Wednesday 4 January 2012

Physician Assistant Career - Do You Meet All The Prerequisites?

If you are looking for a career that will give you great job security, you might want to consider entering the medical field as a physician assistant. You wont need nearly as much education to become a physician assistant as you would need to become a doctor or physician, yet you will still earn a decent salary and full package of benefits. Yet, this is not the easiest career field to enter as there are some prerequisites which must be met.

The physician assistant prerequisites for licensing will vary from one state to another. The last step in the process is always to pass the national certification exam, but you will have to go through a bachelor degree program before you can qualify for a training program. The exam you ultimate pass is called the PANCE, which stands for Physician Assistant National Certification Exam. You will be ready to pass this examination after going through a certified training program for physician assistants.

Most training programs will require you to have an associate or bachelor degree in a related field, but some people have postgraduate work to their credit before entering a program. You may also be required to have some working experience in the medical field. You can gain working experience by working with doctors as an intern or other positions while you are in school. This is where valuable professional connections are made, and it is where the foundation of knowledge is established for future physician assistants.

Once you are accepted into a physician assistant training program, you will be fully prepared to pass the national examination and to meet all other prerequisites demanded by your state for certification. Some very competitive programs may even expect you to provide references from professionals in the medical field to gain admittance. If you have gained some working experience, securing these references will be much easier.

Once you have become certified and licensed by your state, you should expect to continue your education and pass ongoing prerequisites to remain licensed. Many states just want you to continue your education to stay up on the field, but the requirements will be different in one state to another. You should learn about these state licensing requirements in your training program, but you can also get the details from your state governments website.

It should be noted that working toward a career as a physician assistant is different from pursuing a career as a nurses assistant. The training that a physician assistant must undergo is considerably more complex than what a nurses assistant must go through.

physician assistants work hand-in-hand with medical doctors, and they are able to give authoritative medical advice and write out prescriptions. They can even take daily appointments and have their own patient base in a doctors office, as long as they are practicing among physicians for support. Obviously, this includes far more responsibility than someone in a nursing position would be trusted with. This is why it is much more difficult to get into a career as a physician assistant than a nurses assistant.

A career as a physician assistant always starts with undergraduate coursework. You must check with your preferred physician assistant training program to see what undergraduate degree you need and what other prerequisites are required for admission, so you can eventually pass that national exam. Once the training program has been completed, you just have to pass that exam and register with the state so you can get a job.

For some, this is seen as a faster way to get into the medical field, but you cannot underestimate how difficult it is to get through all of these physician assistant prerequisites. You can expect to going through at least a couple years of postgraduate work before you are ready to pass that national exam and enter the field as a registered physician assistant.

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