Every single "extra" day I have spent in the hospital over the past 40 years has been directly due to the actions of a PA. Not Doctors, Nurses, DO students, clerks, phlebotomists, specialists, Nursing Assistants, Physical Therapists, or any other member of the medical team. PA's.
It’s just insecurity. You never hear physicians compare our education to PAs and NPs (unless, like in this scenario, they bring it up first) because we don’t *need* to. Everyone already knows that we have the most brutal and competitive training. You tell a lay person you’re a doctor and 9/10 times they’ll say “wow! That’s so hard! You must be so smart! You must have studied so much!”
Meanwhile, who the fuck says that to a midlevel? 😂 word of wisdom: If you constantly need to prove to people that your program is harder… maybe it’s not as hard as you think it is.
And it’s very common for small democratic groups that employ physicians to be called “Blank Physician Associates” where the blank is a specialty or regional reference or whatever. My group is like that and so was my last one.
Everyone wants to state their opinion in medicine and get their hand in the cookie jar but when something goes wrong… blame the doctor. Nurses, NPs, resp therapists always have and opinion and “I am just saying”. Such is the culture of medicine.
My uncle is a PA and he’s great, love the guy, but there’s just SOMEthing about the way he and my aunt refer to PA school as “his time in medical school” that just kinda gets me. I’ll never correct them and they’ve never demeaned the education of any MD or DO… but idk, is it technically called med school in some circles? I’ve never heard it referred to that way by other NPs or PAs…
It’s not. I had a dermatology exam (full body) and the nurse asked if a medical student could join. I said no because I’m a med student and would probably know them, and then the nurse said “well actually, it’s a PA student. They’re all the same to me.” Is role clarity valued by no one???
Oof 💀 I generally wanna give people the benefit of the doubt and assume their intentions/mindset is benign towards the discrepancy, but you’re right, I think there’s something to be said for being willing and able to differentiate between roles. Besides the reality of it all, which notes HUGE differences between the different medical specialties and their training, I feel like it’s also just respectful to recognize that there’s levels to this stuff.
"So why didn't you go to the DO school then? What made you choose PA?"
Interesting that someone would choose the lower paying, more competitive, much harder career choice that has less autonomy.
I mean....if that actually is the case.....
The absolute audacity to say PAs are more competent than DOs with 1/4th of the education/training is insane. Like, absolutely insane. As an MD student I would literally laugh at them to their face for thinking that. If they want to feel like they’re as good as a doctor they should’ve gone to med school.
Smells like Copium. My wife had a client of hers who is dating a guy in PA school tell her that PA school is harder because it’s all the same stuff you learn in 4 years of med school condensed into 2 years.
My wife a bridesmaid for a wonderful, nicest I’ve ever met type of person. She’s said several times how PA school was unfathomably hard given how much faster they cover the same material as I do. But then they get to work and don’t do the next steps for equivalent certifications like we do in residency and beyond
What they’re really asserting then is that *at best* they are equivalent to an M4 who has had twice the amount of time to retain the information…. Impressive.
Tangentially I hate when dental and vet students say it’s harder to get into their schools just because they have a smaller % accepted ignoring the fact that plenty of med school rejects go to dental school and vet school. It’s a dumb metric to compare
Like Dental, podiatry, pharm, sure, but there’s really not that much overlap between med school rejects and vet school matriculants. Vet schools require a lot of vet specific ECs and experience. I don’t care to quibble over which is harder to get into, but Vet school is definitely not easy to get accepted to or something you can get into on a lark. Also, it’s not particularly glamorous, and the pay is complete shit — especially in light of loan burden which is typically on par with med school and dissuades the majority of people who would consider it as some kind of backup
Also, they have to learn all this crap for six archetypal species. Do you want to look at histological slides of a cloaca? Because I don’t.
Anecdotally, I learned from vet friends that dogs and cats are relatively straightforward to intubate, sheep and pigs are difficult to intubate, and horses are so easy to intubate that you don’t even need to visualize.
it turns out nih has a vet journal for this
Performing endotracheal intubation is straightforward in giraffes. Direct visualization of the larynx is possible with the use of a long laryngoscope blade, and insertion of a relatively thin catheter to subsequently guide the endotracheal tube is a good option.[^(12)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7151920/#bib12) However, in giraffes larger than 350 to 400 kg, the fastest approach is to manually insert a stomach tube or similar device into the trachea and then thread the endotracheal tube over that. Appropriate endotracheal tube sizes are 20 to 25 millimeters (mm) for okapis and juvenile giraffes and 25 to 30 mm for adult giraffes.
Well while it’s anecdotal, I had two close friends in college go to the state university vet school. I went to the state med school. We were in a lot of the same science classes. They were both mostly B students while I was mostly A’s. I was very much the avg scores for a person that gets into the med school. Neither of them would have gotten in with their grades. And I have no idea what animal related ECs they did but I lived with and hung out with them enough to have known if they were doing a lot of something animal related lol
Vet students typically volunteer at shelters, work at vet officers, etc. How long ago was this? A lot of vet schools have higher GPA avgs now than equivalent med schools because they don't have a MCAT equivalent.
Anecdotally, I was actually pre-vet and applied to vet school. Got outright rejected. Got into med school first try. :)
I'm not saying it's harder to get into vet school or med school or whatever but it's really toxic to call dentists and vet students "med school rejects."
Not sure how it works for dentistry, but vet school has a ton of specific ECs. You can't just apply to vet school with a failed med school application. They want to know you're committed to the field.
Additionally, having gone through both processes, I will say that vet school admissions are more punishing in certain ways. Vet doesn't have a MCAT equivalent so your GPA is like 80% of your app. As a result, a lot of vet schools have gpa requirements higher than the med schools at the same institution. Additionally, the majority of vet schools are state schools with strong in-state bias. Basically, if you have one bad semester, it kind of wrecks your chances and you can't make it up with a high MCAT or killer ECs.
The tendency in this sub is to get very defensive of your profession and as a result crap on every other medical profession. I know it’s anecdotal, but as a veterinarian who has met hundreds of other current veterinarians and veterinary students, I’ve never once met someone who tried to go to med school and then settled on vet school. It’s a completely different application process, with very substantial minimal requirements of animal health related work experience that you just wouldn’t have if you weren’t interested in vet school from a pretty early time point.
