How do you become a physician assistant?

How to become a Physician Assistant?

• Okay, so I'm a senior in high school and have entertained the idea of being a nurse or possibly a physician. However, I was turned away from becoming a physician due to all of the years of schooling and residency. I was also considering nursing, but so is half of my graduating class. So that got me thinking: is there anything I could do that is between being a doctor and being a nurse? That's when I learned about physician assistants. It sounds like the career for me, but I'm not sure how to get started. Of course, I've googled it several times and I know that after receiving a bachelor's degree, I can go into a two-year program to become a certified PA. Which finally beings me to my question: Does anyone know if I can get a Bachelor's degree in nursing then go into a PA program, or does it have to be in something else? Thanks in advance. (:

• Answer:

  If you want to major in nursing, the graduate program you'd want is a Nurse Practitioner program. They get paid about the same as PAs, and have pretty similar responsibilities, except that in some states they can set up a private practice (PAs always have to practice with a licensed Physician). The PA school prerequisite courses are pretty similar to the pre-Med courses, but in addition there are hundreds of hours of clinical experience required for application. Even though a Nursing major requires a certain number of practicum hours, it might not be enough for the PA program you're hoping to apply to, and it would be very difficult to add any sort of clinical work to a Nursing program. Most PA applicants have a science major, and work part-time in some sort of clinical capacity throughout their undergrad program - many get a Medical Assistant, CNA, or Phlebotomy certification to make it easier to get hours (and to get better pay for those hours).