What Are Physician Assistants?
This is dedicated to everyone that doesn't know what a PA is. When I've talked to people, they ask whether I'm going to be a personal assistant, 'basically a secretary' to a doc etc etc. It's also for future PAs that have not heard about this amazing profession and want to learn more about it. In all honesty, till recently, I thought only doctors could provide medical care, make decisions, and treat patients. This has been the case for many years, which is why physician assistants and nurse practitioners are still having to explain their role (which is completely okay!). There has been a great progression and more people are becoming more aware than ever before.
Did you ever wonder how you can have the medical knowledge, come up with differential diagnoses, and basically be confident that you can provide quality patient care with the medical knowledge that you have? Well, physician assistants (PAs) do just that! PAs are a part of the healthcare team providing patient centered care. There is a great medium of practicing independently while also working as a team member and having supervision. Many of the rules and legality differ from state to state, also internationally, so do you research! Some of the reasons you hear a pre-PA student mention for wanting to go into the profession is: lateral mobility (being able to switch specialties also being able to work in more than one specialty at a time), autonomy but collaborative aspect of working with a physician and of course the 2-3 years of schooling compared to greater years of becoming a nurse practitioner or a physician.
As American Association of Physician Assistants (AAPA) describes, "PAs are medical professionals who diagnose illness, develop and manage treatment plans, prescribe medications, and often serve as a patient’s principal healthcare provider. With thousands of hours of medical training, PAs are versatile and collaborative. PAs practice in every state and in every medical setting and specialty, improving healthcare access and quality".
If you're interested in any of this, continue researching, shadowing a PA, and keeping up with current students and PAs around you. I'm excited to talk about topics that I would've found helpful when I started so stay tuned!
source: https://www.aapa.org/what-is-a-pa/
Why did I choose to become a PA?
For me, I loved every shadowing experience I had, I had no idea how versatile the role can be and there are endless opportunities. With my public health background, I also have the opportunity to merge public health and medicine in serving my patients with regards to health education and disease prevention approach. I have had so many experiences with people in my life where simple health education could have saved their life if they had been made aware, which is where my passion lies for wanting to advocate for my patients and make sure they understand what is happening to their own bodies and to take preventive measures and live a healthy lifestyle. I'm also interested in primary care medicine which would allow me to see my patients' health change over time. Since I'm a makeup enthusiast, I also love skin care and dermatology, so if you ask me, my ideal week would entail me working 3 days in primary care and 2 days in dermatology but let's see what clinical rotations unfold for me!