Do You Have What It Takes To Become A Physician Assistant?

A physician assistant is a health care professional that is highly trained and responsible for a range of different duties. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics states that the job opportunities for physician assistants are expected to increase by 39 percent by 2018. In order to commence training to become a physician assistant, there are a handful of physician assistant prerequisites that must be fulfilled.

To be accepted into a graduate physician assistant program, you must have earned a bachelor's degree. Many schools would prefer that you have a background in science, but in general your major is not an important factor in acceptance into a program. In addition, you must take prerequisite courses in science, mathematics, psychology, language and meet a minimum GPA. Such prerequisite courses include physiology, organic chemistry and microbiology. As many schools lay out their specific requirements for the physician assistant course, it is important that you maintain good grades through your course.

Also, you are expected to meet the same academic standards as those who have achieved a bachelor's degree if you are a student entering a five year physician assistant program.

It is expected of you that you acquire some experience dealing with patients as this is one of the most essential prerequisites. It does not matter how many hours of experience that you have, but it is important that you get this experience although each program will have different minimum hourly requirements. Such experience can be intimidating as it will be direct and hands on. There are many ways to acquire this experience as you can work as a volunteer in a hospice as a paramedic or as an EMT. You can expand your experience by choosing different health care settings to work at.

You may need to obtain an acceptable score in the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) or Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) depending on the physician assistant program. Your score in these tests will provide the school of your choice a proper evaluation to see how you perform in a standardized test. Your skills in clinical reasoning and literacy will be assessed from these tests.

It is not an easy career field to enter as there many physician assistant prerequisites. It is essential that you have a lot of college education and work experience to give yourself the best chance to be accepted into a PA program. You will expected to study hard for two years once you are in the program. It is essential that you really spend a lot of time thinking about your decision before going ahead as it takes a lot of dedication, discipline and hard work to become a physician assistant.