Now let me go to my article that I did for Doximity.

And so if you don't know what Doximity is, it is basically a social media type site for physicians and PAs and nurse practitioners.

So they curate articles and help you to stay up to date with kind of what's going on in the medical world, whether from a disease standpoint or just issues as far as kind of politics and all kinds of things.

So I have been working with them for a couple years now as a fellow, which just means that I comment and do some articles.

And they reached out and asked me to do an article on why I became a PA and not a physician.

And so I want to read this to you.

And I think one thing I talk about in there is that I do have an interesting perspective being that I'm married to a physician.

So I've seen that path we went while he was in med school, I was in PA school.

And so I've been able to compare the differences and writing something like this, I wasn't exactly sure how it was going to be received.

Sometimes when you voice an opinion it can be kind of criticized.

But this was actually received very well and I got some really nice comments on it.

As far as other PAs, saying that they could relate and that they felt the same way I did.

So I'm just going to read this.

It's out on the Internet.

I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to go look at it yourself.

And then if you ever have any questions, let me know.

And then if this is something that you are trying to decide between as far as PA versus MD, you may want to check out episode seven where I did an interview with Dr. Ryan Gray, who runs a similar website to the PA platform, but for pre med students.

And so we kind of dive into the differences and go a little bit more in depth.

So here we go.

This is my article for Doximity.

My decision to become a physician assistant did not come easily or without much deliberation.

Going into my freshman year at the University of Georgia, I declared myself a biology major with an eager intent of going into some area of healthcare.

I was well aware of the PA profession, but I had doubts about whether that was the right career path for me.

And to be honest, I really didn't even know myself yet.

As I spent many hours studying for chemistry and agonizing over my future, I looked at every option I could think of.

I tend to be a research addict, so I made a list of potential professions I could do with my biology major.

That list included everything from medical school to teaching high school biology.

I had to ask myself important questions about my future.

What would make me happy?

How could I help people?

At the same time, did I even have a future at all?

I could be a little dramatic at times.

After surviving chemistry and developing some intense test anxiety, I spent the summer between freshman and sophomore year shadowing as much as possible.

I spent time with doctors, pas nurses, and physical therapists.

I took the time to ask them about their studies and how they ended up in their chosen career paths.

I also asked about their job satisfaction.

At the end of that summer, I confirmed that becoming a PA was the right choice for me.

I witnessed some amazing collaborative relationships between doctors and their PAs.

And I also saw how a knowledgeable, confident PA is able to help their patients independently.

As soon as I made this decision, it felt like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.

There was also a personal part of this decision.

I've always been a hard worker, and even at 19, I was ready to start working.

There tends to be a stigma that students right out of undergrad are not mature enough to become PAs, but I don't feel that was the case for me.

The thought of spending seven plus more years of training in medical school and residency just stressed me out.

And then to think I may not end up in the specialty I desired because of a test score completely ruled out that option for me.

Looking back, I have no doubts that I would have been able to succeed in medical school.

My resident physician husband will tell you he's glad we didn't have to compete on tests, but I know that my competitive nature would not have gained me any friends in medical school.

My PA school class was a family and I loved the support we were able to give each other without any weight of the competition of step scores and the match.

I've watched my husband and his classmates struggle through testing seasons and support each other through failures, and now I'm experiencing the life of a resident spouse, which is not always fun and games.

Residency is tough.

While there are days I wish I had the intense training offered in residency, I am lucky to have an amazing supervising physician who is the best teacher I could ever ask for.

And I'm a better PA because of her commitment to my training, confidence in my knowledge, and the time she's pushed me out of my comfort zone.

I can honestly say that I'm happy to go to work and I'm happy to go home knowing that I've been able to serve my patients.

I don't envy my supervising physicians as they make business decisions about how to keep the practice running and make us more efficient.

While they meet over lunch and stay late, I'm home on time without any residual thoughts of the office.

I didn't necessarily choose PA for the lateral mobility that many hopeful PAs will enthusiastically claim as their reason for not becoming a physician.

It's certainly not a downside, but I don't plan on switching specialties anytime soon.

It was a comforting thought when my husband was applying to residencies that with a potential move, I had no concern that I would be able to find a great job even if it wasn't in my desired specialty.

And when it comes to work life balance, I believe that is a choice you make no matter what career you choose, PA or physician.

Three years out from my PA school graduation, I am still confident in my decision.

As the job market continues to expand and the patient population continues to understand how PAs fit into their healthcare, I can say that I'm proud to be a member of this profession.

So that's it.

That is why I chose to be a PA and not a physician.

And I don't know if that gives you any clarity in your decision making, but that's just my opinion on it.

I hope this episode has been helpful.

I know it's a little bit different than the ones I've done in the past.

I have some great interviews coming up for you and some more topics we're going to cover, and as always, if there's anything you want to hear about, please let me know.

I don't necessarily talk about my website that much, but just so you know, if you aren't signed up for our monthly newsletter.

Go ahead and do that.

It should come out next week.

And with that, I provide links to great articles and updates on the profession.

Anything going on that you need to know about.

And so you can find that on my website.

And there's some free downloads on there.

We have the Pre Pa Club Facebook group, which I run with some other PAs.

My new Pre Pa coach, Sam Burke, she's awesome.

And so if you're looking for somebody to do a mock interview and you don't want to do it with me, you can do one with her.

She's really, really great.

She lives in New York.

I'm gonna have her come on the podcast in a few weeks, hopefully.

And yeah, please feel free to reach out.

I'm very accessible.

I'm on Instagram.

That's probably the easiest way to reach me.

That or email.

And I'm always interested to hear what's going on with you.

So I hope you have a great week and a great weekend.

And just let me know if I can help you out in any way.

See you next time.