HELP! Physician assistant, occupational therapist, or health informatics?
czechwolf52
Posts: 194 Member
I'm about to graduate from college in a month and a half and I'm unsure of what option to pursue next. I think I would either like to be a physician assistant, occupational therapist, or health informatics/manager.
Originally, I wanted to be a doctor. I got my AA from my local community college in May 2012 and then I transferred to a state university. I was originally a biology major but switched majors because I realized I hated the classes and I would've had 3 years of heavy coursework ahead of me. So now I'm a health sciences major, and it's designed for students who want to go onto graduate school. I narrowed my choices and made a list of pros and cons, but would like some more advise from anyone knowledgeable about the fields.
Physician Assistant
Pros: Satisfy my desire of being a doctor, in demand, nice pay.
Cons: Extremely competitive programs, 2-3 stressful years, have to move away for school, earliest possible start date would be mid 2016.
Occupational therapist
Pros: Hands on patient care. I love working with kids and could do that here. In demand, can work in a variety of places, nice pay.
Cons: Really competitive programs. Would possibly have to move out of state. Probably won't be able to start until mid 2016.
Health Informatics/Management
Pros: I get to work in health care and plan/organize stuff (I have a very analytical mind). Great demand, I can start in mid 2015. In demand and nice pay
Cons: No direct patient care
Originally, I wanted to be a doctor. I got my AA from my local community college in May 2012 and then I transferred to a state university. I was originally a biology major but switched majors because I realized I hated the classes and I would've had 3 years of heavy coursework ahead of me. So now I'm a health sciences major, and it's designed for students who want to go onto graduate school. I narrowed my choices and made a list of pros and cons, but would like some more advise from anyone knowledgeable about the fields.
Physician Assistant
Pros: Satisfy my desire of being a doctor, in demand, nice pay.
Cons: Extremely competitive programs, 2-3 stressful years, have to move away for school, earliest possible start date would be mid 2016.
Occupational therapist
Pros: Hands on patient care. I love working with kids and could do that here. In demand, can work in a variety of places, nice pay.
Cons: Really competitive programs. Would possibly have to move out of state. Probably won't be able to start until mid 2016.
Health Informatics/Management
Pros: I get to work in health care and plan/organize stuff (I have a very analytical mind). Great demand, I can start in mid 2015. In demand and nice pay
Cons: No direct patient care
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Replies
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If you're not prepared for demanding course load I'd not suggest PA or OT school.0
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I work in health care and I would not recommend anyone be a PA unless that's what you really, really want to do. Their jobs are very hard, time consuming and competitive. You have to be the best of the best and you have to work with doctors, who can be very difficult as well.
Occ Therapist: you THINK you would like to work with kids. Have you actually worked with sick kids? You should do that before you think about going into anything health-related working with a pediatric population.
Health informatics/Management: Unfortunately I don't know enough about this field so I haven't any thoughts on the matter. But to me, no patient care sounds great. And I say this because I'm a nurse. It's a broad enough field to be able to use my degree but not actually have any direct patient care or direct contact.0 -
I work for a hospital in IT. Go for Health Informatics. You're very right about the demand, but oh are you going to be hated when you make the clinical staff change how they do something
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I work in health care and I would not recommend anyone be a PA unless that's what you really, really want to do. Their jobs are very hard, time consuming and competitive. You have to be the best of the best and you have to work with doctors, who can be very difficult as well.
Occ Therapist: you THINK you would like to work with kids. Have you actually worked with sick kids? You should do that before you think about going into anything health-related working with a pediatric population.
Health informatics/Management: Unfortunately I don't know enough about this field so I haven't any thoughts on the matter. But to me, no patient care sounds great. And I say this because I'm a nurse. It's a broad enough field to be able to use my degree but not actually have any direct patient care or direct contact.
I've worked in a daycare for the past four years. We've had some kids with different emotional/physical/behavioral abilities. So I've learned how to work with them while taking care of multiple other children as well. I've also cared for my cousin with Down syndrome, volunteered with Special Olympics, and I'm doing an internship for children with special needs. I'm extremely comfortable around children, even when they're sick or being a bit difficult.
Do you get to work with a lot of PAs? For the past year of so I was really interested in becoming one, but the competitiveness worries me a bit. My GPA from my CC was a 3.9 and form my university it's going to be a 3.5, so it's overall about a 3.7. But my science GPA is only about 3.4 because of a C- in organic and then a D in cell bio (I studied profusely for cell bio but had a terribly professor who offered no help). I'm just worried that my science GPA isn't high enough to get it.0 -
NoelFigart1 wrote: »I work for a hospital in IT. Go for Health Informatics. You're very right about the demand, but oh are you going to be hated when you make the clinical staff change how they do something
That's what I'm really considering now. I don't have a really strong computer background, such a coding or programming, but the whole logistics of running an office or hospital efficiently and seeing where improvements can be made really interest me. Do you work with anyone with a master's in it? What do they do?0 -
At the hospital where I work, they mostly are strategic planners in terms of the improvement of data collection and reporting as it interacts with our EMR systems.
If informatics is your goal, I cannot encourage you enough to improve your computer background. You need to be able to evaluate EMRs and have some clear ideas about how to improve their use in hospitals.0 -
I do work with a lot of PAs and Medical Assistants as well, although not as much now as I used to. I know where I live the school is very competitive (UW Madison), but then they're a top school so they're hard to get into for just about anything. But I would think that your GPA would be acceptable, seeing that your grades are all over high and they would likely just consider the one D an anomaly.
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Honestly, if you want to have a patient population that will be in demand, just about anything related to elder care is going to be hot in the next 10+ years. Like the Speech-Language pathologists here are in EXTREME demand to work with stroke patients. When I was doing home care, there was like a 3-4 month waiting list to see an SLP because there aren't enough of them.0
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TheBeerRunner wrote: »If you're not prepared for demanding course load I'd not suggest PA or OT school.
As an OT, I can tell you, OT school is demanding.0 -
Forget it all. How about an airline stewardess?
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