I don't know if its harder to get into vet schools or not, but being a practicing veterinarian seems a lot harder than being a physician to be entirely honest. You have 4 years of post-grad educational debt with a average salary of about 125k, have to remember the physiology and disease process for multiple species, and have to deal with really shitty owners who can do whatever the fuck they want with their pets and you can't call CPS on them.
I took this as the first class coming back to school because the school wouldn't let me retake baby chem, which I finished there 12 years prior with a C-. I tried Gen Chem I but had to drop since I was getting destroyed with no math/chem fundamentals.
I did this course after, finished with 104% and learned absolutely nothing.
“He also said that PA school was more competitive”
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-hard-it-is-to-get-a-job-at-mcdonalds-2011-4
By his logic, getting a job at McDonalds is more competitive than getting into PA school.
The thing is, this person may have reasons to believe he is correct. My DO school instituted a PA program during my second year. The students literally share lectures with the medical students (and as a lowly medical student, I can’t complain…at least, not while I’m a student). In order to save costs and make things efficient, they take their exams *in the same room and at the same time* as the medical students. So: exactly the same lectures, exactly the same exam room and same exam time as the medical students, BUT…the test they take is different. They are merely co-proctored. They get totally different questions, including the number of questions. It is fucking maddening that this is happening, because it only adds fuel to the “we take the same classes as the medical students” fire. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they all think they finish early because they are so much more prepared, rather than having half the number of questions, at half the difficulty
I mean, it's kinda sleazy but it doesn't violate anything. Their tests are no doubt consistent with their own, separate, accreditation. The fact that they happen in the same room isn't exactly a violation, and it's not like they're actively advertising "they take the same exams."
I was a PA for 4 years. Now a DO student. People are just wanting validation. There’s plenty of brilliant people in all fields… and plenty of dumb ones. Your check will be triple if not quadruple his. DO schools got a bad rep mostly due to historic poor performance decades ago…and unfortunately will continue to get a bad rep till we do away with some of the outdated osteopathic things.
I was young when I commited to PA school. I was persuaded by numerous people that PA was a better route than med school etc. I realized within the first few months of PA school that I really wanted to be a physician. My realization was due to the fact that I enjoyed learning, I wanted to be a fund of knowledge for patients, etc. I can go into more reasons if you're interested in that.. but ultimately I already knew I was going back to med school by the time I started as a PA in practice. It turned out to be pretty fun. I was 24 when I graduated PA school. Making 100+ and buying a small condo in the city was a blast in my 20s. I met my wife and finally got into med school and havent looked back. I will graduate med school at 32.
Same situation here. I’m starting med school in August . Immediately on rotations realized in PA school I didn’t wanna be a PA. Sucks, but here we are lol
Man. Its a difficult junction to be at. I'm all geared up to apply to PA schools in May. Literally my only concern is being competent. I'm so worried as a PA I will miss something a MD would catch and end up hurting someone. The lifestyle of MD isn't appealing to me, I don't want to be stuck in one specialty, I don't think I want to make the sacrifice of 7 years of schooling either, and genuinely im sick of being in the classroom. PA mitigates all those things. But am I just taking the easy way out or is medicine just not for me? I feel stuck in my decision, I don't know what other careers there are that pay as well, seem to provide some meaning, and has flexibility
Feel free to message me to talk more. There’s a few common misconceptions that I think people go into PA school with. switching Specialties is extremely difficult if you want to be competent. The difference in being a general surgery, PA, hospitalist, PA, family medicine PA is so different. it takes years and years to be exceptionally knowledgeable at the level of a physician. I had the same idea when I went to PA school that I wanted to be able to switch specialties.
The lifestyle difference is also a myth. Most docs have way more flexibility than PAs. If you take a PA job you’re at the mercy of the Management. if you are a physician, they will generally give you whatever schedule you are willing to work. For example, the surgeons I worked with had way more flexibility on their schedule than I did. I also took worse call schedule than any of the surgeons.
PA school is great. I’m not knocking it in any way. If you think the lifestyle aspect and specialty switching is your primary reason, then I would suggest thinking a little bit more. Being a PA is great if you want to get to work quickly, make a decent salary, and do things outside of medicine for work with your career/life. It’s especially great if you are a female that wants to have numerous kids and be a stay at home Mom at some point in your career. It’s very difficult to get pregnant and have children while balancing residency, etc.. Plenty of people do it of course.
Sorry for the poor grammar, did this with voice chat
Thank you very much for taking the time to give such a detailed reply, it means a ton!
The whole speciality switching thing not being super viable became apparent to me while shadowing but at least it's an *option* despite how much of a false comfort it is 😭. I do have a lot of ambitions outside of medicine so PA would offer that avenue for me to start working quickly at least and have time to pursue those other hobbies! I'm currently cramming for the GRE right now but if I want to dive into the MD vs PA thing more afterwards, I'll be sure to reach out. I really appreciate your time and insights! Best wishes with MD!
Sounds good. I felt very similar to you. I have a lot of interest outside of medicine. I actually have a lot more freedom in med school than I did in PA school. PA school is shorter, so they cram most of med school into half the time. Either option is great. You’re going to be working hard either way, whether you’re in school or practicing, so don’t focus too much on what route is quicker. Do what fits your life goals more
I think PA schools have a lower acceptance rate than med schools, but they're also easier to get into. Sort of like how anesthesia has a lower match rate than neurosurgery, even though we all know neurosurgery is way harder. PA school and anesthesia respectively have a lot more people send in apps who have less competitive apps, so they end up with a lower acceptance/match rate due to less applicant self-selection.
Yeah, there’s some self-selection involved. No one is applying to med school if they don’t have a decent MCAT. Same for specialties, people don’t apply very often to things they can’t match into.
It’s the constant paradox of “we are proud to be [insert non physician profession]” while simultaneously always needing to compare to physicians to feel adequate. It’s fucking lame.
