 What's up you guys? So I've been having some questions asked about switching careers and wanting to switch careers or how to get into the PA career in general. And so I've done some videos on this. I'll try to link them in the description box for you. However, I wanted to address that kind of like a little bit more specifically in terms of switching careers and not just getting into the PA career because it is like a stepwise process that you're gonna have to go through. So if you're interested in becoming a PA and you're specifically in a career that is not like PA or like healthcare related, even if it is this video is for you. What's up you guys? Sit down and welcome back to my channel. Okay so as I said this video is going to be for those of you that are interested in becoming PAs and you're not like in the healthcare field or you're in a healthcare adjacent field. Like you're making this your new career. You're switching careers and that is you I'm speaking to you. So I had a question asked about that. You know they were in a particular field and they wanted to switch to becoming a PA and so they asked me like what was that kind of process like and what were their next steps. So I'm gonna try to lay out some next steps for you right now. So I would say step one is really understanding that this is what you want to do. Like this PA career, this PA journey and thing is not for everybody okay. I've known lots of people actually who have thought that they wanted to become PAs and while they've been on this journey of realized nope I don't want to be on a PA actually this is a lot or they've actually like become PAs gotten into the field and realized like hey I don't like bedside like PA work like I don't like seeing patients like this is not the thing for me or this is not particularly the specialty for me and so they leave that specialty or they were burnt by that specialty and they leave the PA career all together and so it's really important for you to kind of understand and do your research on the PA career like what it entails what we do what the different specialties we can work in are like so come on go ahead check out all my videos because I have some videos on that but definitely go to like APA.org and some of like these PA blog and blog sites so that you can get a full scope and understanding of the PA career and the PA profession as a whole because like I said it is not for everyone but if it is for you after you've decided that this is for you then the next thing that you should do is figure out do you want to be broad or narrow in your application so obviously if you are doing this as a second career sometimes that means like you already have like a life and a family right and so your your understanding of your limitations of what you're able to do in terms of application is a little bit different than others so you have to understand or know do I want to apply to 10 schools that are all over the country or do I want to apply to like the two schools only that are within my state or the five schools that are within like the surrounding like 50 mile or 100 mile radius of my where I currently live understanding that and figuring that out is really important because not every PA school is the same it's not built the same yes they are teaching you the same information however their prerequisite requirements are different a lot of the times and even if like seven of the prerequisite requirements are the same there may be two that are different or five or the same there may be three that are different and so you just need to understand like with respect to the schools that you're trying to apply to how do you fit in that and in and how will like your plan of attack be so once you figured out do you want to be broad and narrow you have to look at the school so you have to see and figure out okay when I'm applying to this like how does that prerequisite align with what I'm doing right now am I are you just like kind of healthcare adjacent so you do have some actual aspects of science and prerequisite courses that are required for the PA school that you're trying to apply to or are you completely not in the healthcare field at all and you've never taken the science except for like your general biology that you took you know ten years ago in undergrad or five years ago in undergrad and now you're really trying to make this switch because understanding that will help you figure out you're a next step so the next step is going ahead and taking those courses knocking out the prerequisite requirements that you need and then also understanding it's also like a two-step process so you're taking these courses and also figuring out if you need to get some type of experience with respect to hands-on direct patient care experience okay so when you're doing that two-step fold thing right there you need to kind of map out and plan out alright well I am going to need to get like 1500 hours or at minimum a thousand hours for these programs that I'm applying to and because of that I am not going to be able to make this switch until you know two years down the line and now you have a decision to make on if this is what you want to do right it's you're coming back full circle like is this what I want to do do I want to wait two years in the career that I'm currently in and may not be happy with to get to the career that I believe I'm going to be happy with and I mean if that was me I'd be like yeah because two years is not that long in the grand scheme of things but your life may be a set of differently and because of that you have to understand like what you're willing to sacrifice or what you're willing to do once you figured out like your prerequisite requirements for each program and you've gone on your way and started on your journey to doing that you just have to complete it and then apply and that's really like the final step in this process applying to PA school with your GPA your prerequisite requirements and that may include like taking the GRE or the PA CAD or you know the CASPER test whatever the standardized test is for that particular school but you will figure that out when you're doing your research which was what step three or four that I told you just now when you're doing your research you'll figure out what exactly you need to apply to the school and once you've applied to the school it's just waiting alright and so you're waiting to get that interview you're waiting to get that yes that you are about to become a PA in two short years and when you look back on it when you take kind of like an assessment of where your life was two to three years ago and where it is now in the process of being a new PA student I think you know you may feel really blessed and hopefully you realize that it wasn't that difficult of a journey you know the journey may have been kind of like not what you expected it but the reward in the end will be great and hopefully that is your path but essentially that is what you need to do okay so I've listed out these steps for you I'm gonna list them here as well on this side right here for you so that you can exactly see step by step what you need to do when you're trying to make this switch to the PA career hopefully this is helpful if you have any other questions for me you already know what to do leave them in the comment section below don't forget to like this video and subscribe follow me on Instagram at about PA and on Instagram at get that see University where we help you not only get into but through PA school through the use of PA consultations and personal statement reviews and then we also have some adjunctive things for you as well if you join where you can like learn medical Spanish and other stuff like that okay alright so check us out GTCU get that see University comm thank you guys so much for watching I will talk to you guys next time