Melody was headed toward medical school and changed her mind. This episode is about why.

She's an urgent care PA now, and the thing that tipped her toward PA was shadowing. Not one PA - a bunch of them, in different specialties. That's how she figured out what the role actually looks like instead of what she assumed it looked like. If you're stuck between PA and MD, this is the most useful thing you can do, and it's free.

We also talk about how competitive the application is and how she stayed organized through it. She applied broadly, which I'll never stop recommending. Every year I talk to someone who applied to three schools, got no interviews, and lost a year.

What we talk about:

• Choosing PA over medical school and how she decided
• Shadowing across multiple specialties
• Flexibility and lateral movement in the PA profession
• Staying organized through a competitive cycle
• Why applying broadly matters
• What urgent care is like as a new grad

Resources:

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

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

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

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

Today in episode 61, I'm speaking with Melody, an urgent care PA.

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 guys, thanks for tuning in to the Pre PA Club Podcast.

If you are an avid listener, you may have noticed that we had a little break last week.

I apologize for that.

I was at a conference.

I'm Savannah, by the way.

I'm a dermatology PA full time, so part of my requirements as being a PA is to do continuing education.

So last week I was down in Orlando at the Society of Derm PAS conference, which was awesome and so much fun, so much great knowledge and speakers, but it was a lot of fun.

That being said, I did not have my equipment with me to make sure the podcast was ready to go, so I just postponed it a week.

If you were missing it, you are a true MVP listener and I appreciate it.

And we are back.

So we did skip, skip a week though and going off talking about societies just real quick.

So I love SCPA and I'm also a member of aapa and in case you didn't know, recently I've the PA Platform is collaborating with the AAPA to make sure that you have the Pre PA resources you need.

So if you're not already a member of AAPA and you're applying especially this upcoming cycle, consider becoming a member because you're going to get exclusive discounts to the PA Platform on the PA School Interview Guide to My PA Resource.

And it's a great way to learn about your profession.

There's a lot of information on the APA website that you can only access as a member and then also it looks good to the programs to show that you support your career and the profession.

And so right now, I think through the end of December, the membership is discounted and there's a discount code on the site.

I'll link to that in the description.

So make sure you take advantage of that and please let me know if you have any questions about it.

I'm excited about today's episode.

So Melody is a PA who reached out on Instagram about wanting to help out and get involved and so I wanted to just kind of share her story with you guys.

She's a recent grad working in urgent care, so we talk a lot about her experience getting into PA school and what that looked like and then also getting a job afterwards.

So I think you're really, really Going to enjoy it now.

We have a new sponsor on the blog today.

Our sponsor is now PA School Prep.

And you may not have heard of PA School Prep.

This is a resource that is kind of the next step.

So after you've been accepted to PA School and you enter that waiting period, PA School Prep is a really great way to refresh your knowledge and make sure that you're able to transition smoothly into PA School.

It's an online course that has content tailored to anatomy, physiology and medical terminology reviews.

It's made by PAs for future PA students.

There are a lot of schools who are kind of implementing this for their incoming students because it's actually been shown to improve GPA in the first two quarters of PA School.

There's a lot of med comic images which are really, really cool and help you to kind of remember things so that that transition into PA school maybe isn't quite as tough.

And so if that's something, if you're about to start school in January or you've just been accepted and you're kind of looking for something to stay on top of things, you can check that out.

I'll put the link in the Description, but it's PD paschoolprep.com and you can use the code future PA for $35 off.

Make sure to check it out.

Take advantage of that and then let me know if you have any questions about it.

I've checked it out and I think it's a really great resource.

So let's jump into today's episode and I'll let Melody introduce herself.

Okay, so my name is Melody Simone and I just recently graduated from USC program and currently working at an urgent care for Cedars Sinai Hospital.

My road to becoming a pa actually it was on the track to go to medical school.

I always knew I wanted to be in the healthcare field since a super young age.

So I honestly didn't even know what a PA was until I started college.

Never seen a pa, never even heard of a pa, which was kind of crazy because we've been in the field for so long as a PA as a profession for over 50 years.

So I was kind of shocked.

I was lucky enough to hear about this in college through the healthcare organization who helped people wanted, who wanted to either go to med school, dental school, become a pt.

And then there was physician assistant.

I was like, hey, what's that?

So I learned more about that.

I actually was very interested because it was like, hey, you get to almost do everything a physician does except have more flexibility.

You could specialize in anything you wanted to.

