 Hey guys, my name is Boris. I'm a physician assistant. Today I have a special treat for you guys. I am talking to this guy, Mario, aka the Mexican PA, who is a fantastic physician assistant influencer who just graduated, just started his clinical practice. And today we're gonna talk about a lot of high value topics. I think you guys are gonna get a lot of value out of. So first things first, Mario, thanks for doing this with me, man. This is awesome. Okay, on the playlist, nice to see everyone and happy 2024 that, yeah, we are in 2024. It's been some time trying to get used to the change in the new year, but I'm super, super excited to be here and hopefully we're able to kind of bring some mutual value to the followers and subscribers of both of our channels. I'll just give a little brief introduction of myself. So as Boris said, my name is Mario Navarro. I go as the Mexican PA on all of my social media, both the YouTube channel, Instagram, and then my wife pushed me to make a TikTok and we have a TikTok out there. If that's something that you use, go and check it out. But yeah, so I was born and raised in Southern California, did my undergrad at UCLA, and then I worked as an EMT doing my patient care experience hours. Did that on the ambulance and also at a local trauma center in the emergency department and then was super blessed to apply and get in on my first try to the UC Davis PA program. And we just finished that this past September of 2023 and then became a board certified PA. So we're kind of at the beginning of our career as green as it come, new grad physician assistant. And really the goal of the social media has always been to just bring value to pre-PA students, current PA students and just help you guys along the journey and be that. I call it that at Mano, that big brother kind of mentor that a lot of us did not have growing up. And I come from a household where there's really no one in medicine and that caused some particular challenges in terms of finding mentorship and kind of making, I made a lot of mistakes and kind of learned a lot along the way and just hope to kind of share that just like Boris is on your channel. It's funny how many of these influencers and folks that you talk to that you're just kind of drawn to for some reason, when they start talking, they realize how similar your journeys were. So very similar to Mario, my name is Boris, physician assistant, like I said before, I actually knew I wanted to practice medicine while I was an engineering student at a place called RIT, back in 2007, possibly before some of you guys were born, very long time ago, but I was watching an episode of Scrubs and just like that, it clicked. I was like, I don't want to be an engineer. I want to be a doctor. Didn't know what a PA was, but I knew I wanted to practice medicine. So from that on, the dream was born, lots and lots of steps along the way, about 10 years worth before I finally actually got into PA school. And now I've been practicing, I think fairly successfully as a physician assistant for two years, really enjoying my job, definitely made the right choice back in 2007. What I was saying, how I feel like my story is similar to Mario's also, first generation American, first generation American college student as well, nobody in medicine in my family for at least a couple of generations. And then it was just this very like tumultuous journey to finally reach my dream. And when you get there, when you accomplish something like that, you just want to share. You just want to share your knowledge. So that's why I made the channel, just like Mario, we're here to bring you guys up. Yup, and we were discussing this off camera before, it's like such a privilege to be able to be on these platforms and kind of bring just these types of discussions because of course they're, really when I, when people ask me like, who's your audience? There's always like this avatar of the person that you're directing your content to. And really at least for me, it's Mario from four or five or six years ago, who like had no idea, you know, what he was getting into or where he was going. And yeah, that's the, I guess the lens that I tried to like produce this content and the advice that I gave is that young Mario, that young Boris who like was just at the infancy of this like pre-PA journey. But with that, I know we have quite a bit of topics that we want to get into. And so we'll, I'll let you Boris take the lead on our first topic. You know what? Every time you get getting contact with somebody you're kind of similar to, you have all these like me too, me too moments. It's just like, you can talk forever. So we're going to try to stay on topic. I'm usually good at this. It looks like Mario is going to take that quarterback role in this case, cause I just want to keep talking to the dude cause he's such a good guy. But anyway, what being said, the way this is going to work, this is going to be a two part series video. The first part topics one through three are going to be on my channel, Boris the PA topics four through six are going to be posted one week later on Mario's channel, the Mexican PA topics one through three are going to be brief introductions like