Physician Assistant Presidency Careers

Once a physician assistant gains acceptance into a residency program they embark on another six to twenty-four month journey pending on the program and chosen specialty. However, the length of most of these programs is around 12 months. The majority of residency programs provide a broad variety of didactic and clinical education. This is a key factor for those that choose the residency route in continuing education as a PA, as opposed to just attending medical conferences and other meetings that most physician assistants do once they are employed (Polansky, Garver, Wilson, Pugh, & Hilton, 2012). According to Ballweg et al., (2013), “residents estimated their total number of hours of didactic education associated with the residency program they attended to be 350.4 hours for
To begin, residency programs are extremely competitive; therefore, if you spend time trying to get into one of these programs as opposed to looking for a career, one may miss out on a great job opportunity. Worst yet, not everyone who applies gets accepted into a program, therefore, you may be without a job and without acceptance into a postgraduate residency program. As stated above, the duration of a PA residency is usually around twelve months. Though twelve months is not too long, this time still postpones the physician assistant in starting their career. Not only does it slow down the entry into the medical field, it also decreases the amount of readily available PA’s to healthcare providers. With medicine increasing in demand, it is important to have as many care providers available as possible. A big aspect of enrolling into a residency program is to specialize in a certain field of medicine. As MaryAnn DePietro (2015) states, “It is also possible to start a PA residency only to find out you selected the wrong specialty.” Imagine going through