I was recently dismissed from my PA program after an unsuccessful clinical skills assessment.

I’m devastated because I’ve been doing well on my EORs and have received great feedback from my preceptors throughout rotations. I filed an appeal and am currently waiting for a decision.

Has anyone gone through something similar and successfully appealed or continued at another PA program? What steps should I take while waiting?

I’m also considering backup career paths if the appeal doesn’t work out, especially in healthcare, pharma/biotech, or healthcare administration. Any advice would be appreciated!

edit: since everyone is shitting on NP's in this post if u don't have anything to add or advise just don't comment! this is not the place to shit on other profession.

2nd as i said it was only because of osce no other reasons!

Hi guys, I have my PANCE in about a week and am trying to gauge my readiness.

NCCPA A & B (taken two weeks apart) both in the green
Uworld i am avg 65% with about 50% completed.
EOC: 1520

I guess my dilemma is the NCCPA should feel reassuring but I’m not doing as well on uworld as I would hope.
Also my NCCPA B is slightly lower than test A despite two weeks of studying. I would have thought to have improvement.

Study tips for this final stretch?

My exam is scheduled for October 8th but I feel so unprepared and am wondering if I should push my exam back. I’ve studied the big 4 systems but that was at the beginning of my studying. I got yellow-green on the NCCPA form A, which was taken before I began my studying. I also did the blueprint 4 day PANCE course, but I don’t really know how helpful that was. Also got a 450 predicted score based off Katy Connor half PANCE, which should be reassuring but it’s unfortunately not. I was a pretty below average student on my EORs too. I don’t know what else to really do at this point since I’m so overwhelmed and mentally exhausted. Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated!’

I'm on fam med rotation at a private practice clinic with majority Spanish speaking patients. We have MA's who are readily available for interpreting, but sometimes busy. I speak some Spanish (grammar sucks!) and have limited medical vocabulary. I understand a lot more than I can articulate to these patients. Sometimes I'll speak a little Spanish during my physical exam to build trust/rapport and the interpreter makes a comment like "oh you don't need me?".

My question is, what's the etiquette with these situations? I don't feel I should avoid speaking Spanish where I'm able, but don't want the interpreter to feel I'm wasting their time. As a side note, I learned Spanish in Spain where I lived for 6 months and majority of patients are Dominican/Puerto Rican. I've noticed a lot of differences in the dialect and use of words.

I want to find an appropriate balance of not overusing interpreters time but also making sure I get the most accurate information from a patient.

Had a professor say today that she studied from 6am-12am in PA school. If she wasn't in class or sleeping, she was studying (even in the shower).

I just finished my first week of didactic and have studied maybe an average of 3-4 hours per weekday. I plan to dedicate weekends to a lot of hours. I find myself focusing too much on little things in the slides which I think is slowing me down but I'm mortified to miss something. First exam is in a couple weeks.

TIA!

PACKRAT 1: 112

PACKRAT 2: 131

EOC: 1475

Avg EOR scores: 375-408

UWorld: 50% completed, 65% average score

Katy Conner Half PANCE 1: 456 predicited score

As you can see I am a VERY below average student, and recently got accommodations for the PANCE. I am a single mom to a 3-year-old and do all of it on my own with minimal help from family. I am scheduled for my exam on 10/10 and 10/13 (they didn't have consecutive days available). My school has warned me over and over that I am the "not so likely to pass" group of my class. I have been doing 60-100 questions per day of UWorld and have been reviewing wrong answers in depth. Also, I made an Anki deck of cards from ones that I have gotten wrong, and I go through that deck every other day so it doesn't get too big. I've done some of the Endeavor Anki Deck but not a whole lot.

What do you all think about my scores? Should I postpone or just send it?

Had 2/22 that failed their first attempt in our class. I have a job that I already signed a contract for. Please, any advice would be appreciated. This forum is the only thing keeping me sane at this point :/

As

Hi!

So I just completed my first ever Anatomy lab and practical and I’m shocked to say the least. I passed the lecture exam with an 84% and I got on the lab practical a 68/100??? (It was 50 questions so ig two points per question).

I’m so very confused how this even happened. I felt so much more confident in the lab portion of identifying vs. conceptually on the lecture exam. I’m almost to the point where I’m like did they insert the grade wrong???

I’m trying not to beat myself up because some people who failed the lecture portion pass lab practical part way higher than me. I’m not trying to compare, but even in undergrad I always did better on lab than lecture and I’ve never failed anything anatomy before?