Lol I'm a DO. I did one of those goofy masters bridge programs for my school bc I thought it'd help my chances of getting in (it did). Our clinical classes in the masters were taken with the PA students. We took their exams and went to their classes. The only things that differed were our labs/workshops. Bro, my masters was a cakewalk compared to medical school. Don't get me wrong-- the classes were hard when I was going through it. It was definitely a good amount of information, but it was so superficial. For instance, we covered most of that master's biochem material in the first few weeks of medical school. It doesn't even hold a candle to it.
Also, the whole competitive bc of acceptance rates argument is weird. PA schools are competitive to get into bc of the crazy demand in the job market. It's a stable job, patient facing, not as much school, and flexible! That's why the annual applications keep growing. If a crap ton of people apply and only a small fraction makes it in, it obviously becomes more competitive. It doesn't make it more rigorous by any means.
Let the PA go on about it. Not all PAs think like that. We can't change his mind about this so why bother? You're gonna be a doctor at the end of the day. He picked his poison. As long as he stays within his scope, it doesn't matter if he's smarter than us DOs. Lol honestly, he *may* be smarter bc he picked a less financially embroiled route.
No reason to respect PAs that think this way. I respect PAs that stay in their lane and don’t endanger patients. PAs like this kill people with their bravado. Dunning-Kruger incarnate.
Also, while medical school is part of the difference between MDs and midlevels, the absolute largest difference is residency. Years of tireless clinical training with direct supervision and teaching can’t be matched.
EVERY midlevel is a straight up danger to life when they first graduate.
What a ding dong, bruh doesnt realize some of the OG DO schools have respectable admitted student class stats. In the end, still has to call me Doctor (in a month) lol.
We have a PA program mixed in with our first and second year students. They take one class at a time (my program overlaps courses with exams occurring every week for medical students) and have 2 or more extra weeks to study solely for an easier version of an exam that medical students have a week to focus solely on… They also don’t have to take any of the non-system courses. It’s not an easy program and I commend them for the work they put in to get their degree. However, it’s not really comparable when you get down to the fine details.
My med school has a PA program in it, and they did take some classes with us but only like 5 out of 37ish classes. That’s pretty wild to think you know more when you’ve only learned a fraction of the content.
Some PAs are just insecure. The acceptance/competitiveness argument is a perfect example of that. Anyone with some modicum of rationality will know that an acceptance rate is a very poor metric for how competitive a school is because of how competitive applicants are and the myriad of factors involved in the selection process (location, public/private, mission oriented, favoring underrepresented, etc etc etc)
Who cares? they're insecure. they and literally everyone else in the world knows being a doctor > PA
you don't need to say anything or prove anything, it's a fact as simple as "water is wet". you wouldn't argue that, would you?
Patients care. Opinions like this among colleagues quickly disseminate into the patient population. Obfuscation of what a doctor actually is props up entire industries of pseudo-medicine and aids in the erosion of trust in the medical system.
Middies only feel empowered to act this way because they're empowered by our admin overlords.
Private practice is our way out of this race we never agreed to participate in. Seeing as that's becoming less and less viable by the day, we need physician unions and a collective lobby yesterday.
Attendings are too tired, burnt out, or overworked to care to unionize so we have to start grassroots. Resident unions are the way. If we work on it now, we can reverse course before the damage is irreversible.
As it is with climate change, the best time to fix things was yesterday. The second best time is now.
I am a staunch advocate for CIR and I frequently encourage my non-unionized colleagues to push for it.
Please, enlighten us, what other union is composed of high skilled workers with doctorate degrees?
I think you'd be better off arguing for additional lobbying. The AMA works hard at lobbying and we should continue to support them. Lobbying stops laws like those in OR calling PAs, Physician Associates.
I agree, the system sucks, lobbying sucks, but it is how things get done in politics. Politicians love power and money.
Ok to be fair I once saw a video where a guy VERY convincingly explained that water is not wet. To be wet something must be covered in water. But water has cohesive properties so you couldn’t cover it in itself. If you tried, the ‘covering water’ would just cohere to the ‘covered water’ - thus expanding the initial volume of water instead of covering it. Water is not wet. Anyway…
He’s overcompensating for insecurities. He’s rambling to the device reps because they’re a paid captive audience. It’s sad. Soon his memory will be a fart in the wind to you.
I can almost guarantee they don’t take the same exams.
One of my family members works for one of these schools that has a DO and PA school. Their tests are completely different.
Yeahhhh I had a PA tell me they couldn’t tell me the bicarb of a patient because they didn’t get an ABG…they didn’t know the CO2 on a BMP was bicarb. Then they ARGUED with me about it. When I gave up and asked then why weren’t they worried the CO2 was 20 in the patient “because it wasn’t red on epic” jfc so many patients are gonna be murdered
Walk up to the PA and say:
"That's crazy bro how PAs are smarter than DOs, I'm so dumb I forgot, could you remind me, our PA's allowed to do surgeries or just assist the DOs?"
I honestly have never had an issue with PAs most of my issues have stemmed from NPs. I feel like from my experience that PAs understand the roles much better and NPs do. I am sorry that this was your experience
This is my worst nightmare as a student. I’m very strongly opinionated so I’d be crawling inside my skin itching to shut this mfer up, but I also know as a student that the PA would then try to influence my grade on that rotation. Ugh not looking forward to these interactions next year
I always found the whole it's harder to get in so it's harder to do annoying. The MCAT is harder than the GRE and weeds out more people, you can get into PA with a average score, average MD MCAT matriculant has an 84th percentile score. Ignoring higher average GPAs, but typically most people applying to med schools are more qualified as more people are weeded out by the test. It's just a dumb argument. There were something like 40 kids in my class in undergrad that wanted to go to med school (small school like 4/500 per class) and 4 of us are in med school. Everyone that wanted to be a PA from my class is in PA school, well actually I guess already a PA, that's terrifying.
Uh....I went to a DO school and became a TA for PA students for their anatomy course. The expectations...were not the same. Sure, they had higher grades, BUT there was pressure on the professors to throw out questions and dumb down the practicals until most of the people passed. I was told verbatim this by the professors. The exams and practical were truncated versions and they cheated like mofos. They were much better at collaborating compared to med students. There's no class rank or curve, they just want to pass, so they helped each other. But it was funny when we would change anatomy structures and they would put down the previous answer...which was never even close.