we just talked about who we are which we just talked about. And the last topic here is why we chose PA why we chose physician assistants. Then we're going to talk about PA versus MD and then our advice to pre-PA students or people getting in with a low GPA. Finally, four through six for next week is going to be our experiences helping pre-PA students which Mario is I feel like better than than I am. So I think he's more Oh, no, no. I think so, man. You're killing it with this social media game. I'm definitely nowhere near where you are. So I think that's going to be one of Mario's wheelhouse things. Also plans for our future is going to be number five and then NHSC, which again Mario has experience with is going to be also in that part two. So with that out of the way, Mario why did you choose to become a physician assistant? All right. So this answer is always not a clear cut 10 second answer. There's I think a lot of experiences that I had as a student both in the undergrad at UCLA and then also during my, while I was acquiring my patient care experiences as an EMT that really influenced and solidified in my desire to become a physician assistant. But to answer this and to be fully transparent when I started my undergraduate career at UCLA I was like Gun Ho, pre-med Gun Ho. I'm going to become an MD. Like this is what I want to do. And it really, that was the plan all along but it wasn't until my junior year of college if I remember this correctly and my wife may correct me in the comments later when she watches this. I actually suffered a spontaneous pneumothorax of the right side of my lung. And so for those that don't know what a pneumothorax is it's a collapsed lung and reasons for it it was just spontaneous. The CT scan showed like some air blebs that apparently popped and caused some air to get in there. And from getting that health issue or health emergency, I actually walked which looking back at it probably wasn't the best thing cause they probably made the pneumothorax worse but I walked my butt from the, I think it was in the English class when I like went to crack my back and then I felt like I was out of breath. And I had just finished my EMT course. I was like, is this a pneumo? This might be a pneumo. And so I was already like kind of self-diagnosing myself but I was like, all right, let me get out of here. I walked about a half mile to the Ash Center at UCLA which is like the student clinic and was seen and treated for the first time by a PA. I had never encountered a PA before. And so this guy like talked to me, listened to my lung sounds and he was like, and your lung sound fine but let's get an X-ray just in case so we had a high suspicion for it. And then from that X-ray we were able to see that it was about 15 to 20% diminished. And yeah, from that experience like that was the first time I encountered a PA and I was the best and scariest thing that ever happened to me best because I was introduced to this amazing profession and worse because getting a chest tube and having someone essentially puncture your pleural wall with a needle is probably by far the most painful experience I have ever had. But yeah, it was something that essentially changed the course of my career and from that began the process I'm sure Boris you probably had a similar experience where you started to research what is this PA profession all about? What does it stand for? Why was it created and really getting into the rich history of our profession but it really came down to one, the flexibility or what we like to throw around in the PA world as lateral mobility to be able to switch specialties that was something that I was highly interested in and still am now because I just have a lot of interest. There's a lot of fields that I am interested in both family medicine, emergency medicine and there's also surgical subspecialties that like interest me as well. And so I knew as I was doing this research I'm like, this is really cool that I would essentially be trained as a jack of all trades and would have that essentially ability and training to one move around between specialties. And I know that for a lot of students that's one of the big, big factors when they choose PA over like MD or other health profession that was really a big factor for me as well as looking at the opportunity cost of the length of schooling, the cost of training and really what that would mean for me from like a financial perspective in terms of like because at that time when I was planning on doing this I had heard about for instance the National Health Service Corps Scholarship which I received, but I knew that that wasn't a guarantee. And so I knew that I had to kind of make the decision based on the facts that I was probably gonna have to take on a certain amount of debt to get this like graduate level education. And so the cost of education coupled with the ability to essentially move between specialties that really sealed the deal for me to become a PA. And one thing that I will add for students that are like writing the personal statements or like trying to echo this desire about you choosing PA really the best way to spin it in your statements or when you're talking to people is that