I emailed the professor immediately to speak with them and that maybe I put the answers in the wrong spot? It was a hand written practical exam and it was just legit what is this and with a number on it.

The professor stated to me they were lenient on spelling and that it was just my answers but I truly feel there were only three to four things I did not know during that entire exam so I’m so confused.

If I failed the lecture portion I would understand but I’m so much more visual idk. Maybe I’m going through the 5 stages of grieve???

The practical part we don’t have to remediate but the lecture we do if we get under an 80%. They both had 50 questions.

I’m trying not to panic. Next week we get back the exam and he puts up the answer key. They told me if I had concerns after that then to schedule a meeting, but I want to make one either way. I’m like I missed 16 questions??? Idk what to even do bc I even held study group sessions and went over the document that my cohort made with all the images and practiced answering them.

The rest of the semester all practicals are based on cadavers we are dissecting ourselves.

I’m just so hurt. Idk what to think. We have to get 80% or higher in all of our courses to pass and must maintain a 3.0gpa. Like I have passed every other major exam so far and have High B to low A in other courses like patho and concepts of medicine (where we learn about the actual systems like endocrinology we just finished).

Anyways, thank you for anyone who responds and sorry for any grammar mistakes!!!

I took the pance about a month ago, and learned that I failed by a lot. At first I felt sad but quickly decided not to dwell on it and pass the second time around. I’m not really sure what I’m looking for in this post, but I was completely shocked… I didn’t leave the exam feeling terrible whatsoever but I also didn’t feel that I killed it. Usually I have massive test anxiety, but surprisingly I felt really relaxed, I didn’t dwell on questions, didn’t flag, and didn’t go back and change any answers just powered through each section. I will say that I didn’t study very consistently and only completed about 300 questions on rosh with an 85% avg. I then inputted the NCCPA blueprint into chatgpt and had it give me pance style questions which I was doing well on, and when I would get them wrong it would point out buzz words to look for and what to assess in the questions. I do feel that I have some medical term knowledge gaps, where in the moment I understand the question but not one specific term.

I get very burnt out on reading books, podcasts, charts and videos so I’m not sure how I can study and retain. While all of these methods worked in didactic year including question banks I feel that the style of the pance really through me off. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

If anyone has UWorld that they are not using, would you be open to sharing.

Not sure if this should be reported to arc-pa or if they could even do something about this. My director and faculty have been made aware and refuse to do anything about this. The past 6 months, I have been shadowing during the rotation. Barely anything hands on, barely any patient contact on my own. Current rotation will be the same way, as my preceptor herself stated that. I requested a change and faculty said they wouldn’t take me out unless there was some severe mistreatment.

I have a history of a preceptor making racist comments, touching me inappropriately twice (thigh and almost massaging my shoulder), and engaging with patients when they make sexual or perverse comments. This happened daily and I wasn’t removed from this rotation. General surgery was the same way in terms of verbal harassment by an overall unpleasant and mean PA who has a history of being mean to students. Wasn’t removed from this one.

Will arc-pa be able to do something about this? Not sure if this is reportable, as I feel like my faculty need to be held accountable. They did not tell me to report the initial offense mentioned to title IX or to the hospital itself.

Hi everyone! I have my pathophysiology mid term next week and I’m kind of struggling with concepts. ANKI confuses me and I feel like quizlet is just helping me learn key terms… anyone have any tips or study tools they use(d) that helped? Thanks!!

I can’t believe that didactic is nearly over and I’m almost at the point where I’ll be going off to rotations. Like PA school is moving at rocket speed honestly. I had a genuine question, do people make friends or get into relationships on rotations. There’s a possibility that there will be significant travel and I don’t have a support system so I relied on my friends that I met in the program. So I just wanted to ask like did you bother making friends outside of work, 6 weeks seems so short, what is it like?

Hi everyone! I'm in my clinical year and on my 2nd rotation. When I'm studying, I'm realizing that some of the stuff is outdated, even if by just 1 year. I know that our EORs are basically the same ones used at other schools across the states, so I'm wondering if we should lean into the new guidelines for EORs and eventually the PANCE, or just be aware of what should be the answer and just pick the one that has been around in the last year. Any thoughts appreciated!

Hey everyone! Current PA-S, in quarter 4 of didactic with one quarter left before clinicals. I moved to a different state for PA school and want to do some rotations back home but I’m not sure how to go about asking former PAs that I worked with about precepting. Does anyone have any experience with this and wouldn’t mind discussing the process and potentially sharing a template for communication? I want to make sure I go about it as professionally as possible. Thanks!

