 What's up YouTube? Today we are going to be talking about the differences between a doctor and PA. I had you guys send in a whole bunch of questions through Instagram, which you can follow me right here. And we went through all those questions and picked out our favorites. And I am joined today by a very special guest who is a physician assistant and also happens to be my lovely wife. Hey guys, I'm Adriana, Dr. Cellini's better half. And today I'm here to answer all the PA questions that you guys may have. So how do we get into this? This question I actually received a lot, especially from our overseas colleagues who don't have PAs working in their hospitals. And that is what is a PA? A PA, which stands for physician assistant, is a medical professional that practices medicine in collaboration or under indirect supervision with a physician. We treat, we diagnose, we manage patients, we assist in surgery, we are in all specialties or majority of specialties. It's basically like a direct extension of the physician, if that makes sense. Yes. I think every single physician works with PAs or has their own PA in their private practice. They are everywhere. In the US. Yes. Okay, so our second question is also for Adriana. I guess nobody likes me even though this is my channel. So yeah, why did you choose the PA route? So I chose the PA route. I was just in a unique situation. Coming out of high school, I was a pre-med major. However, I did find out that my college was offering a combined program. So I was finishing undergrad and PA school all in four years. So I was a practicing PA at the age of 21. Prior to finding out what the PA program offered slash what a PA was when I was in high school, I really just enjoyed that you can do everything a physician can, practice, treat, diagnose, and I was able to complete it all within four years of going to school. And for those who don't know, I guess, how long does it normally take to finish PA school? There may be a few programs left that actually do offer the combined program, but usually it's four years of undergrad and then two and a half years of a master's degree. All right, so the third question sent in is, did you meet on the job? And the answer is yes. A little cliche. Yeah, so cliche. So how did we meet? So I was already at the hospital. I was the PA on the service. He was the incoming intern. We worked together on a rotation and I guess fell in love. So she was already doing surgery and I was doing my surgery intern year or first year residency at the same hospital. And yeah, I don't know what else to say. I saw her the first day and I blew him away. Basically, so the rest is history. All right, so our fourth question now is, I'll read this one. Okay. What's the hardest part about being married to another healthcare provider? I don't think there is anything hard. A lot of people think that just because you marry into medicine or marry someone else who practices medicine that that's all your life revolves around. No. But I mean, yeah, it's cool when I can call Michael or text him about a cool case or interesting case and we understand the lingo and so forth. But we don't come home and just talk about medicine. Yeah, I think it's actually cool to have someone who understands medicine and then I can talk to because if you're not dating someone in medicine, as a lot of you guys probably know, you tell them things and they're like, I have no idea what you're talking about. But at least I can tell her everything and she pretty much knows what I'm talking about. No, I know everything. Yeah. And she knows everything. Yeah, I don't think there's any downside to it. No, it's all upside. Agreed. The next question is, how much autonomy do you get as a PA and do doctors micromanage? Y'all. Y'all. I guess this was a Southerner who wrote this. He's a Southerner, by the way. By trade. So I have full autonomy, especially in my urgent care. I have full autonomy. If I do have a question or want to run something by my supervising physician, I do. When I was in Derm, I had full autonomy as well. When you work in a hospital, it's a little bit different because you're working as like a team. So everyone collaborates together. Yeah, I think that's pretty dead on. I don't think any physician, basically any physician who has a physician assistant working with them, will probably have worked with them for a while and knows how they operate and each of them know how they operate. And they always trust the input of the PA. Agreed. Once you and the physician have a relationship, there's really no micromanaging. You just work as a team to provide the best care for all the patients. So along those same lines of autonomy, there are certain specialties that a PA can go into where they are more autonomous than others. So what are the most autonomous? If you go into an urgent care and you're the sole provider, you'll be totally autonomous. A dermatology office, whether it be cosmetic or medical, you'll be totally autonomous. Family practice, very pediatrics, maybe. And then in the hospital setting, you'll be autonomous on the floors, but with certain things you'll still have to run by your attending physician. Yeah, I think they're just from what I've seen, I think there are better specialties in my opinion for PA's than others. Right, but those depends on your personality. Yeah, that's true. It depends on how autonomous you want to be. Be, right, exactly. If you, yeah, I agree. And like what suits you? Yeah, agree. All right, the next question is who has better hours? What are you talking about? No chance. The beauty about being a PA in certain specialties is that you do get to do the three 12 to 13 hour days. So you do, so sometimes you can work three days a week. My particular schedule right now is I work three 13 hour days one week and then two 13 hour days and two eight hour days the other week. So it rotates. So you get a couple of days off a week, which is