You could go to school for less years as long as you're okay not being called a doctor.

And technically doing so much that a physician could do.

But more importantly, having that patient provider relationship was the most important.

So I wanted to check that out.

I started taking prereqs and looking at the prereqs for different programs.

And then I finally shadowed a PA and I knew that was exactly what I wanted to do.

I did go to USC for undergrad, so I knew USC had a program, a PA program.

So I was very thankful.

I had good connections to find people I could shadow.

I shadowed more.

Luckily, after a year after I graduated undergrad, I got accepted into PA school.

Very blessed.

I enjoyed my three years there.

It was the best three years of my life.

And now I just started working.

So I do want to talk about your program some and we'll get to that.

But as far as applying to PA school, what do you feel that you did to make you.

What do you.

Gosh, I just got tongue tied.

What did you do that made you stand out when it came to applying?

Absolutely.

I think every applicant has a very unique part about themselves.

You are very different than I am.

Every applicant is different, whether it's what school you went to, of course, the experiences you've had.

I really want.

And coming from undergrad, USC was a program that valued the underserved.

I knew I wanted to get involved with the underserved.

They are in east la, so many of the populations, they appreciate diversity.

That's one of their missions of their program.

So I knew I come from an Iranian background.

I speak three different languages.

So that already makes me stand out.

Able to communicate with patients who are, whether Persian speaking.

I speak Spanish, English.

So that makes me stand out from many individuals.

And I think people need to think about it's not just their experiences and what schools they've gone to, but who they are as a human being and what things they admire and value.

Because that makes you very different from another person or another applicant.

I think one good advice that made me stand out from other people was I can give to future applicants is I did many medical brigade strips.

I went to Ecuador and Mexico.

And again, that I did that because I valued helping the underserved community.

So I think if you find your passion and a program that aligns with your values and goals and try to do things that help you build your way and how you value those things, that will really make you stand out.

Yale has a PA program.

I Believe that focuses on surgery.

So if that's what you enjoy, then I highly recommend PAs in the surgical field.

Just make yourself stand out with the things you admire most, and that will make you stand out with that specific program.

I mean, you can go to any PA program as long it's there hundreds of great PA programs out there.

So if that's not really you don't have a specific type of value or you admire a specific specialty, then I think you should just sit down and just shadow PAs in all different type of fields.

Just get a variety type of experience.

And that just makes you special because every PA you shadow, I'm sure you have a story coming out of it which will make you able to share why you chose to become a page.

Yeah, I get a lot of messages and emails about people specifically saying, you know, I want to be a derm pa.

I want to be a derm pa. And I think that's awesome.

And obviously, I love derm.

That's all I've ever done for the past four years.

But I always tell them, focus on becoming a PA first and then getting into derm.

Like, you need to make sure that you love the job no matter what field you're in, because that derm job may not come right away or you may find something you love even more.

That's what My medical assistant is currently applying to PA school, and she's done a lot of shadowing.

So even though she works with me every single day and probably could have more shadowing hours than anyone else ever, she has done some shadowing with some PAs in hospital settings and urgent care settings.

And she was saying how it's actually really cool.

Like, she liked the hospital setting and thought it was really, really neat because she had never seen that.

And so her thoughts had always been derm, because that's all she's ever done.

But getting out there and getting those different perspectives is so, so important.

Totally agree.

You can think you like something.

I always was like, I love the or.

It's super cool watching Grey's Anatomy growing.

I just love the or.

And then.

And you're like, I don't know if I can stand on my feet for that long, though.

You actually, even though you aren't in PA school and you aren't on rotations, you can find out the things you like and don't like while you shadow pas before PA school.

Yeah, definitely.

As far as undergrad, is there anything, looking back, you think you could have or should have done differently?

I think being organized is very, very Important.

It can make cycle highly, highly more manageable and easier.

I highly recommend.

I mean, just being very organized.

If you can create a binder, whether it's a notebook.

Excuse me,.

We both have scratchy throats.

You can make a list of the things that are needed.

Excuse me.

Here, just take a second.

I can cut that out.

We can restart that question now.

You're fine.

Totally understand.

I had my cough drops nearby in case I had a coughing fit, but they've disappeared, so hopefully my voice holds out.

Think you're good?

Okay, I'm going to say the question again because I don't remember exactly how I phrased it, but okay.

When it comes to undergrad, is there anything you wish or not wish you could have or should have done differently that would have made it easier or made you more competitive?

What.

What could you go back and tell yourself?