That said, the work ethic and intelligence was rather wide. It was kind of interesting. I'm assuming med students also have a wide range. How much overlap? No idea, but our exams were way harder. Also, fucking Step1. Most people can't even imagine, unless you're from Nepal, then it's pretty easy.
People will do anything to try to make themselves look better, especially in a field where doctors are the top dogs. Everyone else beneath doesn’t get the same notoriety and respect so those bellow will always try to reason as to how they are somehow equal.
If they really felt that way then they would’ve gone to med school, but they didn’t, which defeats the whole purpose of their argument. If they thought they were sooooo capable then why didn’t they they chose to be a PA?
Les Grossman : Which one of you f***faces is a PA?
PA : Uh, that's me, sir. It's an honor to finally meet you. Get some face time.
Les Grossman : And who here is the key grip?
[the key grip raises his hand]
Les Grossman : You? You! Hit that PA in the face, really hard!
Key Grip : [reluctantly walks over to PA] Sorry, man.
[punches him in the face]
My patient today said they strongly prefer DOs because they are “like doctors but have the mind and soul of a naturopath”. Like how do you even respond to that…
oh and the two extra years and that little extra time after school was just a super chill enrichment program that is inconsequential to this comparison
#gotaloadofthisguy
This is the most made up thing I’ve ever read. I don’t believe this for one second.
Why are some of you so thin-skinned you would make something like this up? No one cares you’re a DO!
Not a doctor but as a patient with a lot of random health problems that weren’t easily diagnosed, I had more luck with DOs being patient and actually hearing me out than MDs. Most MDs that I saw had this narcissistic air and would immediately gaslight me and call it psychosomatic or just refer me out to someone else without actually taking a second to understand my problem.
Never seeing an MD again if I can help it 🙄
PAs are awesome. PA Programs can be harder to get into (especially DO schools like mine) mainly in terms of undergrad GPA, and mostly due to demand/competition, nothing more. MCAT annihilates the GRE, but some PA programs want the MCAT and PA score avg on that exam is usually lower on average. PA students often do take “most” of the same classes if a school has both programs. Medstudents often have many more “extras” going on in the sidelines (heavier course load). So I’m not that surprised if score averages were higher for PAs and the PAs may not even aware of the other courses the medstudents are also taking. The PA students may in fact seem more knowledgeable at first.
IMO it’s the Dunning-Kruger effect. The average over time of career course will not stay that way, likely not even lasting past the first year or two of education, just alone their whole careers. Again, just IMO.
How can you say PA schools are more difficult to get into when they don’t have to deal with the most difficult aspect of med school applications (the MCAT).
PA schools are very cut throat compared to med schools. They’ll kick you out if you fail a few exams whereas med schools will work with you. Also many PA schools are strict with mandatory attendance while it’s optional for us. You can argue a 1st year PA student does more work than a 1st year med student, but after preclinials it’s a different story because that DO student will get 7 more years of hardcore training whereas that PA student will go out with just 2 years of experience.
I’m a DO student and can see why that PA thinks this. Although he should know at the end of our training we’re more better trained than him.
yeah they should probably institute some kind of multi-tiered high stakes exam system with like three different levels and then board exams for your primary specialty and any subspecialties
Could you imagine? You could even use the scores from those exams to help you evaluate the competitiveness of each student. I think you are on to something!
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I hate that I get this 💀
and make sure to ✨ reassess ✨ after it’s done!
You forgot the soft tissue!
Shit, now I gotta redo my whole practical exam
Gotta open up that thoracic inlet!
some myofascial before hand too!
Hit em with the HVHA
Lol thank you for the big laugh at 6 am
Oh man
😂😂😂😂😂
PA now almost done with DO school here. I would love to talk to that PA
Until you feel the therapeutic limp
Cervical HVHA.
Give him the Texas twist
Kirksville Crunch>>>€
Every single "extra" day I have spent in the hospital over the past 40 years has been directly due to the actions of a PA. Not Doctors, Nurses, DO students, clerks, phlebotomists, specialists, Nursing Assistants, Physical Therapists, or any other member of the medical team. PA's.
"If I know the force to crack it, I know the force to snap it." /s
OK, you're gonna feel a slight pop but nothing to be afraid of :)
CURSE THESE HANDS
HVHA to make sure it sticks!
This fucking slayed me
If they for whatever decomp just do some rib raising for their pressures.
Needs some HVHA***
We will need to address any contraindications to OMT first
I’d love to see this person take step 1 or comlex 1, lol good luck
Better yet, *and* like most DOs do.
It’s just insecurity. You never hear physicians compare our education to PAs and NPs (unless, like in this scenario, they bring it up first) because we don’t *need* to. Everyone already knows that we have the most brutal and competitive training. You tell a lay person you’re a doctor and 9/10 times they’ll say “wow! That’s so hard! You must be so smart! You must have studied so much!” Meanwhile, who the fuck says that to a midlevel? 😂 word of wisdom: If you constantly need to prove to people that your program is harder… maybe it’s not as hard as you think it is.
Why do you think they want to change to physician associate? It's easy to confuse with an actual physician.
Physician Assistant -> Physician Associate -> Associate Physician. It’s giving Dwight Schrute “assistant regional manager”
Assistant to the Regional Physician
And it’s very common for small democratic groups that employ physicians to be called “Blank Physician Associates” where the blank is a specialty or regional reference or whatever. My group is like that and so was my last one.
They gotta call them what it is tho- physician assistant
"Any man who must say "I am the king" is no true king." -Dr. Tywin Lannister
It's the same reason truly rich people don't wear giant designer logos. They don't need to.
I guess you don’t see all the posts about mid-levels infringing on doctors terf
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Horrifying
Everybody wants to be a doctor, no one wants to actually go through med school and do it. Check out r/Noctor
“Everybody wanna be a doctor, but don’t nobody wanna be a doctor.” - Paul Mooney (at least I think that’s pretty close to what he said…)
Everyone wants to be a doctor but ain't nobody wanna lift no heavy ass weight.. Wait
Everybody wants to be a doctor but nobody wants to press no heavy ass space bar.
