I am looking into becoming a medical assistant.

How Many Clinical Hours Do Accepted Students of Physician Assistant Programs Have?

• I'm looking into becoming a medical assistant to gain my clinical hours for a physician assistant program. I know that many programs require anywhere from 1,000 to 4,000 hours in order to apply for the program, but I also know that most accepted students have more than that. I was just wondering how many clinical hours the accepted students to the programs have. If you have any other suggestions of ways to get clinical hours I would like to hear those too. Thank you

• Answer:

  You are correct - basically the more hours of experience you have in the medical field, the better your chances of being accepted to physician assistant school. But hours of health care experience (HCE) is not the only factor. The number of HCE hours of those who are accepted varies widely. There are programs that won't even consider applicants with more than a certain number of hours, but most programs accept at least a few students who have far fewer than the "recommended" number of hours. If this all sounds vague, it's because it is; it is largely dependent on the school you are applying to, the applicant pool, and the whims of that year's admissions committee. So to be safe, the suggestion is: accrue as much HCE as you can, and then let it go - if you've done enough, you'll probably get in, and if you haven't, there was nothing you could do about it. For a good discussion on creative ways to get HCE hours, you should visit the Becoming a Physician Assistant Forum, where you'll find a entire section devoted to questions about HCE. There is even a thread specifically addressing how to get HCE. You can find it at www.mypatraining.com/forum Good Luck!