Definitely something you can do to make your life easier.

While applying to PA school is being more organized and whether it's having a notebook or just 20 sheets of paper stuck together and just being very organized, every program's prereqs when everything is due caspa due dates and much easier.

I think that's one thing I wish I was more organized applying to PE school.

Another thing would probably be applying to more programs.

I feel like a lot of us try to be set on one specific program we want to get into.

Whether it's because you want to stay at home, be close to family and friends, I completely understand.

I'm from LA myself and I wanted to go to USC and that was my first choice.

A lot of times it doesn't have that way.

And I think at the end of the day I'm a PA and it really doesn't matter what program you go to.

I highly recommend people to apply to as many programs as they can.

I have many friends who look back and wish they did apply because just apply, just apply more programs.

It's better than waiting a year.

And I know you guys have your top choice schools, but at the end of the day, most PA programs are two years.

And within two years you'll blink an eye and become a pa. And just like the same person who's applying from this school that you wish you went to, you're both PAs at the end of the day.

So I do recommend people to apply to more programs if they can, when applying to PA school.

Definitely.

So as far as your application cycles, tell us kind of how many programs you applied to, how many you interviewed at, what kind of of the outcomes.

Were there I think I applied to about 10 programs, some on the west coast, some on the east coast.

Again, I wish I applied to more.

I did get interviews to I believe 7 out of the 10.

I did get accepted to USC on the earlier end, so I didn't have to interview at other places.

I was lucky.

But again, I do highly recommend applying to more programs than people wish to do so.

Well, yeah, getting seven interviews, that alone tells me you're a very competitive applicant.

My typical advice is around if you can financially apply to 10 to 12 programs, if you're qualified, if you meet the minimum requirements.

If you don't, it's not worth your time or money because you'll just get thrown out.

And then the average.

I always think this is an interesting statistic.

The average amount of programs that people who matriculated into and started PA school, the number that they applied to was six.

So I think that's.

There's probably people who applied to a ton of programs and there's probably people who applied to one or two.

So I don't know what all goes into that number.

I'd like to see the range that there.

Very interesting, but I think it's most.

It's very important to be realistic with yourself and look at the numbers and stats PA programs have on their websites.

Whether it's their average GPA or average GRE score.

I mean if people are averaging the incoming, last incoming class, their average GPA is like a 3.6.

If you have a 3.2, maybe apply to another program where they're GPA is closer to your gpa.

I know there are multiple factors.

Like at usc they look at your application as a whole and let's say if the GPA incoming the incoming classes GPA was like a 3.4 and you had a 3.2.

But they look at the other parts of your application, whether it's through your essay or if you have 5,000 patient hours but your GPA is lower.

They do look at other things.

So you, I mean I can speak on usc, I recommend people to apply if they're stronger in other categories.

They do look at you as a whole.

But again it's very important to look at PA programs, websites to the averages of the last incoming class.

Yeah, I mean and that's what I completely agree.

USCS, it looks like theirs was around 3.4 for their overall.

And I always tell people like that's an average.

So you have people above it, you have people below it.

You don't know what those outliers Are.

But you still have to meet the minimums.

And that's something people get confused about with programs that say they look at applicants holistically.

They're like, oh, well, they're gonna look at everything about me.

So it's okay if my GPA is not the minimum requirement of 3.0.

Well, you still have to meet the minimum.

So.

Yeah, we did.

I talked to the PA professor, the.

From Instagram and a couple episodes back, and that was really interesting because he was saying that they don't.

At their school, they don't even see applications if you don't hit the minimums.

Like, it never even gets to.

And I know that's how my program was too.

Like, it goes to general admissions or like, a general type of thing, and they're weeded out.

So, like, it never even gets there if you don't hit the minimums.

And so.

But it is nice when programs like, I agree with you.

Like, this program, I can tell, puts a lot of weight on healthcare experience because the average is higher.

Whereas a school that has an average GPA of 3.7, 3.8, and no healthcare experience requirement, they put a lot more weight on gpa.

So it's nice when you have those stats.

Some schools don't necessarily publish theirs, but it is nice to have those numbers to look at.

And I do think that many people do get confused because many PA programs, websites, don't.

Shadowing the PA is not a requirement.

I hope free PA students realize that it is a requirement because at the end of the day, once you get your interview or whether you're writing, your first has to be a reason why you want to be a pa. And then it's like reviewing.

They ask you, hey, have you shadowed a PA before?

Or whether it's.

Tell me about an experience.