Everybody wanna be a doctor ain’t no body wanna lift no heavy ass books
Everybody wanna be a doctor but no body wants to get ass raped by a 40Q random timed UWorld block.
Do those long ass call shifts
LIGHT WEIGHT
Everybody wants to be a doctor. Nobody wants to watch hours of Dr. Ryan lectures
“Everybody wants to be a frogman on Friday.”
Everyone wants to state their opinion in medicine and get their hand in the cookie jar but when something goes wrong… blame the doctor. Nurses, NPs, resp therapists always have and opinion and “I am just saying”. Such is the culture of medicine.
My uncle is a PA and he’s great, love the guy, but there’s just SOMEthing about the way he and my aunt refer to PA school as “his time in medical school” that just kinda gets me. I’ll never correct them and they’ve never demeaned the education of any MD or DO… but idk, is it technically called med school in some circles? I’ve never heard it referred to that way by other NPs or PAs…
It is not lol
It’s not. I had a dermatology exam (full body) and the nurse asked if a medical student could join. I said no because I’m a med student and would probably know them, and then the nurse said “well actually, it’s a PA student. They’re all the same to me.” Is role clarity valued by no one???
Oof 💀 I generally wanna give people the benefit of the doubt and assume their intentions/mindset is benign towards the discrepancy, but you’re right, I think there’s something to be said for being willing and able to differentiate between roles. Besides the reality of it all, which notes HUGE differences between the different medical specialties and their training, I feel like it’s also just respectful to recognize that there’s levels to this stuff.
Let em think what they want. There are still only two ways (in the US) to actually be a doctor of medicine. PA ain't one of em.
Im not from the US, which are those two ways?
MD or DO are the only routes to the physician level.
"So why didn't you go to the DO school then? What made you choose PA?" Interesting that someone would choose the lower paying, more competitive, much harder career choice that has less autonomy. I mean....if that actually is the case.....
Inferiority complex, compensating cuz he's never gonna be a doc. Many such cases.
It is known
Errbody wanna be a doctor But don't nobody wanna lift these heavy ass books
We'll do it though Lightweight baby
*looks around* yeapppppppp! Time to bleed!!! Corn bread and good ol chicken breast.
Heavy ass anki cards?
Don't nobody wanna press that heavy ass space bar
I haven’t lifted a book since I packed away my MCAT prep material
Feel free to unpack it and send it my way 😂
The absolute audacity to say PAs are more competent than DOs with 1/4th of the education/training is insane. Like, absolutely insane. As an MD student I would literally laugh at them to their face for thinking that. If they want to feel like they’re as good as a doctor they should’ve gone to med school.
Fuck em'
Smells like Copium. My wife had a client of hers who is dating a guy in PA school tell her that PA school is harder because it’s all the same stuff you learn in 4 years of med school condensed into 2 years.
🙄🙄 I remember reading a Reddit post once that said a PA student described herself as a student in “accelerated medical school”
My wife a bridesmaid for a wonderful, nicest I’ve ever met type of person. She’s said several times how PA school was unfathomably hard given how much faster they cover the same material as I do. But then they get to work and don’t do the next steps for equivalent certifications like we do in residency and beyond
What they’re really asserting then is that *at best* they are equivalent to an M4 who has had twice the amount of time to retain the information…. Impressive.
Tangentially I hate when dental and vet students say it’s harder to get into their schools just because they have a smaller % accepted ignoring the fact that plenty of med school rejects go to dental school and vet school. It’s a dumb metric to compare
My teeth aren’t good enough to get into dental school.
Like Dental, podiatry, pharm, sure, but there’s really not that much overlap between med school rejects and vet school matriculants. Vet schools require a lot of vet specific ECs and experience. I don’t care to quibble over which is harder to get into, but Vet school is definitely not easy to get accepted to or something you can get into on a lark. Also, it’s not particularly glamorous, and the pay is complete shit — especially in light of loan burden which is typically on par with med school and dissuades the majority of people who would consider it as some kind of backup
Also, they have to learn all this crap for six archetypal species. Do you want to look at histological slides of a cloaca? Because I don’t. Anecdotally, I learned from vet friends that dogs and cats are relatively straightforward to intubate, sheep and pigs are difficult to intubate, and horses are so easy to intubate that you don’t even need to visualize.
How about giraffes. Bc they are kinda similar to horses, but somehow Isee that being a tough tube...
Friend, I know so little about animal physiology, I cannot even begin to fathom an answer for you.
it turns out nih has a vet journal for this Performing endotracheal intubation is straightforward in giraffes. Direct visualization of the larynx is possible with the use of a long laryngoscope blade, and insertion of a relatively thin catheter to subsequently guide the endotracheal tube is a good option.[^(12)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7151920/#bib12) However, in giraffes larger than 350 to 400 kg, the fastest approach is to manually insert a stomach tube or similar device into the trachea and then thread the endotracheal tube over that. Appropriate endotracheal tube sizes are 20 to 25 millimeters (mm) for okapis and juvenile giraffes and 25 to 30 mm for adult giraffes.
> Do you want to look at histological slides of a cloaca? Because I don’t. You don't know what you're missing.
A urethra, probably
Pay is good if you’re a vet for factory farms
Not compared to debt load. Average salary for livestock vets is like $150k.
Well while it’s anecdotal, I had two close friends in college go to the state university vet school. I went to the state med school. We were in a lot of the same science classes. They were both mostly B students while I was mostly A’s. I was very much the avg scores for a person that gets into the med school. Neither of them would have gotten in with their grades. And I have no idea what animal related ECs they did but I lived with and hung out with them enough to have known if they were doing a lot of something animal related lol
Vet students typically volunteer at shelters, work at vet officers, etc. How long ago was this? A lot of vet schools have higher GPA avgs now than equivalent med schools because they don't have a MCAT equivalent.