considered full time and she can pick up extra shifts as she wants. I on the other hand, in residency and you guys know how terrible residency is. Well, it's also specialty dependent and radiology is on the better side of residency. Right. Yeah, I usually work like, you know, the usual 50 plus hour work weeks, but then I also take weekend call and that's a whole pain in the butt too. So for the most part PA's do have better hours. Actually, 100% majority of the time. Almost all the time they do. Our next question. It's for the both of us. And it's do you get annoyed when family members ask you for medical advice? I would say no. I think medicine is really challenging for those who don't understand it. So when you have a family member to explain it to you as slow and how many times you want you need. Yeah. And in layman's terms. Yeah, it works to your advantage. Yeah. And I remember when I was in med school, I had a professor say like my first day of med school, he was like, from this day forward, your family is going to call you for everything medical related. And that's kind of like what you're getting into. So that does happen to us. Yeah, I kind of expected that. Friends family. I mean, you name it. Some people come out of the woodwork and call me that I haven't spoken to in like 20 years telling me about, you know, some cold they had. But yeah, your family calls me a lot. Yeah. And then it's funny because a lot of times her family calls me and my family calls her. Yeah, maybe they want a different perspective. True. But yeah, non biased opinion. Yeah. All right. So the next question is our PA is useful in interventional radiology. And the answer is 100%. I work closely with one PA and two nurse practitioners on our interventional radiology service. And they function very highly on their own. They do a ton of procedures. And I mean, they see outpatients, patients in their clinic. Well, yeah, they manage patients. They see patients on the floor. They do a ton of procedures every single day. New consoles. Yeah, new consoles. I mean, without them, we can't function because the volume is so high. And if they don't take a piece of that pie, I mean, can't function. Period. All right. So the next question is who is more stressed during work? I think it's probably she has a worse than I do because she deals with patients all day long. So yes, it's very stressful when you're the sole provider and you're seeing over 50 patients a day that come in for colds, abdominal pain, lacerations, head injuries, ortho. Yes, I get very stressful. I mean, he's probably more mentally stressed physically and mentally stressed. Yeah, she's kind of like running around all day long seeing patients and they're just constantly flowing into her office and she can't leave until they're all seen. So I think that's probably more stressful. It's kind of, it's a little different. I get also stressed if I'm on call and the list is just piling up and I have to get through it because I can't leave until I finish it. But it's kind of like a different stress. I think we're both probably stressed. Yeah, it's also different when you work as an outpatient versus inpatient. Inpatient, you have a lot of help and you're always working with a team. Outpatient, you're, if you're the sole provider, it's all on you. So it's a different kind of stress. Yeah. So that's the other thing about, if you want to be super autonomous, you'll probably have a lot of work. Right. You're ultimately making the final decision, the final call on the patient's care. You're responsible, so. Right. So this one is, which one is it? Do PAs have specialties slash residencies? Yes, PAs have a ton of specialties and that's the beauty of becoming a PA is you can work in two or three or four specialties. So as I said, I was a full-time surgery PA and then a dermatology PA and right now I'm doing full-time urgent care. So I already did three specialties. And that's actually pretty cool because they have the opportunity to switch specialties, whereas I do not. Right. I'm kind of locked into radiology and interventional radiology. And if I were to switch at this point, these last four years that I put in would be forfeited and I would have to start all over and do a whole nother residency, which I'm not doing by the way. Right. So this is our final question so that we're not boring you guys. Right. All right. So what is it? We'll do a more personal question, I guess. I guess so. Do you want kids and how do you expect to manage work-life balance? Yes. We do want children. Good thing we agreed on that. Probably not soon. I think it's time for Michael to focus on his career as well as myself and in the next couple of years. Maybe. Who knows? I want to finish residency first and kind of get settled before we go that route. Produce baby chilinis. Yeah. Can we have baby chilinis running around? And regarding work-life balance, that comes again with being a PA. You do have that option of working full-time, being a parent full-time. You guys have a lot of flexibility with PAs. So I think we'll manage. I think so. All right guys, so that concludes this session on doctor and physician assistant Q&A. Hope you guys enjoyed it. If you have any other questions, leave a comment below for a doctor or PA. If we liked it, we'll respond to it. We don't respond to mean comments. We don't respond to mean comments. If you want to see more Rondirana on my channel, let us know in the comments as well. Smash that like and subscribe button. Tell them to smash it. Smash it. Smash that like and subscribe button. Otherwise, we'll see you on our next video. Why do we stop for a second? I don't know. Are people outside of the U.S.? U.S.? Take three. All right, YouTube fan. What? Alrighty. That made no sense. Okay, we have to do this again. Just do it again. All right. Take five. I'll be editing this all night. All right. That was bad, right? Yeah. That's it. All right. And then boom.