the lateral mobility isn't just for you to be able to switch specialties and fulfill your desires of education but really that lateral mobility allows you to be what your community needs you to be. So if your community needs a family medicine provider or a mental health provider or a woman's health provider or whatever blank provider, you can be that as a PA. And so it's really about meeting the needs of our community and being the flexible team player on the healthcare team. So yeah, yeah, that's my little spiel on that. I wanna piggyback on that last thing real quick. I think the best way to do that would be to provide an example. Yeah. So for instance, in your shadowing or in your PCE hour experience, let's say you worked at an ER and one of the providers, one of the PAs working there was like they had experience in ortho or something. So they were like the go-to ortho guy. If you need something splinted, if you need an X-ray read and the radiologist isn't available, there's the ortho guy. He knows what he's doing but now he's also helping in the ER. So like you got his experience then you got someone who worked in cardio. So like, and actually in my own practice, I noticed that like you have someone to text who worked in cardiology for 10 years. Now she's working urgent care with us. So we text her, hey, I don't know about this. My soup doc isn't answering yet. What do you think? And she's always happy to help. So it's the lateral mobility. It's getting like the experience that your community needs but it's also more of a team-based approach to medicine more than I'm the doctor, I'm in charge, I know everything. It's more like, no, we're gonna spread out that knowledge and we're gonna help each other which I love about the profession myself. 100%, 100% agree. That's really the strongest answers both on a personal statement and during the interview when you're interplaying your own experiences and stories because it's evidence that you know what you're talking about and you're just not speaking from these like euphisms or hypotheticals that you've made up. And so I love that, love that. Yeah, so I will switch and give you the reins. What was your kind of trigger towards moving? Cause you gave us a little insight into you being pre-med, it sounds like as well. So yeah, well, how was that journey for you? Yeah, so I mean, like Mario said, most of my stories kind of told I was sitting there in my dorm room as an engineering major and just like I watched an episode of scrubs and something just clicked. I wanna practice medicine, I don't wanna do engineering. And looking back on that and then if you see my video about my personal statement I go into the fact that it's just this personal connection that the doctor made with the patient. Cause in engineering, there's no personal connection. It's you, it's a spreadsheet, it's like a document, you're designing things, it's all math and physics and things that make sense logically but there's no connection. And I felt like that's something that I really needed in my life as a human being. I like to be able to sit with people like I am with Mario, connect about things we agree about disconnect or disagree about shared experiences, just be a human being. I felt like I needed that every day and I couldn't really be happy long-term without that in my life. So I thought, hey, I mean, what's the best way to do that than being a doctor? There's other ways to do that now, I see that. But just like Mario, I was like, I wanna practice medicine. I like this, this is cool. Obviously I'm gonna be a doctor. And then years later, as I'm on this pre-med path I feel I meet more people, more people are going like oh, I'm going to PA school, not medical school, what's that? And then they tell you and then you're like, holy crap, this is it. And then you start shadowing and then you realize more and more, this is it. And so the more you learn about the PA career the more you realize it's for you, if it's for you. Some people, they're destined to be MDs, DOs, CRNAs, whatever's for you, but for me, PA was it. I really love being able to switch specialties. I think the thing that I love the most about it having practiced it myself and also just like before I even got into school is the level that you're at. You're not the top of the chain. You have a lot of autonomy and a lot of jobs like mine. Right now, I'm usually alone in the clinic by myself making all the decisions unless something is like I need help but you have a lot of autonomy but you're not the top dog. You're more of an employee, there's more freedom. There's always help if you need it and people expect you to sometimes need help. It's more team-based. So there's always people wanting to help you. It's just, it's a lower level of responsibility which just some people might be bad but to me it's good because it's a lower level of stress. It's also a lower level of time commitment and financial commitment. And also just personally on a math level I went to the military for five years to pay for grad school and for undergrad. And so I already gave up my 20s doing stuff I didn't wanna do. I was not ready to give up my 30s to give up stuff I didn't wanna do, you know, like