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Dear Cindy – PA Career Questions - Medhunters Medical Community
By Cynthia M. Piccolo (Career Questions)
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Dear Cindy: 
I read the physician assistant article, and I am requesting more information concerning the PA career, including educational requirements/cost of tuition.

I have 25 years of experience in the medical field as a Registered Medical Assistant/Allied Health Medical Assisting Instructor.

Sincerely,

D

Dear D: 
I can summarize some of the information you want, courtesy of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA), but you should contact them for more information. (Another great source of information is the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook page on physician assistants.) You can visit both of these sites for more information about average salaries, scope of practice, work environments, licensing, etc.

The PA educational program, as explained by the AAPA:

Physician assistants are educated in intensive medical programs accredited by the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA). The average PA program curriculum runs approximately 26 months. There are approximately 140 accredited programs. All PA programs must meet the same ARC-PA standards.

Because of the close working relationship PAs have with physicians, PAs are educated in a medical model designed to complement physician training. PA students are taught, as are medical students, to diagnose and treat medical problems.

Education consists of classroom and laboratory instruction in the basic medical and behavioral sciences (such as anatomy, pharmacology, pathophysiology, clinical medicine, and physical diagnosis), followed by clinical rotations in internal medicine, family medicine, surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, emergency medicine, and geriatric medicine.

A PA's education doesn't stop after graduation, though. PAs are required to take ongoing continuing medical education classes and be retested on their clinical skills on a regular basis. A number of postgraduate PA programs have also been established to provide practicing PAs with advanced education in medical specialties.

The prerequisites for entry, as explained by the AAPA:

PA programs look for students who have a desire to study, work hard, and to be of service to their community. Most physician assistant programs require applicants to have previous health care experience and some college education. The typical applicant already has a bachelor's degree and approximately four years of health care experience. Commonly nurses, EMTs, and paramedics apply to PA programs. Check with PA educational programs of interest to you for a list of their prerequisites.

You will have to check with individual programs to see what the tuition rates are, since rates vary. Just doing a quick check online of a few programs, I saw annual rates (programs are 24–36 months; average 26) for tuition alone ranged from $15,000+ to $25,000+.
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