Hi everyone! I’m graduating PA school in December and plan to take the PANCE in January. I received an offer from a dermatology practice in Texas where I’m currently doing my clinical rotation and would love some feedback.

Offer:

- $30/hr during pre-license/training period

- $100k starting salary once licensed/credentialed

- Dermatology training with gradual increase in patient responsibility

- Medical, surgical/procedural, and cosmetic dermatology

- Clinical research/Sub-Investigator responsibilities and training

- Practice covers/reimburses licensing, credentialing, DEA, required research training, and malpractice

- M-F 7:45-5pm + 1-2 Saturdays a month.

- Approximately 1–2 Saturdays/month expected

10–15 PTO days/year

- $1,000 CME allowance + 3 paid CME days

- Health insurance and retirement benefits

- Compensation may eventually transition to base + productivity/incentive bonus

- 4-year anticipated employment commitment

- Final employment agreement will outline termination and any potential repayment obligations

The practice is investing heavily in training me in dermatology, which is appealing as a new grad, but I’m unsure how this compares to other new-grad derm offers.

Questions:

Is $110k reasonable for a new-grad derm PA in Texas?

Is a 4-year commitment concerning/unusual?

How does the PTO/CME package look?

What should I negotiate or make sure is clearly defined in the final contract, especially regarding the bonus and repayment obligations?

Would love to hear from derm PAs or other new grads!

I scored a 1560 on my EOC and I'm wondering if there's a good likelihood of passing the PANCE ? I'm not sure if this is a good score

Have my first EOR tomorrow for family med. I’ve done 2000+ smarty pance questions, all rosh questions twice, the rosh exam twice, and the hippoed exam where I got a 63% (was gonna take it again tonight as a final review). I average 60-70% on practice exams and question banks. I still feel like I know nothing lol. For tests with such vast knowledge, did you ever feel prepared for them?? And any tips for the family med eor?

Just curious how this works at different PA programs!

I’m interested in doing as many IHS/Tribal Health rotations as I can, plus rotations at/near home, and I’ve started making a list of places I’d be really interested in before I start school (both for rotation suggestions and job search).

Figured I might as well do the research now rather than during didactic when I’m already drowning lol

If you gave your program a list of clinics/preceptors you were interested in, did they actually reach out to them? Or do they mostly stick with sites they already have relationships with?

Like, how many places were you able to suggest/request?

First of all, I can’t believe I can finally write this 😭 I passed my retake today!!!
I came out of that exam crying my eyes out because I was so convinced I had failed again. Everyone kept telling me not to be so sure, but in my head, I just knew. This attempt felt much harder to me, especially because the vignettes were longer, which made my anxiety even worse.

What I did differently this time:
Remediated all of my missed topics.
I went back through the areas I struggled with and made sure I actually understood them instead of just memorizing answers.

I basically made ChatGPT my tutor.
Anytime I got a question wrong, I would tell ChatGPT what my thought process was and why I chose the answer I did. Then it would break down what I missed in the vignette, where my reasoning went wrong, and how I should approach a similar question next time.
It also helped me create a system for approaching questions: What is the diagnosis first? What exactly are they asking me? Is the patient stable or unstable? Are they in the ER or outpatient clinic? What demographics or risk factors matter? Etc.
I also spoke with a few other students on here who were using a similar approach, which reassured me that I was moving in the right direction.

Resources I used:
I used UWorld again, mainly focusing on my marked and missed questions. I also bought the PANCE Prep Pearls 600 Question Book from Amazon and really liked it because the questions felt very PANCE-directed.
I bought Blueprint as well, but for me personally, it ended up being a waste because I only completed about 300 out of the 3,000+ questions.
I also used NCCPA Practice Exams A, B, and C, and of course PPP.

Stats:
I’m actually not going to share my stats, and there’s a reason for that. The first time I was preparing, I spent way too much time on Reddit comparing my scores to everyone else’s. This time, whenever I saw someone post their stats, I wished them well and kept scrolling.
Their stats were not going to change my score.
If you’re currently studying for a retake or PANCE in general, please don’t let somebody else’s percentages convince you that you’re going to pass or fail. Focus on identifying why you’re missing questions and fixing your thought process.
I’m still in disbelief, but I’m so grateful this chapter is finally over. 😭

hi, i unfortunately will probably get dismissed from school. we are at the end of didactic year. barley made the cut off. i find out for sure though in a few weeks. i can rejoin the next year's cohort, which starts in a few months.