school. So I was like two year training, get to practice medicine, team-based approach. You get to like have a lot of freedom while still making a great living and practicing medicine. It was a no-brainer. It was just a no-brainer. Yep. And to add to that also a slightly lower level of liability as well because again with that supervising physician agreement, just to make it clear, I stand in the camp that there's a lot of talk about getting us full practice autonomy and not having a supervising physician and I do not sit in that boat or a camp. Like I very much believe that the PA profession was started with that idea of having a supervising physician and that's what we signed up for. I know with and versus a lot of our nurse practitioner and colleagues, they have moved towards that full practice autonomy and that's not something that I, that's not something I hope the PA profession ends up doing because I think at the end of the day, it's a luxury and it's nice to not have that additional kind of responsibility and liability that's essentially afforded to our MDDO colleagues who of course they've trained and have done 10,000 more hours of experience than deserve that level of responsibility. And but it's not something that I think, at least for most PAs if you ask, like that's not something we're interested in having. So it's refreshing to hear that coming from you Boris as well. Yeah. And I wonder if my mentality on that will change after like 10 years of practice or after 15 or 20 years of practice might be like, all right, I've seen 4,000 of these things. I know what I'm doing. I want the ultimate authority on this thing. But as a new provider, I really love talking to the soup docs, getting their mentality on things and learning. Like I really love, it sounds cliche, but I really love learning. I really love growing my practice and the best way to do that is talk to experienced people. So I don't know, I'm definitely agreeing with Mario right now. I just can see that that opinion might change in like 10 more years of practice. But we'll see. That's very, very true. But I also think that the way these, like supervising physician practice agreements are looking like more and more. It's often that your supervising physician is not even in the same physical location with you. It's almost like someone that you're consulting with, which to me, it affords a pretty big level of autonomy in terms of practice. The fact that you're really the boot on the ground seeing the patient and it's ultimately up to you, your call when you feel like you're out of, the water in an uncomfortable kind of situation or out of your element to reach out to the supervising physician for that insight. It's less so in this kind of like hovering of the supervising physician looking over your shoulder and scrutinizing every medication you prescribe and every medical decision that you make. Would you agree with that, Boris? I would in a lot of contexts. So like in urgent care, for instance, where I'm working, it's either single coverage or double coverage. It's always a mid-level. It's always a physician assistants, nurse practitioner, maybe two of us, but that's it. The soup doc is available by phone, usually, not always. So yeah, you have a tremendous amount of autonomy. So one of the things that you and I completely agree with is just like a better work-life balance, a little bit less stress, and which is awesome aspects about the PA profession. And for instance, the fact that we don't have to complete a three to four or five-year residency, and which as we know from like the literature that's out there, like burnout rates are through the roof and really as the years progress and as more providers are on social media, and it's becoming very clear, I think, to pre-med, pre-health, pre-PA students, they're becoming more interested, more than ever before, like in what is my work-life balance gonna look like 10, 15 years from now. And so, yeah, it's awesome that at least the PA affords a better kind of lifestyle, as you mentioned. And we were also ranked number two, right, on the US News Report recently. Yeah, right after our twin brother, nurse practitioner, you know what I mean? So it's essentially number one. Yeah, essentially number one. They couldn't put two number ones, but if they did, we would have been up there. We're both number one. Yeah, but with that, we'll dive into our next topic. I don't think I have it open, so I'll let you guide us into the next. The funny thing is, we actually kind of covered half of it already, PA versus MD is our next topic. Okay, okay, okay. And I just kind of want to go back to what you said, how in some practices, you do kind of have an MD hovering and scrutinizing everything, and in some, you don't. So in some places, like for instance, in surgery, in certain emergency rooms, like bigger hospitals, internal medicine, any word that's bigger and has a lot of MDs working, yeah, you're probably gonna be scrutinized, especially when you're brand new. And even when you're practicing for 30 years, you're gonna be scrutinized. It's not gonna be done exactly the way that the physician wants, and then you as the physician assistant have to go change everything