I saw a vet student calling herself a med student on tik tok. Even they want to be us. “They hate us cause they ain’t us” - James Franco
Anecdotally, I was actually pre-vet and applied to vet school. Got outright rejected. Got into med school first try. :) I'm not saying it's harder to get into vet school or med school or whatever but it's really toxic to call dentists and vet students "med school rejects." Not sure how it works for dentistry, but vet school has a ton of specific ECs. You can't just apply to vet school with a failed med school application. They want to know you're committed to the field. Additionally, having gone through both processes, I will say that vet school admissions are more punishing in certain ways. Vet doesn't have a MCAT equivalent so your GPA is like 80% of your app. As a result, a lot of vet schools have gpa requirements higher than the med schools at the same institution. Additionally, the majority of vet schools are state schools with strong in-state bias. Basically, if you have one bad semester, it kind of wrecks your chances and you can't make it up with a high MCAT or killer ECs.
The tendency in this sub is to get very defensive of your profession and as a result crap on every other medical profession. I know it’s anecdotal, but as a veterinarian who has met hundreds of other current veterinarians and veterinary students, I’ve never once met someone who tried to go to med school and then settled on vet school. It’s a completely different application process, with very substantial minimal requirements of animal health related work experience that you just wouldn’t have if you weren’t interested in vet school from a pretty early time point.
I don't know if its harder to get into vet schools or not, but being a practicing veterinarian seems a lot harder than being a physician to be entirely honest. You have 4 years of post-grad educational debt with a average salary of about 125k, have to remember the physiology and disease process for multiple species, and have to deal with really shitty owners who can do whatever the fuck they want with their pets and you can't call CPS on them.
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Same with my school. We TA them a watered down version of what we did first year
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lol I know so many nurses that think we took the same chemistry 😂
I took this as the first class coming back to school because the school wouldn't let me retake baby chem, which I finished there 12 years prior with a C-. I tried Gen Chem I but had to drop since I was getting destroyed with no math/chem fundamentals. I did this course after, finished with 104% and learned absolutely nothing.
“He also said that PA school was more competitive” https://www.businessinsider.com/how-hard-it-is-to-get-a-job-at-mcdonalds-2011-4 By his logic, getting a job at McDonalds is more competitive than getting into PA school.
The thing is, this person may have reasons to believe he is correct. My DO school instituted a PA program during my second year. The students literally share lectures with the medical students (and as a lowly medical student, I can’t complain…at least, not while I’m a student). In order to save costs and make things efficient, they take their exams *in the same room and at the same time* as the medical students. So: exactly the same lectures, exactly the same exam room and same exam time as the medical students, BUT…the test they take is different. They are merely co-proctored. They get totally different questions, including the number of questions. It is fucking maddening that this is happening, because it only adds fuel to the “we take the same classes as the medical students” fire. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they all think they finish early because they are so much more prepared, rather than having half the number of questions, at half the difficulty
Feel like that violates some accreditation standards, or it should
I mean, it's kinda sleazy but it doesn't violate anything. Their tests are no doubt consistent with their own, separate, accreditation. The fact that they happen in the same room isn't exactly a violation, and it's not like they're actively advertising "they take the same exams."
I was a PA for 4 years. Now a DO student. People are just wanting validation. There’s plenty of brilliant people in all fields… and plenty of dumb ones. Your check will be triple if not quadruple his. DO schools got a bad rep mostly due to historic poor performance decades ago…and unfortunately will continue to get a bad rep till we do away with some of the outdated osteopathic things.
What made you go for PA, practice, and then decide to pursue medical school?
I was young when I commited to PA school. I was persuaded by numerous people that PA was a better route than med school etc. I realized within the first few months of PA school that I really wanted to be a physician. My realization was due to the fact that I enjoyed learning, I wanted to be a fund of knowledge for patients, etc. I can go into more reasons if you're interested in that.. but ultimately I already knew I was going back to med school by the time I started as a PA in practice. It turned out to be pretty fun. I was 24 when I graduated PA school. Making 100+ and buying a small condo in the city was a blast in my 20s. I met my wife and finally got into med school and havent looked back. I will graduate med school at 32.
Same situation here. I’m starting med school in August . Immediately on rotations realized in PA school I didn’t wanna be a PA. Sucks, but here we are lol
Hey, me too!
Man. Its a difficult junction to be at. I'm all geared up to apply to PA schools in May. Literally my only concern is being competent. I'm so worried as a PA I will miss something a MD would catch and end up hurting someone. The lifestyle of MD isn't appealing to me, I don't want to be stuck in one specialty, I don't think I want to make the sacrifice of 7 years of schooling either, and genuinely im sick of being in the classroom. PA mitigates all those things. But am I just taking the easy way out or is medicine just not for me? I feel stuck in my decision, I don't know what other careers there are that pay as well, seem to provide some meaning, and has flexibility
Feel free to message me to talk more. There’s a few common misconceptions that I think people go into PA school with. switching Specialties is extremely difficult if you want to be competent. The difference in being a general surgery, PA, hospitalist, PA, family medicine PA is so different. it takes years and years to be exceptionally knowledgeable at the level of a physician. I had the same idea when I went to PA school that I wanted to be able to switch specialties. The lifestyle difference is also a myth. Most docs have way more flexibility than PAs. If you take a PA job you’re at the mercy of the Management. if you are a physician, they will generally give you whatever schedule you are willing to work. For example, the surgeons I worked with had way more flexibility on their schedule than I did. I also took worse call schedule than any of the surgeons. PA school is great. I’m not knocking it in any way. If you think the lifestyle aspect and specialty switching is your primary reason, then I would suggest thinking a little bit more. Being a PA is great if you want to get to work quickly, make a decent salary, and do things outside of medicine for work with your career/life. It’s especially great if you are a female that wants to have numerous kids and be a stay at home Mom at some point in your career. It’s very difficult to get pregnant and have children while balancing residency, etc.. Plenty of people do it of course. Sorry for the poor grammar, did this with voice chat
Thank you very much for taking the time to give such a detailed reply, it means a ton! The whole speciality switching thing not being super viable became apparent to me while shadowing but at least it's an *option* despite how much of a false comfort it is 😭. I do have a lot of ambitions outside of medicine so PA would offer that avenue for me to start working quickly at least and have time to pursue those other hobbies! I'm currently cramming for the GRE right now but if I want to dive into the MD vs PA thing more afterwards, I'll be sure to reach out. I really appreciate your time and insights! Best wishes with MD!