And regardless of you knowing what a PA does, at the end of the day, you have to have hours to share the reasoning why you want to.

Be a pa. Yeah, I totally agree.

Like, I don't know how you can.

You can't know for sure that you want to do something until you've really seen it.

And I mean, seen it in different settings.

Kind of like you were talking about the beginning.

Like, different settings, different specialties.

Like, really being able to say, like, I know what a PA's job looks like, and I want the job.

I don't want.

I don't just want the shorter schooling.

I don't just want the less loans.

You know, I want the job that is being a pa. Yeah, exactly.

I want to hear a little bit more about usc.

And I think one thing that's interesting is that it's a three year program, right?

Yes.

And you get summers off, is that right?

So it's a three year program.

We get our first summer off, which is really nice.

And then so it's the first year and a half is didactic.

You get your first summer off and then come back after summer.

You do a semester from August to December, and then December you have your white coat ceremony and then January you start your rotations for an entire year.

You don't get your summer off your second year, you only do your first year.

I loved getting my summer off.

It was amazing.

I was exhausted after my first year of didactics.

USC in specific is a three year program.

They teach medical Spanish.

So there is an extra course put into your curriculum which was highly beneficial because most of your rotations are in the East LA communities and the underserved.

So I think learning medical Spanish was amazing.

I use it every day.

Today I used it on my rotations.

I was one of the best things I could have learned while I was in PA School USD in specific, they're starting a program actually, I don't know if they've started it yet with street medicine.

And they are trying to initiate a curriculum where students actually get to learn more about street medicine so they can have more PAs graduating, actually going into street medicine and helping patients who are living on the streets, which I think is phenomenal.

I don't know if a program in specific does that today, but USC is working on that right now.

Another unique thing about USC is.

The medical Spanish, the three year program.

The rotations are longer.

Actually, most PA programs, their rotations are only four weeks long.

We actually get six weeks long, which I think was very beneficial because it's like your first week, you start your rotation and you're kind of like, I'm not really.

You're getting familiar with everyone by literally like week two and a half, three, you're getting comfortable.

And if you're in a four week type of rotation, you're like, oh man, I'm already comfortable.

And I already.

I think I really enjoyed the six week rotations because I was there longer.

And I truly enjoyed the six week rotations a lot.

I know a lot of people are like, hey, my four week rotations are a little too short.

So USC does have that to offer, which I think was highly beneficial to a student.

Cool.

Yeah, ours were four weeks and it is kind of like as soon as you figure out like, oh, I got this.

It's like time to like start a new one.

Earn a new emr, meet new people.

Yeah.

But kind of jump in and do it.

It's.

It was fun.

As far as finishing PA school, tell me a little bit just about your job search and was that something.

Was it easy to find a job?

Did you find the job you were looking?

So once I took my pants and I passed, I literally just started applying to many jobs.

I made LinkedIn right away, indeed.

Where I was ZipRecruiter, you name it, all kinds of websites.

And I think finding a job was not so difficult because the demand for PAs is very, very high in every type of specialty.

I mean, it's different.

There will definitely be a job for you.

But when we talk about specialties, whether it's emergency medicine, obviously people like to hire PAs that are more experienced because it's emergency medicine, or whether it's plastics and injecting and aesthetics, totally different.

So if you are looking into getting into plastics or emergency medicine, it might take a little bit of time gaining experience and then going into those types of fields.

But finding a job in family medicine or general surgery, ob gyn, the primary care type of scope was really not difficult.

There was people who were open.

There are many, many facilities who are open to training new grads, which was really, really awesome.

I really don't think that was a hard part for me, finding a job, speaking to my classmates.

We almost all had jobs within two months after graduating, which was great.

The demand for PAs is high.

I think it will always be high and if anything, it's becoming more and more because, hey, they can pay PAs less than medical doctors.

And we, I mean, we almost technically do the same thing.

So if anything, I think it's a very high boom profession.

How has your transition been from PA student to pa?

It's been amazing.

It's definitely hard.

I mean, it's very different having responsibility than sitting in class all day.

And when you're a student, you get to ask questions and you know, you don't.

You're not responsible.

At the end of the day, you still get to ask questions.

As a provider and you.

I just constantly are learning on an everyday basis.

I work in urgent care now, which is amazing because I get to see all kinds of medicine, so I really enjoy that.

But I think most about becoming a certified PA is just gaining that confidence and knowing, you know what, with time you will become better and better.

You don't know everything, you won't know everything.

