If you want to discuss becoming a physician assistant, you have to understand what is this job and what a physician assistant does?
Physician Assistants are more or fewer physicians whose task is to conduct a detailed diagnosis of patients and examine them thoroughly. They give medicines to the patients but all under their head physicians. They are said to be assistants for a reason. When a physician assistant is near you, he will do the same treatment as the head physician. However, he takes advice from his superiors to rectify and learn as much as possible.
Physician assistants are responsible for taking rounds of the wards in the morning shift, conversing with the patients, and getting to know about their health conditions. In the other half of the day, they have to work closely with their heads and superiors to learn new things and improve themselves in this field.
How do you become one?
We might misunderstand the term assistant here and think that a simple degree and ample practice can take you to the isle of physician assistant. It is not like that. The things are the same; however, the experience is the differentiating factor here.
- An individual needs to get a degree in health sciences or nursing-related so that he or she may qualify for this program. If you have a bachelor’s in pathology, chemistry, or any other medical field, you are also eligible to apply to the physician assistant program.
- After acquiring a bachelor’s degree, comes the turn of a master’s degree with a good GPA and GRE score. Here these scores matter a lot because of the increased complexity of studies. Because once you have completed your education, you become eligible for clinical rounds in different wards like pediatrics or general ward.
- Then you will have to pass the PANCE. This is the abbreviation for Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination. This exam is very crucial and has to be attempted. This is not a piece of cake to do. However, one can get a chance to attempt at least for 6 years.
- For those who want to add stars to their degree and exam scores. An extra bit of effort in gathering different certifications will not do any harm. So gather different certifications like that of cardiac surgery and add stars to your degree.
- The last step would be the maintenance of certifications, and then you are good to go!
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