Why I chose PA over Doctor (differences between doctor and PA)

A quick comment on the tuition and debt. I go to medical school and yes the tuition an debt is high. Dani the PA mentioned that she didn't have the luxury of having family members pay for her room/tuition. I agree with her! It is a big decision. Buti I I just wanted to comment that a vast majority of students take loans to go to medical school and pay for housing. Yes some students have wealthy parents but many do not. I took out max loans each year to pay for medical school. You will have about $200k debt when you graduate but you will earn in residency. Live below your means for a few years in residency and slowly pay it back. Once you get a job as a doctor, many jobs offer bonuses to pay off loans. The average family medicine doc in 2024 is about $250K. Honestly many make more than this. It depends on your location and type of practice. Live frugally for a couple years and you'll definitely pay off your debts in no time. If you choose to specialize you can make $320k+. All this to say don't let money be a discouraging factor. Most of us take out loans and you will pay them back. Any ways, Dani makes really good points in the video and I would consider all the factors she mentioned when making a decision. Medical school is brutal and going into to with any hesitancy is a bad idea. It's a commitment that will take away your entire 20s and even early 30s. Any ways, good luck to everyone pursuing whatever their dreams are. Either profession will earn you a good living to live a good life.

Currently i’m a junior in high school, and my gpa is only a 3.5. I’m in a vocational school that’ll give me the clinical hours I need. I get certified as a home health aide, and a CNA. Both junior and senior year I get clinical hours and college credits. Now I really want to work in pediatrics, but I’m not sure if I want to be an ER pediatric nurse, or a pediatric travel nurse. It was my dream to be a pediatric doctor, but I don’t think I am qualified enough. I also have heard that nurses get more patient time. I’ve never taken an AP class, or an honors class, and I don’t plan on taking the SATs. I also have an IEP. (Diagnosed with adhd, and dyslexia. I also struggled with depression, and anxiety.) What do I do? How can I make it so i can become a pediatrician? Or would it be better to become a PA?

Specialties like Family medicine may appear that PAs and physicians do the “same thing,” but I should remind everyone that family medicine physicians have at least 7 years of medical training vs 2-3. This means, it might SEEM like they are doing the same job with everyday patients, but the expertise makes a difference in how many referrals are sent out, how complicated patients are managed, unique and specialized medication treatment plans, and ruling out rare but dangerous diseases that physicians have received more training on. This doesn’t mean PAs are bad, simply that it is important to keep in mind that there is a reason why they work under a physician.

I am a ER PA and I absolutely love my career, it has been fulfilling and i feel i have made an impact on the world. PAs are well respected by most of society and can work autonomously while making decent money. But with that being said, if i could go back in time, i would have gone to medical school. This is why (this applies mainly to Emergency Medicine as i can't speak to all fields of medicine)...

Money: As far as money goes, Physicians make twice as much money, doing almost the exact same job in the ER. Also, the whole work life balance argument in the field of Emergency Medicine isn't valid in my opinion. Most of the docs i know and work with, work the same amount of hours or less than the APPs and make significantly more money.

The Job: Additionally, while this is not the case at all Emergency Rooms, the majority of ERs leave higher acuity patients such as codes, intubations, and super sick patients for the MDs; while the PAs typically see lower acuity patients. Of course, I have seen sick patients in my career many times and there are exceptions to this rule, but mid levels will usually spend more of their time seeing lower acuity patients in the ER setting than their MD/DO counterparts. Also, I have experienced many times where physicians in other specialties show a great deal of disrespect because i am a mid level. Some docs only accept physician to physician transfers, or will look down on you and ask to speak with your attending regarding a patient because you are not a doctor. And while many docs love and respect PAs, you will always have to deal with asshole docs who do not respect you because you aren't a physician.

Be prepared for people to ask you why you didn't become a doctor, for patients to ask to see a doctor instead of you, or for people to think that you weren't smart enough to go through medical school. Obviously this isn't true and luckily I don't care what people think, but if this is a problem for you, do not go the PA route.

Student Debt: When it comes to debt, i sat down one day and actually calculated the average debt for PA students vs med students. I included the 3-4 years of residency when the PA is making more money and even calculated the interest a doctor would have accrued on their student loan debt throughout their residency and start of career. I then took the average salary for ER PA and ER Doc and calculated how much money they would earn by retirement age. I found that by age 65, an MD or DO would have paid off their student debt and made about 3-5 times more money than a PA would have in their career.

Being the boss: 90% of the time, you will be autonomous. However, unless you own your own clinic, you will never be the boss. Period. A lot of people don't care about this and most of the time i don't either, but their has definitely been times where i wish i was the one calling the shots. Sometimes it feels like you are a permanent resident. Your attending will always be the one calling the shots and the buck ultimately stops with them.

Much love to all the PAs, NPs, MDs, and DOs! They are all equally important in their roles.. Just wanted to provide some honest feedback on some of the arguments that are made against going to med school. Always be informed when making such a big life decision!

currently a nursing student watching this.

I did not take a masters degree to be referred to as an "assistant".