And Asking questions.

That's the beauty about our profession.

We have a supervising MD that we could always ask questions and look up to.

But being confident is the most important thing so your patients can feel good while they're under your care.

So what does your schedule look like?

And then what does like a day at your job, like what does that look like for you?

So working in urgent care, I work for 10 hour shifts, so it's nice.

But I work on the weekends because urgent care is open on the weekends.

It's nice because I get three days off, but they're super long hour shifts.

I work 12 to nine, but after nine o' clock I sit in chart for hours.

So I don't get home till about 12 or 1 in the morning.

But it's awesome because I love what I do.

It is exhausting.

You are on your feet all the time.

You are doing procedures, which is really fun.

You get to see all kinds of things.

Artifacts in front of me and strokes in front of me.

You send them to the er, but hey, that's what I love to do.

Well, if it's for you, you will enjoy it.

But it definitely is exhausting.

But how many patients do you, would you say you see in a shift.

Between about 20 to 25 and flu season is coming, so we're probably going to be seeing much more than that.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, you gotta get, get a good mask.

I already got my flu shot psa.

Go get your flu shot.

I am a firm supporter.

I have a four month old baby and everyone in the world needs their flu shot because she cannot have one yet.

But yeah, I got mine.

And I will honestly say my arm was very sore for a few days.

It did not feel good.

Yes.

Yeah, I was very surprised.

Don't get it on your dominant hand, please.

Yeah, I got mine on my non dominant because I was like, it hurt more than I was expecting it to, but.

And it was only a couple days, but I mean it was enough that I rolled over at night and was like, ow, my arm.

But yeah, it went away, don't worry.

Anyway, what, what advice would you give someone?

And I feel like we kind of talked about this, but what advice would you give someone who just isn't sure about pa?

Because you said you were kind of like going med school for a minute.

Like what, what should they do?

Or what would be your consideration for them?

I think one among VAs in different fields.

If anything.

I think minimum of three, whether PAs do different type of things in different type of settings and I think that's so important because you might not like what a PA does in an urgent care, but go and shadow a derm PA and love what they do.

It's totally different.

So I highly recommend that.

Another thing I highly recommend is if you can sit on a class in PA school and actually schedule an appointment and sit on a class.

I highly recommend that whether to see how the program works, how the learning style is in a graduate type of setting, but most, most importantly, definitely shadowing peas and different type of specialties.

No, I definitely agree.

And to be honest, that's like the answer that most people give when we talk about that question is get out there and shadow.

And I know it's hard to find shadowing hours.

Go listen to episode two if you need to figure out how to get them.

But yeah, I mean it's so important just to really see what a PA does.

Applicant, what type of health professional career you want to get into?

Just shadow a bunch of people.

Whether it's a physical therapist or a dentist or medical doctor or a nurse, just getting that exposure of different type of fields will narrow your decision on what you like and what you don't like.

Oh yeah, totally agree.

Well, tell me where everyone can find you and follow you and ask you all the questions.

Yeah, I'm actually on Instagram APA Life Journey.

You can follow me on Instagram.

My email is also in my bio on my page, so please feel free to email me with any questions you have.

I'm more than happy to answer any questions regarding the application cycle or my experience in general.

Definitely.

And I really thankful to meeting you, Savannah.

It's awesome.

Thank you.

Well, thanks for being willing to come on taking your time to do this after your busy day.

I did not have this as a pre PA student.

I would have been so thankful.

So thank you for helping all the future PAs out there.

Oh, you're welcome.

Well, I'll put all that information in the description so you guys can find it.

And yeah, thank you for coming on.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for listening and for Melody being willing to share her advice.

Make sure you go follow her on Instagram and if you're not following me, I'm on Instagram HEPA platform and that's probably the best way to get the most updated information.

So a certain topic questions you have something you think would be helpful, please let me know.

Just shoot me an email.

Savannah no Hepaplatform.com Send me a DM on Instagram.

I really want to hear from you guys and so working on kind of scheduling some stuff out, but thank you so much for listening.

You guys are awesome.

I know it gets frustrating and stressful the whole PA journey sometimes, but keep at it.

Don't give up.

It's so worth it.

And all these accepted posts and emails I've been getting lately just are awesome.

So stick with it.

Don't give up.

We're here if you need us at the PA platform.

And make sure you join our Facebook group, the Pre PA Club if you have questions you need answer.

I think that's a great place to get get really quick good answers.

So all right, that's it for today and I will see you guys next week.