PA School

[MILON]

QPs and other medical professionals,

I have the goal of becoming a PA, with the IPAP as my primary goal and civilian school secondary, likely focusing on institutions in the midwest. My intent is to attend school through the MNARNG, which I have been a medic with for 8 years now.

I try to speak to as many people as I can with experience in this area and thought I would try here. Simply looking for advice, guidance and someone will to answer a question here or there. If there is anyone willing to give me some time, please PM me.

If the PS members feel this would be a worth while thread to make public here, we can do it that way too.

Milon

[Eagle5US]

What is it you want to know...

[swatsurgeon]

Need a question to provide an answer......although I've heard Eagle5US is psychic, just haven't verified it yet!

ss

[MILON]

Gentelmen,

What words of advice, if any, do you have for being accepted into IPAP and does the acceptance board hold greater weight in any certain area?

Are there any specific suggstions, from your experience in medicine, that you would give to someone at my stage in the process?

What sort of advice can you give on preparing for the academic riggors that PA school demands? How about advice on studying?

I have been in contact with our state AMEDD recruiter, searched the website and read the information available there and feel I have a good plan in place, but I believe it is important to learn from professionals who have successfuly completed similary challenges.

Milon

[Eagle5US]

Gentelmen,

What words of advice, if any, do you have for being accepted into IPAP and does the acceptance board hold greater weight in any certain area?

Are there any specific suggstions, from your experience in medicine, that you would give to someone at my stage in the process?

What sort of advice can you give on preparing for the academic riggors that PA school demands? How about advice on studying?

I have been in contact with our state AMEDD recruiter, searched the website and read the information available there and feel I have a good plan in place, but I believe it is important to learn from professionals who have successfuly completed similary challenges.

Milon
The first thing you need to do is some research. If you have done your research and you have a plan like you say you do...awesome. Why are you asking questions that you already have the answers to?

I have posted answers to these questions all over the internet. Here, SOCNet, Mil DOT com (shudder:rolleyes:) - there are literally PAGES of posts on your EXACT questions. Spoon feeding is not going to happen. Not here, not in PA School.

I will throw you this one "bone"; put your packet together per the regulation and the IPAP website - they want people who can follow instructions, pay attention to detail, and complete the program of instruction to standard. If you get accepted - study; if you graduate, continue to study.
Medicine doesn't stop with your diploma, and a 70% is only passing if you can pick and choose which 3 of your 10 closest friends and family you will allow to die because you were too lazy to learn the other 30%.

[MILON]

Thanks for the advice Eagle5US.

No spoon feeding needed or wanted.

I'll respectfully exit on that note.

Milon

[Boomer-61]

MILON,
I graduated in 1988, things have changed a bit since then. But, my daughter will follow in my footsteps. Here's where we started this past spring. We have three PA schools in state so there was no need to go out of state. We selected one school (the one I graduated from) and went there for a campus visit. That was the best thing we could have done. We learned a lot. The one thing I learned that made other staging decisions much easier was, 92% of the current graduating PA class metriculated from in state schools. We learned about admission requirements, contact hours needed, GPA's, SAT's GRE's. The crux here is, try and target a school and find out what their requirements are and work on building your "resume" to make yourself irresistable. PA school is very competative; they can afford to be very selective. You want to rise to the top of the pile every time. Another helpful tidbit is to make yourself known and keep your face/name one their minds with letters, phone calls and campus visits. They not only want to see that you have it on paper (high scores) they want to know if you have persistance. They want to see citizens. They don't want just book geeks. They want to see people that are a bit more worldly that have done some things for humanity; maybe volunteer work, missions, things like that. These are the things I picked up at the one school we visited. I'm sure this audiance has some current or former faculty members that are better informed. It'a a great profession, you can't go wrong IMHO.