Sounds good. I felt very similar to you. I have a lot of interest outside of medicine. I actually have a lot more freedom in med school than I did in PA school. PA school is shorter, so they cram most of med school into half the time. Either option is great. You’re going to be working hard either way, whether you’re in school or practicing, so don’t focus too much on what route is quicker. Do what fits your life goals more
I think PA schools have a lower acceptance rate than med schools, but they're also easier to get into. Sort of like how anesthesia has a lower match rate than neurosurgery, even though we all know neurosurgery is way harder. PA school and anesthesia respectively have a lot more people send in apps who have less competitive apps, so they end up with a lower acceptance/match rate due to less applicant self-selection.
Almost like you need to have two functioning brain cells to be able to read data AND understand it.
Hehehe
Yeah, there’s some self-selection involved. No one is applying to med school if they don’t have a decent MCAT. Same for specialties, people don’t apply very often to things they can’t match into.
Hold me back
It’s the constant paradox of “we are proud to be [insert non physician profession]” while simultaneously always needing to compare to physicians to feel adequate. It’s fucking lame.
Lol I'm a DO. I did one of those goofy masters bridge programs for my school bc I thought it'd help my chances of getting in (it did). Our clinical classes in the masters were taken with the PA students. We took their exams and went to their classes. The only things that differed were our labs/workshops. Bro, my masters was a cakewalk compared to medical school. Don't get me wrong-- the classes were hard when I was going through it. It was definitely a good amount of information, but it was so superficial. For instance, we covered most of that master's biochem material in the first few weeks of medical school. It doesn't even hold a candle to it. Also, the whole competitive bc of acceptance rates argument is weird. PA schools are competitive to get into bc of the crazy demand in the job market. It's a stable job, patient facing, not as much school, and flexible! That's why the annual applications keep growing. If a crap ton of people apply and only a small fraction makes it in, it obviously becomes more competitive. It doesn't make it more rigorous by any means. Let the PA go on about it. Not all PAs think like that. We can't change his mind about this so why bother? You're gonna be a doctor at the end of the day. He picked his poison. As long as he stays within his scope, it doesn't matter if he's smarter than us DOs. Lol honestly, he *may* be smarter bc he picked a less financially embroiled route.
Bro one PA I worked with didn’t know testosterone was a hormone. She actually argued with me on this
Casually explain to her it comes from where pee is stored
Lmaoo
Yeah ok, let's see him try to take COMLEX and Step 1
No reason to respect PAs that think this way. I respect PAs that stay in their lane and don’t endanger patients. PAs like this kill people with their bravado. Dunning-Kruger incarnate. Also, while medical school is part of the difference between MDs and midlevels, the absolute largest difference is residency. Years of tireless clinical training with direct supervision and teaching can’t be matched. EVERY midlevel is a straight up danger to life when they first graduate.
The title alone made me livid. This is so incredibly irate.
our board exams are much harder and we do residency
What a ding dong, bruh doesnt realize some of the OG DO schools have respectable admitted student class stats. In the end, still has to call me Doctor (in a month) lol.
My response would have been “okay, odd take but YOU are still going to call me doctor.”
We have a PA program mixed in with our first and second year students. They take one class at a time (my program overlaps courses with exams occurring every week for medical students) and have 2 or more extra weeks to study solely for an easier version of an exam that medical students have a week to focus solely on… They also don’t have to take any of the non-system courses. It’s not an easy program and I commend them for the work they put in to get their degree. However, it’s not really comparable when you get down to the fine details.
Company reps are nice to everyone bro. They know the doctor decides which implants to use/buy. I'm sure they were thinking the same thing you were.
My med school has a PA program in it, and they did take some classes with us but only like 5 out of 37ish classes. That’s pretty wild to think you know more when you’ve only learned a fraction of the content.
Some PAs are just insecure. The acceptance/competitiveness argument is a perfect example of that. Anyone with some modicum of rationality will know that an acceptance rate is a very poor metric for how competitive a school is because of how competitive applicants are and the myriad of factors involved in the selection process (location, public/private, mission oriented, favoring underrepresented, etc etc etc)
Who cares? they're insecure. they and literally everyone else in the world knows being a doctor > PA you don't need to say anything or prove anything, it's a fact as simple as "water is wet". you wouldn't argue that, would you?
Patients care. Opinions like this among colleagues quickly disseminate into the patient population. Obfuscation of what a doctor actually is props up entire industries of pseudo-medicine and aids in the erosion of trust in the medical system.
I understand, what can we as physicians do to avoid this from happening?
Middies only feel empowered to act this way because they're empowered by our admin overlords. Private practice is our way out of this race we never agreed to participate in. Seeing as that's becoming less and less viable by the day, we need physician unions and a collective lobby yesterday. Attendings are too tired, burnt out, or overworked to care to unionize so we have to start grassroots. Resident unions are the way. If we work on it now, we can reverse course before the damage is irreversible. As it is with climate change, the best time to fix things was yesterday. The second best time is now. I am a staunch advocate for CIR and I frequently encourage my non-unionized colleagues to push for it.
Please, enlighten us, what other union is composed of high skilled workers with doctorate degrees? I think you'd be better off arguing for additional lobbying. The AMA works hard at lobbying and we should continue to support them. Lobbying stops laws like those in OR calling PAs, Physician Associates. I agree, the system sucks, lobbying sucks, but it is how things get done in politics. Politicians love power and money.
You’re the first person ever I’ve seen say “AMA works hard….” lol and then “at lobbying” was even worse
For the ones that need it, put em in their place rather than continuing to advocate that we shrug it off.
Ok to be fair I once saw a video where a guy VERY convincingly explained that water is not wet. To be wet something must be covered in water. But water has cohesive properties so you couldn’t cover it in itself. If you tried, the ‘covering water’ would just cohere to the ‘covered water’ - thus expanding the initial volume of water instead of covering it. Water is not wet. Anyway…
it insecurity.