that you do. Which to me, I could see that would be frustrating. Everywhere I've worked, primary care and urgent care, there's a ton of autonomy, and I can't imagine practicing any other way. But if you do get to a point where you're not really sure, there's always somebody to ask. But I just didn't want to communicate that, like all practices are that autonomous, they're definitely not. There's definitely jobs- Yeah, 100%. Yeah, and that's the case in some of the stuff that I saw, did a cardiothoracic surgery rotation, and it's like the oversight is very clear, because again, the margin for error with these patients that are extremely, extremely sick is that much smaller. And so you want that kind of physician oversight in those contexts like cardiothoracic surgery or emergency medicine. And of course with every practice it varies, and as you become more experienced and that your supervising physicians begin to trust you more, and again, kind of release a little bit more of that autonomy as they see fit for the practice. And but yeah, I love that you clarified that because it really is a practice, practice dependent. Yeah. I'm actually glad that you mentioned cardiothoracic surgery because that's an excellent segue into PA versus MD. There's obviously a lot of differences. Some people think, especially kind of people that aren't familiar with a lot of medical jobs, you come in the room, you got your stethoscope, you're the provider, they think you're the doctor. They even say, oh, the doctor said this, so like, no, no, I'm a PA, I literally introduced myself as a PA to a lot of people, like people who are not in medicine, a provider is a doctor. To us, who know better, who are in medicine, we realize there's a massive, massive, massive difference. So using the example of cardiothoracic surgery, cardiothoracic surgery is one of the highest paying PA specialties, 200K easy in most cities, working low coms, quarter mail, maybe even more. Insane money for a PA, absolutely not. Yeah, my supervising physician assistant to just interject was pulling in 300K a year, which is like my blowing time. Working like 70 hours or working like normal hours? Oh, no, working like 70 hours, yeah, yeah. I think it was, she brought about 100K in overtime pay, yeah, which is pretty, pretty significant. Yeah, that's nuts. But she is working in the highest paid specialty, one of the highest stress specialties, very hard learning curve, skill set. And also, yeah, like he said, she's working 70 hours. I work, at least I'm contracted to work 120 hours a month, a month, which means that average is out to 27 hours a week. If you stay a little bit late, you finish some charts, whatever, call it 30, 35 hours a week max. And no, I'm not making anywhere near what she is, but if I worked her hours, I'd be making more. So, you know, take that for what you will. That's the one thing with the full question. 100% because at the end of the day, it's that work-life balance that looks different for every individual. Some people have that flexibility and ability to be able to work, you know, every day for almost every hour of be on call. And but for a lot of us, it's that like, we prioritize, I saw your post not too long ago about, you know, family prioritizing family and having your priorities straight. And really, if family is number one to you, the PA profession affords that additional time to pursue those interests to be, at least if I contact, I don't have any kids yet, but in the future, I'd like to be, at least if I were to rank my priorities, number one is to be the best husband that I can be. Number two is probably be the best dad that I can be to, you know, my future kids got willingly. And then number three is be the best provider that I can be. But yeah, sometimes the, for a lot of health professionals, the amount of time allocated to each of those priorities looks very different. And I think the PA profession, which I think you would agree with me, Boris affords a little bit more of that flexibility to prioritize family and the other interests outside, like this, like doing the social media thing. I would say a hundred percent in almost every specialty, I'd say the only specialty as an MD, as a doctor that affords that kind of flexibility would be probably the emergency room, in which case you're so extremely stressed and there's so much pressure and liability on you. When you are working, you're probably just using that time off to recover. Whereas as a PA, you know, you just, you don't have as much of that. So I completely agree with Mario. I really love the freedom that the PA career gives you. There's less to do. If I did go to med school, I'd probably want to just like take it all the way and be a surgeon. And when you're a surgeon, you are glued to the hospital, glued. These guys take, so let's say them and their wife and their kids go to a place, they take two separate cars because at any moment that phone can ring and they might be like, we have a trauma, you got to come in now. And that's it. You're all, there's no arguing, there's no ifs ands or buts, you're gone. There's no work like balance, or at least there is. I can't imagine doing that. I got a little taste of it for like