In this post, we’re going to go over some ways to gain healthcare experience for PA school without certification.
You’ve been putting in hours of researching physician assistant (PA) programs and you’ve probably come across the little section where it says, “X amount of healthcare and/or patient care hours required”. You’re probably scratching your head and wondering “Aren’t they the same thing?” Believe me, I had the same thought when I first saw that too. But apparently, PA schools have different definitions for these two categories. So, let’s start by breaking them down first. This is what CASPA says:
Patient Care Experience: is when you’re directly involved and responsible for a patient’s care. Examples include prescribing medications, performing procedures, directing a course of treatment, and coming up with a treatment plan. For example, nurses, paramedics, EMTs, CNAs, physical therapists, phlebotomists, etc.
Healthcare Experience: is when you’re not directly responsible for a patient’s care but you still interact with patients on a daily basis. For example, performing clerical work, filling medications, delivering patient food, taking vitals, or other record-keeping information. These include positions such as medical scribe, medical assistant, etc.
If you want to learn more about the different official definitions of work experience that CASPA has standardized, you can check them out here.
Anyways, you’ve decided you want to pursue PA school, and you wonder, how can I get hands-on clinical experience with no certification? Down below, I prescribe you the 3 easiest ways to get your healthcare experience and jumpstart your pre-PA journey.
Volunteering At A Local Hospital Or Clinic
The first easiest step is simply to go to a local hospital or a clinic and look for volunteer opportunities. Most of my buddies that are in PA school right now all started as a volunteer at a local emergency department or a clinic. I was studying clinical nutrition for my undergraduate studies, so, I started as a food service management volunteer at a local hospital, and then moved onto their burn intensive care unit to interact more with the patients.
I can tell you that merely interacting with the patients and being in the same room with other healthcare professionals will give you a good idea of what the patient care experience will be like. This knowledge and experience that you gain from volunteering can be used as a stepping stone for getting into another healthcare job with bigger responsibilities. A great way to build your resume up not only for PA school but also for future healthcare-related opportunities.
To find volunteer opportunities around you, the best way to go about it is to do a simple web search and Google should show you the volunteer opportunities closest to you. If you are still in school, your university or college should have an internship/volunteer resource center that can direct you in the right direction.
Many of the volunteer positions that you apply to should be as straightforward as applying and hearing back whether you’ve been accepted or denied, although I have encountered some hospitals or clinics conducting an interview first, just like when you’re applying for a job. If you have friends or family working at a hospital or a clinic where you’re interested in volunteering, make sure to reach out. Opportunities will rarely come knocking on your door, so you’ve got to get up and go search for them.
Volunteering is also simply one of the best ways to network with other healthcare professionals or students that are in the same situation as you. Networking is one of the keys to success in your PA journey. Before you apply for PA programs, you’re going to need to accumulate your shadowing hours, you’re going to have to ask for letters of recommendation, and it’s good to have PA friends that will guide you through the process, or just look over your personal statement. Developing an authentic relationship with other healthcare professionals or fellow students will be very beneficial for you in your PA journey.
Becoming A Medical Scribe
Another relatively easy way to gain healthcare experience without obtaining a certificate is to become a medical scribe. To become a medical scribe, they generally require you to have a high school diploma/GED and CPR certification. CPR certification usually only takes less than a day and is very easy to do, so you have no excuse not to do it.
Comparing healthcare experiences, personally, I think a medical scribe gets you the most bang for your buck. Certain clinics, especially small ones, will train you to become a medical scribe and then if you are lucky, you can be cross-trained for a higher-level healthcare experience such as a medical assistant.
If this is, however, your first-ever position working in healthcare, starting out as a medical scribe is a good way of getting your feet wet. You get to see how a clinic runs, working elbow-to-elbow with a provider, and the best part is that you learn all things medicine-related, such as different diseases and disorders (depending on the specialty you’re working with), the medications and treatment plan designed for specific conditions, and what I think is the most important and useful of all for beginners, medical terminology.
When I was still working as a medical assistant at a dermatology practice, we had a medical scribe that worked together with us medical assistants and the providers. She demonstrated exemplary work ethic and competency that we knew that she would become a great medical assistant if we trained her. And that’s exactly what we did, and she became one of the best medical assistants at that clinic.
What I’m trying to say is that keep an open mind, always have that student mentality, and work hard. Always be willing to learn because healthcare is such a vast field and every day that you step into the clinic, or the hospital is a new opportunity for you to learn.
Becoming A Medical Assistant
Becoming a medical assistant without certification is a little bit harder with no experience but fret not, there are ways to become one. I mentioned this last on purpose because the chance of becoming a medical assistant becomes higher when you have prior healthcare experience.
If your current goal is to become a medical assistant with no certification, I highly suggest you do the two steps that were mentioned above first and try to gather as much healthcare experience as you can before applying to become a medical assistant. Having prior healthcare experience allows you to leverage the experience and shows the employer that you are prepared and have taken the initiative to put yourself out there.
There are many clinics that are always in need of medical assistants, and you can find them on online job-seeking services such as Indeed or Glassdoor. You may have to do some digging though because most of the clinics will require you to have the certification. However, if you have prior healthcare experience, some clinics will be more relaxed with their certificate restrictions.
I have also seen people starting out as a receptionist or a patient care representative, working at the front office before moving on to becoming a back office medical assistant. If the said route is what you’re planning to do, keep in mind that you will be spending a good amount of time establishing rapport with the clinic manager and the providers to convince them to let you become a medical assistant.
When I became a medical assistant, it was through my professional network, and I leveraged my prior healthcare experience. However, one thing to consider is that by that time, I already had experience working as a licensed emergency medical technician, so I had some form of certification.
Regardless, I was still able to land that position and it was the most beneficial position in my pre-PA career not only because I got to see a new kind of clinical experience but also, because of the connections that I made with the PAs during my time there. From there, I was able to obtain my shadowing hours and my letters that helped me get into PA school.