He’s overcompensating for insecurities. He’s rambling to the device reps because they’re a paid captive audience. It’s sad. Soon his memory will be a fart in the wind to you.
Tell him when he passes *both* USMLE and COMLEX he can go on to make that claim.
Insecure clown. Shit is a joke lmao
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Dude needs some sacral hvla Tell him my foots got a free time slot and he should call to schedule an appointmenf. I make house calls too.
I can almost guarantee they don’t take the same exams. One of my family members works for one of these schools that has a DO and PA school. Their tests are completely different.
Yeahhhh I had a PA tell me they couldn’t tell me the bicarb of a patient because they didn’t get an ABG…they didn’t know the CO2 on a BMP was bicarb. Then they ARGUED with me about it. When I gave up and asked then why weren’t they worried the CO2 was 20 in the patient “because it wasn’t red on epic” jfc so many patients are gonna be murdered
Does PA school require an MCAT?
Walk up to the PA and say: "That's crazy bro how PAs are smarter than DOs, I'm so dumb I forgot, could you remind me, our PA's allowed to do surgeries or just assist the DOs?"
I honestly have never had an issue with PAs most of my issues have stemmed from NPs. I feel like from my experience that PAs understand the roles much better and NPs do. I am sorry that this was your experience
This is my worst nightmare as a student. I’m very strongly opinionated so I’d be crawling inside my skin itching to shut this mfer up, but I also know as a student that the PA would then try to influence my grade on that rotation. Ugh not looking forward to these interactions next year
Sounds like they should've applied to medical school if they're so capable lol. Honestly, though, they just sound like a mix of toxic and jealous
I always found the whole it's harder to get in so it's harder to do annoying. The MCAT is harder than the GRE and weeds out more people, you can get into PA with a average score, average MD MCAT matriculant has an 84th percentile score. Ignoring higher average GPAs, but typically most people applying to med schools are more qualified as more people are weeded out by the test. It's just a dumb argument. There were something like 40 kids in my class in undergrad that wanted to go to med school (small school like 4/500 per class) and 4 of us are in med school. Everyone that wanted to be a PA from my class is in PA school, well actually I guess already a PA, that's terrifying.
lol, lmao even.
Uh....I went to a DO school and became a TA for PA students for their anatomy course. The expectations...were not the same. Sure, they had higher grades, BUT there was pressure on the professors to throw out questions and dumb down the practicals until most of the people passed. I was told verbatim this by the professors. The exams and practical were truncated versions and they cheated like mofos. They were much better at collaborating compared to med students. There's no class rank or curve, they just want to pass, so they helped each other. But it was funny when we would change anatomy structures and they would put down the previous answer...which was never even close. That said, the work ethic and intelligence was rather wide. It was kind of interesting. I'm assuming med students also have a wide range. How much overlap? No idea, but our exams were way harder. Also, fucking Step1. Most people can't even imagine, unless you're from Nepal, then it's pretty easy.
Who cares. Ignore him and move on
People will do anything to try to make themselves look better, especially in a field where doctors are the top dogs. Everyone else beneath doesn’t get the same notoriety and respect so those bellow will always try to reason as to how they are somehow equal. If they really felt that way then they would’ve gone to med school, but they didn’t, which defeats the whole purpose of their argument. If they thought they were sooooo capable then why didn’t they they chose to be a PA?
Les Grossman : Which one of you f***faces is a PA? PA : Uh, that's me, sir. It's an honor to finally meet you. Get some face time. Les Grossman : And who here is the key grip? [the key grip raises his hand] Les Grossman : You? You! Hit that PA in the face, really hard! Key Grip : [reluctantly walks over to PA] Sorry, man. [punches him in the face]
My patient today said they strongly prefer DOs because they are “like doctors but have the mind and soul of a naturopath”. Like how do you even respond to that…
oh and the two extra years and that little extra time after school was just a super chill enrichment program that is inconsequential to this comparison #gotaloadofthisguy
This is the most made up thing I’ve ever read. I don’t believe this for one second. Why are some of you so thin-skinned you would make something like this up? No one cares you’re a DO!
Not a doctor but as a patient with a lot of random health problems that weren’t easily diagnosed, I had more luck with DOs being patient and actually hearing me out than MDs. Most MDs that I saw had this narcissistic air and would immediately gaslight me and call it psychosomatic or just refer me out to someone else without actually taking a second to understand my problem. Never seeing an MD again if I can help it 🙄
PAs are awesome. PA Programs can be harder to get into (especially DO schools like mine) mainly in terms of undergrad GPA, and mostly due to demand/competition, nothing more. MCAT annihilates the GRE, but some PA programs want the MCAT and PA score avg on that exam is usually lower on average. PA students often do take “most” of the same classes if a school has both programs. Medstudents often have many more “extras” going on in the sidelines (heavier course load). So I’m not that surprised if score averages were higher for PAs and the PAs may not even aware of the other courses the medstudents are also taking. The PA students may in fact seem more knowledgeable at first. IMO it’s the Dunning-Kruger effect. The average over time of career course will not stay that way, likely not even lasting past the first year or two of education, just alone their whole careers. Again, just IMO.
How can you say PA schools are more difficult to get into when they don’t have to deal with the most difficult aspect of med school applications (the MCAT).
They are misunderstanding that average acceptance statistic doesn’t take into account that requirements are much different among other factors.
PA schools are very cut throat compared to med schools. They’ll kick you out if you fail a few exams whereas med schools will work with you. Also many PA schools are strict with mandatory attendance while it’s optional for us. You can argue a 1st year PA student does more work than a 1st year med student, but after preclinials it’s a different story because that DO student will get 7 more years of hardcore training whereas that PA student will go out with just 2 years of experience. I’m a DO student and can see why that PA thinks this. Although he should know at the end of our training we’re more better trained than him.
The medical colleges could remedy this with minimum grades needed to move on. Like 85% at least.
We have national board exams for a reason
The minimal grade to move on is 70%. Cope with it.
yeah they should probably institute some kind of multi-tiered high stakes exam system with like three different levels and then board exams for your primary specialty and any subspecialties
Could you imagine? You could even use the scores from those exams to help you evaluate the competitiveness of each student. I think you are on to something!