two days during my CT surgery rotation. They gave me a pager and I was like responsible. I mean, I didn't have any like major role. Of course I'm just there to like observe, but my preceptor wanted me to experience like what being on call was like. And so I remember going with my wife to some event with like some friends from church and I like took the pager. We went in separate cars. I had like my scrubs in my backpack. And I'm like, all right, I'm ready guys. I didn't get called in, but still like that. I can't imagine living like that for, you know, years and just doing that day in and day out, which is as Boris just mentioned, like the reality for a lot of our surgeon and MDDO colleagues, and also for our PA colleagues that work in that specialty. There's definitely the responsibility. And then there's also this. I'm not sure that at age 70, I see myself in scrubs. I'm not certain. I might be, I don't know if this media thing is gonna be bigger. I might just be totally retired and hanging out with my family, might be traveling. I might be doing something totally different. Who knows? I'm probably always gonna love medicine and wanna be involved, but I don't know if I'm gonna be punching the clock, going in, treating sore throats at 70. When you're a physician, especially a surgeon, you've spent like over a decade of your life getting to where you are. And then you've been defined by what you do as a doctor, literally it changes your name. I'm Boris. I'm not doctor Boris. I'm Boris. This person, when they finish med school, they literally change their identity. So at 70, I don't think most physicians really see themselves doing anything else. And if they stop, they're no longer a doctor, whatever they are. So it's just like, do you want to do medicine or do you wanna be medicine? How serious do you want this to be for you? I wanna do medicine. And there are students out there. Yeah, I agree with you. And there are students out there who may be listening to this episode. And I would say, if you feel like you, kind of just how Boris put it, you want to be medicine. You want the butt to stop with you. And you want to be doctor such and such. I will tell you right now that PA is not gonna fulfill that for you. And you are a student that needs to go and become, because we have a shortage of PAs. We have a shortage of all medical providers. And we have a shortage of physicians, surgeons and every specialty. There's a shortage. And really, if you feel like you're called to that MD deal role, go all the way. Go all the way. I would not recommend students pursue the PA route, dabble in that and then think later on, I'm gonna go back to medical school. That would be a very costly kind of way to do this journey. Yeah, I love that you highlighted that, Boris. I do have to say that that's something I've considered and I'm still kind of considering that costly endeavor. Just because, I mean, it depends what you practice in. Maybe if I was in a more complex, I guess, I mean, urgent care is hard. Urgent care is very, very hard. There's a steep learning curve. It's very stressful. But once you've kind of gotten comfortable in 90% of situations, common ones, you're kind of looking around and going like, well, I'd kind of like to continue this work up. I sent this person with chest pain to the hospital. I'd kind of like to order more testing, see that testing, see how it goes, see how they do after it's done. Like I just want to follow that person and give them a higher level of care that I'm able to. And even as a PA at the hospital, you probably still wouldn't be doing that. That would probably be the MDs and the DOs. So it's hard to love medicine and not get to do it all the way. So there is a time. That is great. Yeah, and that is something that in full transparency I also kind of struggle with is that thought of that. Right now I am kind of, because of of course my commitments with the National Health Service Corps, I know that I'm going to be practicing at least for two years in family medicine and I'm a new grad PA. So I am barely at the infancy taking my baby steps into what practice looks like. But who knows, that's kind of like how Boris mentioned. It's not something that's completely out of the picture because like you mentioned, it's hard to love medicine and be passionate about it. But also be kind of limited in our roles because there are, as you've hinted at already, there are clear limitations to what we can do to certain workups. At some point you hand that off to a higher level of care. At some point you hand that off to your MDDO colleague. Yeah, and so I love that you highlighted and mentioned that. Absolutely, now that being said, there are kind of like middle niche areas that you can work as a PA where you're obviously not a doctor but you do get way higher level things that you can do. Let's say being in emergency room, physician assistants at a rural hospital, you're it. You know, there might be a doc in the building but you're it, you're doing a lot. You're doing the chest tubes, you're probably doing the ultrasound, maybe even doing it yourself, certainly interpreting it. You're doing all kinds of procedures that at a bigger urban hospital with