I think i want to study medicine because i don’t mind studying in my 20s and early 30s, and I’m interested in performing surgery too and don’t want to cross out that option. Only im slightly worried that the PA’s of the future will be qualified to do more and more of the tasks that a physician has (which is great for efficient patiënt care!), which only leaves the physician to check and agree/disagree on things the PA’s suggests/decides. I worry that as a physician i will not examine/talk to patients as much as i would like to see in my future career. Are these concerns of mine justified?
Some extra info: i am willing to start my medicine journey. I am very passionate about the science, skills and ethics behind medicine and am currently studying for Radiology Technician but I feel like after a few years of working that won’t be challenging enough for me anymore. I would say i have the time and financial situation to study medicine. But I don’t want to find out that after like 10 years of studying all the patient related tasks are done by the PA and i will only have to sit behind a desk and confirm everything for the PA who gets to do the more in person parts of patient care.
Anyone who can help me with this? Because then maybe PA could also be a possible career for me.

Basically PA if you cant get into medical school

As longest am enjoying it i will be fine am between pa or md but am just starting my undergrad but i also have medical assistant certification so i can use that as an experience to see if I really like healthcare career

MDs are not doctors but Physicians. PhD must be earned to be called a Doctor.

Thank you so much Dani.its very helpful

Basically if you don’t want to specialize but you know you want to be a provider and if you want to have less debt and work sooner, be a PA.
If you know what you want to specialize in and go in depth in that field, don’t mind more debt, studying, and learning a lot, go be a Physician.
It all depends on your goals, financial situation, support, and lifestyle. No one choice is the same as another because we are all in different situations.

Huge huge difference’s definitely. Pa school is clown school in comparison to Med school. Same with the PA cat vs the Mcat. Maybe 5-10% of PA programs require the PA Cat. A PA is nowhere near a doctor hate to say it.

You just saved me it was a miracle to stumble upon this video I love medicine but I can't go to school for that many years I think the PA route is the way to go ❤❤

Is PCA a good clinical hours for PA school?

Dream job is to become a PA and go around the world and help people. I don't know how feasible that would be, but hopefully I get what I want.

Please help me I need to do my master in pa please help to get admission in your university please

May I know what PA-C stands for?

Does pa can use dr as prefix
Can anyone plz rply😊😊

thanks so much for this! The thought of not having Dr. by my name has been eating me up and really making the choice of going to PA school difficult for me even though the career is so much more appealing. Now I realize the title doesn’t matter I’ll be a kick ass healthcare provider either way

BECAUSE YOU DON’T LIKE STUDY…..😂😂😂😂😂 YOU LOVE VLOG, EXPOSITION AND RIDICULOUS VIDEOS.

How did you manage to gain clinical experience while being a full time student? Would you recommend taking a gap year after college to earn a 1000+ hours?

wait i'm confused , so who gets sued more PAs or doctors ?

I thought about becoming an PA or NP for some time but I couldn’t imagine myself being either one. Sure, PA’s and NP’s have good work life balance, good hours, good pay, etc. But I decided that I’m going MD because I’ve always wanted to become a doctor and it’s what my heart desires for so I’m pursuing that path. Wish me luck and good luck to everyone pursuing PA, NP, or MD, you got this. 💪

i dont think i’ve gotten a job offer for less than 210 unless it was at the VA doing almost nothing. Also, reason they are sued less is due to the physician usually being named and also physicians carry much more liability esp in surgical specialties. No one is going to “sue” a surgical PA

Would you ever consider going back and completing an MD?

If a PA wanted to switch specialties, how would they learn the specialty in order to treat patients without going back to school?

I’ve always wanted to be a doctor never sure on what specialty I just didn’t like the amount of years of school you had to go to be one & didn’t learn about what a PA was until a couple months ago a little after I turned 20 & I decided that’s what I want to be bc I can change specialties when I want to know & I have somewhat similar responsibilities which leads me to starting university at 20 yrs old

Why you delete vlogs they was so perfect💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Thank you for making this!

Did she deleted her videos 😔

what happened to all the new videos?

why you hide your video dany? there's anything wrong?

You almost looked like Gal Gadot

You have no idea how much this video helped, I thank you so much!

I was wondering will there ever be a bridge from PA to Doctor? I mean, it's been the talk of the town for so many years that seems to have no answer. There's a bridge for nurses to NP but once you're a PA that's pretty much it. I think there should be a bridge, maybe an extra year of schooling and then depending on how long you've been a PA your residency should be cut down accordingly. What do you think?

I’m currently studying as a Kin exercise science major for my B.S, and I want to become a PA because it fit what I was going for when it came to taking care of people. I didn’t want to be the head person but I also didn’t want to be just a nurse I wanted to be in between so this is perfect for me .

Thanks for this! I had my finger on the submit button for my med school application when I realized it wasn’t right for me— I moved to a PA track. How did you go about finding PAs to shadow?

Debt should never derail you from what you want to do. As a MD/DO you will make money in due time and plus there's programs or residencies that help forgive some loans. If you wanna be a doctor, be a doctor. Don't let finances scare you.

It's really sad places would rather hire PA's than physicians for cheaper labor

love this!!

Will I have my own social life if I become a PA

The GRE!!!! 😨

Hi! Can I become a PA and work in the OBGYN dept??