MD school vs PA school

[Natural1]

I know there are numerous posts about this but here goes.... I have read many on many different forums. I am just looking for a little guidance here.
I am going into my senior year of undergrad, I have a pretty good GPA (3.9x) but still have to take OrgoII, Physics I&II, and Labs, biochem, and still take the MCAT. I do not plan on going to a foreign school, I plan on staying in the U.S. but heres the decision I am facing apply now to PA school, (in which I feel pretty competitive), get accepted finish by the time I am 24years old, making roughly 70-80k/year or take a 5th year of college to finish my pre-reqs and apply to med.

I know its a personal decision, but I'm just looking for some pros vs cons from everyone. Are there are any MD's on here that now would have prefered to go PA due to the hassle? Also are there any PA's that now wish they would have went MD due to low salary and effort put in. Please any responses are appreciated.

[Kronos]

PA's look like they have an excellent future ahead of them. Just like MDs, DOs, nurses, NPs, whatever, if you excel among other PAs, you will do better than average in salary and job security. Some PAs in physician-starved areas and specialities (like OB) will eventually make well over 100k before taxes, depending on contract. A lot of attendings I see at the hospital and at surgical clinics hire multiple PAs to do most of the work for them. There are two ortho PAs at a hospital where I did my Surgery rotation - both of them were relatively young, doing quite well with a healthy salary, and have NO malpractice hassles or other headaches of their boss. Sure, they aren't making 400k a year like he is, but it took him 9 years residency and 26 years to build a practice to get to that level. Its a good tradeoff for early entry into the job market (most of us MDs will be between 30 and 35 by the time residency is over), good job security, great salary and no overhead.

Search in Google for average PA salary by state, and compare it to nurse and physician salary by state and specialty. Also, don't forget to take into account total loan amount at the end of your schooling - for PAs, it will obviously be much much less than MDs.

Good luck!

[jameslynton]

I know there are numerous posts about this but here goes.... I have read many on many different forums. I am just looking for a little guidance here.
I am going into my senior year of undergrad, I have a pretty good GPA (3.9x) but still have to take OrgoII, Physics I&II, and Labs, biochem, and still take the MCAT. I do not plan on going to a foreign school, I plan on staying in the U.S. but heres the decision I am facing apply now to PA school, (in which I feel pretty competitive), get accepted finish by the time I am 24years old, making roughly 70-80k/year or take a 5th year of college to finish my pre-reqs and apply to med.

I know its a personal decision, but I'm just looking for some pros vs cons from everyone. Are there are any MD's on here that now would have prefered to go PA due to the hassle? Also are there any PA's that now wish they would have went MD due to low salary and effort put in. Please any responses are appreciated.PA are called by several Doc's I know as physician extenders. This translates into "You get to do the boring and repetitive work as a glorified clerk".

Your grades are very, very good. Do not waste that hard work by selling yourself short just for quick money. You will get locked into a career that is capped off and doing boring dull and repetitious work for the next 35-40 of your life. How many insurance forms can you fill out a day? Generally also when a PA or RN starts to earn too much - they get fired (for some dumb reason). Yes, earning a MD degree is more work. You are also higher in the medical hierarchy and can better control your fate and career. Study hard - for the final courses, study or take a MCAT prep course and do well on the MCAT. Get good LOR's and volunteer work experience, Apply to a Good US medical school. Just my .02's

[Natural1]

thanks for the replies everyone, please keep them coming. Any relevant information is valued, and personal experience is greatly appreciated.

[AUCMD2006]

in the end you gotta do what you really wanna do. in every class there are usually a few PA's, chiros, NP's, and RN's that took the money route 5-10-20 years ago and were never satusfied because they wanted to be MD's then had to start over in school again with a bunch of 20-30 year olds.

i guess you can take a few points from that.