a bunch of MDs and residents running around, you'd never do. So there are definitely ways to have an extremely high level of care and practice at the top of your license as a physician assistant, if you choose to go that direction. Or if you just wanna satisfy your thirst for learning, you can just keep switching specialties and get to a higher level of care in a bunch of different specialties. The only difference in that regard would kind of be that top like five to 10% of really complex patients and obviously the money is totally different. You know, back to the cardiothoracic surgery example, an extremely ambitious, skilled, highly paid cardiothoracic surgery physician assistant, 300K, insane money. Her boss, the surgeon, 700K, if he's department head a million a year. So it's just, it's indifferent. It's on different planets, the compensation. So I know we're not supposed to say that's a factor but it's a factor. We're doing a lot of the same work for a third, sometimes a quarter of the compensation, something to consider. Yep. Yeah, and one thing to also highlight that I, I think I read somewhere, I think I've read it where they mentioned that, yeah, we're getting, we essentially, if you compare the training of a PA to an MD, we have about less than one fourth of the training or a quarter of the training compared to an MDDO but we're getting compensated about half of their compensation. When you look at it from that perspective, it's kind of a good deal when you look and kind of see the opportunity cost and the fact that, yes, we have that less training but we're being compensated pretty handsomely depending on the, of course, the specialty and location. Just looking at it from a numbers perspective of like clinical experience of what it takes to become an attending versus what it takes to be like a board certified PA starting to work in any specialty. Yeah. That's a really good point and glad you brought that up. That's really good. Because yeah, it is a really good return on investment and what I trade, like for instance, I'm enjoying the absolute F out of my 30s. I'm making good money. I can go wherever I want. I can eat whatever I want, drive whatever I want, have plenty of time off to enjoy those things and I've been living it up the last like two years since I've been practicing. I'm going to slow it down and try to save but I've really, really enjoyed it and it's nice to have the option to enjoy that. And if I had taken the MD route, assuming I even got in, guys, that's another thing. It's not a guarantee. Assuming I would have even got in and passed the first couple of years. I'd still be in school. I might be in residency by now. I'm not certain, but I'd be sleeping almost nothing. I'd be driving something rusty and old that's always breaking. I'd have no money. I'd have no lifestyle for another five years at which point who knows how like my health would be. So it's easy to get a little bit discouraged when you see a colleague, a physician colleague, trading the exact same sinus infection with the exact same medicine, spending the exact same amount of time and effort with the patient and they get paid three times as much. But the opportunity cost like Mario said, nothing's perfect, but I think that this nuanced conversation should help some of you make a decision. That's right for you. For me, PA was definitely the right decision and I still think it is. I agree with you Boris. I agree with you. And so kind of moving on to our third topic just to kind of wrap up here because I know we're looking at the time where we're approaching that 30, 40 minute mark. So I know we kind of wanted to wrap this first session with some advice for pre-PA students and then specifically the student that's kind of applying with that lower GPA. Boris, I'll let you, or before we dive into this, I kind of want to know, and I'll start when full transparency when I applied, my overall GPA was about a 3.23 and my science GPA was like a little bit higher than that right under a 3.3 in GPA. What was your case, Boris? So initially... You remember. Oh yeah, yeah, because it went through a lot of transition there but initially I graduated undergrad with a 2.98. So just about 3.0, no hours, not even all the prereqs. Then I took a whole bunch of classes, you know, those kind of even out and it doesn't really raise your GPA much. So I think I may have got it close to a 3.1 but that was it. And sure enough, I didn't get in. Then I did a post back in which I got a 3.9 and just a post back. I don't know what it did to my total GPA but that post back was a 3.9, nothing but very high level classes at an Ivy League school of all places. And that was enough to finally push me over to get me in. So just clarify, how many years of education or undergraduate kind of like coursework and did you do prior to getting into your master's PA program? About six, about six full years. Okay, all right. Which in my situation, I did four years of undergrad and then did about an additional year at my local community college. And where I took my anatomy, physiology, microbiology, a lot of the main prereq courses for PA school. And so I guess that's my first kind of piece of advice to students is really