-: Trying to make sure you get your
pre-requisites for any of the programs
that you're interested in and applying to.
I would look at PA programs throughout
the country, depending on where you think
you may want to go, make sure you have those pre-reqs.
You need to get at least 1,000 patient care hours
and so that's hands-on patient care.
If you can get into doing an EMT program,
I have a lot of my friends in PA school,
they did EMT so they were getting
hours and experience, that kinda lets you
get to see the good and the bad.
There's some traumas and that kind of thing.
How do you handle that under pressure?
Some people did CNA as well or MA
and sometimes you have to do that grunt work.
Then also, if you end up going into
some other field of medicine, you at least
kind of see where that role ties into
what you're going to do because
really, medicine is a huge team.
It's a big team and you're the player,
you have your role, but you have
all these other people that are helping
to do their role, so I think it's nice
to expose yourself to a bunch of
different stuff through volunteer
or if you can get paid and get
the experience, more power to you.
I think that's great if you can do it,
I just know it can be a little more
difficult these days just because of liability.
PA programs vary slightly but
they're usually around 28 months.
We did 13 months in the classroom
and then 15 months clinical.
We did 6 week rotations.
A lot of people get jobs out of
doing a clinical rotation and they really
kind of hit it off well with the
physician or the group or just that setting.
Sometimes they'll then repeat their
rotation as kind of a working interview
and I think that's kind of the ideal situation
if you can do that because you don't
just get to see someone in a snapshot.
You get to kind of see the goods
and the bads and so that's one avenue.