In the healthcare field, there are a lot of specialties that people can choose from. Apart from the front line workers constituting doctors and nurses, one aspiring profession is becoming a physician assistant. The versatility of the role plays a huge role in students choosing this line of work. To become a licensed physician assistant, one needs to follow a few guidelines explained below.
The Physician Assistant Programs
The first and prime step in becoming a physician assistant is to possess a degree of completion of a physician assistant program. Several such programs need specific behavioral science classes as prerequisites. You can also choose the pre-med related major that best suits your passion in the medical field.
The Experience
Many physical assistant programs need candidates to complete around a thousand hours of work experience. This step is crucial to understand if this is the final profession you want to pursue and gives you a chance to provide second-thoughts to your plans. With experience in the related field, you get particular about the area you wish to specialize in, making it easier to follow and study at a physician assistant school.
The shadowing of several professions aids a person to finalize their decision to become a physician assistant. When you have experience or an internship in a hospital or a primary health facility, you are around doctors, anesthetists, and nurse practitioners all the time, and you can decipher how the physician assistant profession looks in reality. If you are an intern, volunteering with other medical professionals can also gain experience with several core activities. Another aspect of this is when you apply to physician assistant schools, work experience is a significant factor that can obtain you an edge over the other applications.
How to Apply?
You need to provide a basic application called the Centralized Application Service for Physician Assistants (CASPA). This application includes details about your schooling, experience, volunteering, and personal statement essay. Out of all these, a personal statement essay is an essential component that constitutes the highest weightage. In this statement, one needs to explain in detail, around in a thousand words, about their reasons to become a physician assistant.
Experts suggest building up a solid capturing initial paragraph, leading to the experience or qualities they possess that work best in the field. In such cases, regardless of you have a medical background or not, reputed firms, including My PA Resource, offer you several programs and material, along with services, that can help you quickly to get through the screening process.
In addition to that, the school will want you to submit many essays, even to the count of 21. After you submit all your material, the school authorities then call you for a final round, which is the interview. Following that, the authorities will let you know about your rejection or acceptance in the physician assistant school.
Many people who want to work in the medical field are mostly confused with the stream’s comprehensive options. Recent years have seen a considerable rise in the preference rate of physician assistants and will rise substantially over the next seven years.