1)you can do PA and if it doesn't suit you later on med school is always a viable option
2)then again if you really want to be a MD why waste your time on other things just for the prospect of earning money a few years sooner. lets see 70 out of school for 2 years of post grrad education for PA or approx 100k more per year for 7 years of med school/FP residency. just from a money persepctive you will have caught up to the PA shorter school advantage 4 years out of med school.....

you gotta go for what you really want and never settle...most of us on here were rejected by US schools and given options to go to a PA or Nursing school but we knew it wasn't for us and found another way. right now i could have been earning 80k plus as a PA woring a reasonable schedule but i am gonna make 43k working 70plus hours as an OB intern and as of this moment i wouldn't trade it for anything because i am right where i want to be.

you should also never attend med school for the money or title because you will be miserable. there was one person in my class who actually wanted to be a PA but the parents forced them into med school...they were miserable during basic science, hated clinicals, and is probably on multiple depression meds by now.....

[jameslynton]

Hey RRod, once again congrats on the matching, However, are they gone to make you wear pink scrubs on the ob/gyn unit or do you get greens and blues? Curious (RRod AKA AUCMD2006) readers want to know!

[DOCplucinski]

Hey RRod, once again congrats on the matching, However, are they gone to make you wear pink scrubs on the ob/gyn unit or do you get greens and blues? Curious (RRod AKA AUCMD2006) readers want to know!
haha ouch....

[AUCMD2006]

Hey RRod, once again congrats on the matching, However, are they gone to make you wear pink scrubs on the ob/gyn unit or do you get greens and blues? Curious (RRod AKA AUCMD2006) readers want to know!


green, thank God! only one hospital i interviewed at wore the purple scrubs for ob. thanks it is great being done with school and acrually start getting paid a little.

[ZnS3104ever]

lets just put it this way, im glad I didn't continue with PA school and went on with Med school. I didn't want to be bossed around.

[jameslynton]

green, thank God! only one hospital i interviewed at wore the purple scrubs for ob. thanks it is great being done with school and acrually start getting paid a little.Maybe the BMW is in your near future. Gag - I hate purple scrubs also.

[jameslynton]

haha ouch....Hey DocP - beware I have heard some Ob/Gyn sitea make all the staff including clinical student wear pink scrubs. If I remember correctly, AUCMD wanted to go into surgery. However, some people consider Ob/Gyn to be very much like a surgery rotation. Is that what attracted you to Ob/Gyn?

[AUCMD2006]

Hey DocP - beware I have heard some Ob/Gyn sitea make all the staff including clinical student wear pink scrubs. If I remember correctly, AUCMD wanted to go into surgery. However, some people consider Ob/Gyn to be very much like a surgery rotation. Is that what attracted you to Ob/Gyn?

it was a combination of things. first i really enjoyed my ob rotation and did a high risk elective to make sure. i originally wanted to do surgery but the more i thought about it the less it seemed like a long term fit for me.

i wasn't sure if i would want to keep doing surgery at the age i saw the attendings doing it....and their schedules were packed all day every day.

i also had to consider my chances of matching somewhere i wanted. since surgery is so competitive and i had average scores i would have to pretty much apply to a ton of programs and hope to get in anywhere.

now as far as OB, i hadn't really considered it because i thought all you did was catch babies. then i did my rotations and liked that there were alot more indepth procedures and alot more variety than i had thought.

i was also worried being a guy in the field would hinder me but the attendings assured me that the field was even now and maybe slightly in a guys favor now. what i liked the most though was the flexibility in what you can do. you can do OB, Gyn, surgery, primary care in any combination so i see myself doing gyn/surgery for my first 10-20 years in practice then when i am old and tired changing to more consults and primary care.

the drwaback of course is that you limit yourself to women and a specific anatomical area but even in this as a general surgeon you limit yourslef to bowel, gall bladder, and some breast and the rest you need extra training

the last advantage for me was that i had more of a say in where i ended up because i could pick and choose the interviews i wanted based on location and the program so overall i think ob is a much better fit for me long term.

[jameslynton]

That is a great post! Thanks. Many people don't consider those things as sanely as you have done.