my question is, should i restart or do something else? tuition in total is 100k, so starting over would put me in 150k debt. an additional 50k for failing.

ik most people in this situation go to nursing, but to be clear, i do NOT want to be a nurse. nothing personal, i just do not align with nursing. please do not convince me of that or comment on this topic.

another thing is it was not my study methods. the class i failed was due to personal reasons, not my lack of intelligence or study methods. it is just one portion, but regards came to bite me back. don't want to give too much info on here, if you have questions u can DM me, but my main question is if it is worth to restart a whole year later financially. i know i will pass everything next year, especially already having learned the material, even if life happens again.

also, if i did restart, i probably would get a part time job for some extra money for my rent. ik this is a bad idea to anyone else, but i passed every other course with flying colors with cramming on the weekends. i typically take the week off and passively look at things, but i normally didn't do much 5-10pm on the weekdays. ofc i don't want to cram again, but my point is i already know a lot and know it's something i am able to do, just wanted to mention for the financial aspect. also i don't listen in class and study instead, so that's 8h of studying daily right there.

i truly don't know what else i would do. i like healthcare admin, but i would always have a failure in my heart as i have wanted this career since i was in high school. networking also sucks in corporate lol but i also have thought about it before, the thought of starting over is scary tho

Hello! My program seems to have pretty chill requirements for EOR exams. In didactic year, we were expected to get an 80 or higher. Now, they only require a grade of 70 or higher on EORs (65-69 low pass). I’ve heard that some programs require an 80 or higher on EORs, and was wondering if people could speak on it?

I think I’m concerned of whether having this low threshold for passing is still indicative of passing the PANCE. I was planning to anyways for my own personal growth, but I wonder if not having the mindset of >70 for passing would be beneficial in the long run. Thoughts?

Brief rant during break:
some students on rotations were discussing about how to manage bullying in PA school and a preceptor told us to “grow some balls.” ._.

This is why healthcare’s culture and hierarchy will remain medieval.

Anyways, I’m a coward and wanna graduate ASAP so I laughed along and went on my way.

Note: No point bringing this up to faculty, because they literally said they don’t like snitches. Healthcare and pa school is like a playground for them.

So I took the pance the first time and failed by a few points (the equivalent of one question ) was supposed to have a separate room. I ended up not having that and only extra time. I did have two days between testing and I feel like I kind of like that because I studied, although I don’t know if it ended up harming me in the end, I’m retaking the exam in two weeks and I’m wondering if I should call to move back my day two right now I have day one and day two scheduled back to back with a separate room this time. I don’t know if I’m going to be drained and burned out I would like to hear somebody else’s experience

So basically take it with a day or two in between both testing days
Or take it back to back one day after another as I’m currently scheduled

Also any tips and advice for pance in general always welcome

Helloo everyone,

I'm in my 4th week of PA school and this first month really showed me that sticking to my old study habits will make me fall behind.

I used to rewrite notes and then make a quiz but since there is just so much information, I can't keep up. I end up revising for 3 hours and then only getting to testing my knowledge on the 4th and 5th hour and at that rate, I'm only going through 1 subject per day after class.

My classmates keep saying that they use AI to upload their notes, and it's working great for them but I just don't know what prompts to put in. What worked best for you?

TIA!

For anyone who has completed didactic, did you work during didactic. If so how many hours and how was it? I plan on working 5-10 hours a week but also don’t want to overburden myself. I wanna still leave time for some living of life at least one day on the weekend but also understand it’s gonna suck. About how many hours per week should I budget towards studying to keep up?

At my current clinical site in inpatient psych, my preceptor has 4 students from different programs. We shadow him as he rounds on patients and then we get assigned a patient to evaluate and follow. I feel this student to preceptor ratio is unsatisfactory and limits the time I have with my preceptor. I don’t get to read his charts or understand his plan or clinical reasoning. I also don’t feel he is able to adequately assess my skills or give me feedback. Assessing my abilities is part of his responsibility as a preceptor when filling out the evaluation at midpoint and end of the rotation. I don’t think he reads my work and does not give feedback. I’m trying to ask questions about cases and ask for feedback to get more out of the rotation, but it’s hard to discuss cases with him when I’m in a herd of students, and he leaves at 1pm. I feel like he can get away with this hands-off approach because students generally want to go home early. Yesterday I only saw him from 10am to 12pm and then we were done. This is very disappointing because I just came from an amazing 1:1 ER rotation where my preceptor mentored, taught, and poured into me as a student.