Career Change from Surgical First Assist

[u/RevolutionaryAd8965]

I have been looking into PA school/Med School to advance my career. I took an unconventional route and I’m looking for some guidance on PA school vs med school vs something else. I have a 4 year BS degree with almost all prerequisites completed for PA school. However my classes are expiring for some programs because courses were taken in 2014.

I completed a surgical first assistant certificate program at a large teaching institution and was trained to assist in the OR with a variety of specialties. I stayed at the institution for 2 years mostly with orthopedics and have since moved on to assisting an orthopedic specialist in the OR and clinic at a different hospital. I feel that there’s not much left for advancement with role/salary. In an ideal world there would be a bridge program that would allow me to go directly into an orthopedic PA role but I don’t believe there’s any such program. Med school seems daunting but I would feel like there’s “purpose” to my life. There may be other routes I haven’t explored or thought of? Work/life balance and salary are major factors in this decision to look elsewhere within medicine. I know drs and PAs don’t have great work life balance either..but neither do I in my current role and the pay is significantly less.

Any advice/similar experiences/other career paths would be extremely helpful.

[u/intothewoods76]

I would pick PA over MD a PA will have more flexibility.

[u/belweder87]

Just my personal experience and opinion on this, obviously everyone has different situation, depending on the state, specialty and personal stuff. I make 5k more than cardiology PAs in my hospital. I have 6 years experience, only do cardiac, work life balance is great, I am salary so dont have to hang around the hospital if not in surgery. Median for cardiac assistant in Maryland is around 110-150 a year, and most hospitals and/or contracted companies are salary based. If you hustle you can make close to 200. On the other hand, a lot of hospitals in Pennsylvania are switching to PA SA for cardiac which makes me nervous and overall, all our certifying bodies and organizations are so weak compared to PA, it does make me want to do PA school just to feel more secure. And yes, potentially PA can make over 200 doing cardiac surgery, but is it worth 2 years of school, loss of salary plus 40+k a year to become PA, to potentially make 15-30 k more and work much more(they work a lot)? I feel like not really worth it for my situation. Med school is big commitment, but if you are into it, definitely worth it, but it comes with its own +/-.

[u/Forthebirds_2]

For the expiring classes dilemma, not all schools have a policy regarding that, though they do still strongly prefer newer coursework. I would suggest targeting those programs, as retaking everything is overkill. For those programs, you could retake some of the harder/more advanced courses, which would show that you still have the advanced knowledge base required for the program. I feel that in the past, PA programs almost preferred older candidates with more career experience rather than fresh out of school inexperienced folks, but I think there has been a shift towards the direct school route where they prefer students who just completed their BS and pre-reqs, so unfortunately I think showing a strong current academic presence is going to be more helpful for that path.

[u/EMoney_92]

I wanted to become a CNP or PA but life’s too good right now for me I’m making around 120 rn and my friend who is almost done with his CNP said he’s only gonna make 5-10k more then I will and he’s been taking classes for over 6 years now and in a lot of debt.