if you have to retake a course or you're looking to improving your GPA, really the best place to do that is at your local CC, at your local community college. One, you're gonna save money. And two, the courses or at least these classes at these community colleges are usually smaller in class size. You have more of that one-on-one with a professor. And generally they're a bit easier in terms of just how difficult the exams are on paper. Because I remember showing up to my first general chemistry course at UCLA in a sea of 300 students and the professor saying like, welcome to my chemistry class. This half of, or all of you are pre-med. One third of you are gonna drop out and taking pride in the fact that they were like one of the most difficult, what we call them weeder courses at the university. And that was very much the opposite case at my local community college. It was nothing but support. And actually one of my strongest letter of Rex was written by my PhD microbiology professor from my community college. And so yeah, I would tell the lower GPA student who's looking into improving their GPA really look into your local community college. And just also put it out there from my brief conversations I've had with admissions committee members both as a student and now as a health professional. They do not care if you took microbiology at UCLA versus microbiology at your local community college. It does not matter. What matters is what grade you're getting in these courses and if they are an in-person class and making sure that you meet those kinds of requirements. But please, please do not be dissuaded from taking a course, a more affordable course at your local community college. And so that's what I would say to the lower GPA student. It's funny that you say that and Mimi, the girl that I interviewed last week said the exact same thing. She did her first two years of undergrad all at community college, transferred to a four-year school and then got in after just one year after a four-year school. So community college seems to be a great option. You know, it's cheaper, it's easier, you get way more personalized attention. The schedule tends to be better as far as like night and online and morning courses so you can get your PCE while you're in school. So community college is a great option. I actually got a totally different response when I asked the Dean of Admissions, but this was pre-COVID. So they actually recommended maybe one or two from community or online, but primarily they want their classes from four-year brick and mortar institutions, but COVID changed all of that. So that may not be a reality anymore. It may be becoming a reality again now that we're kind of out of the COVID thing. So definitely talk to admissions at whatever schools you're interested in to see what their preference is. Because you don't want to like commit a year to community college or to a different school and then find out, you know, that wasn't a good idea. For you specifically. Yeah, and I think really the more, when I look back at my own application, I really felt like I was a well-rounded applicant because I had, again, courses from a brick and mortar institution with the name like UCLA and then also had my prerequisites done at the local community college. Together, when you look at that entire application, I imagine the admissions committee members were looking at that and being like, okay, this guy was able to take his anatomy and physiology, got A's in that at the local CC, but they can also handle the caliber of upper division coursework at a brick and mortar institution, as you mentioned. And so really, I think the best case scenario is to have a bit of both, if you can. Take advantage of the affordability and I guess, I don't know if this is a word, easeability of the local community college, but also try to push yourself and kind of take these more difficult courses at institutions that, as we know, are more difficult and maybe have a reputation of some sort. Cause all of that only helps to again make you the most well-rounded applicant. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You definitely wanna prove that you can handle hard courses and a lot of them at the same time and get good grades. Like that's all they wanna see is, are you a good student? Are you gonna fail out of a program? No, okay, cool. What else do you have to bring to the table? It's just the check in the box. Are you a good student? Yes, cool, prove it. That's really it. So that's for advice for pre-PA students, especially lower GPA pre-PA students, community college, excellent option. It sounds like Mario kind of did his own post-bac. He did like a year of just a bunch of classes, getting his pre-rex, that's what he did. I did a structured post-bac and there's a lot of them. They're usually for pre-med, so D-O-M-D, and they're usually at pretty prestigious schools. Mine was at Cornell, there's one at NYU, there's one at Columbia, there's a whole bunch of them. And some of them even have linkages with medical and some even PA schools. So if you do well enough, you maintain a certain GPA, you're basically guaranteed a spot or at least an interview at the PA school. So that's also an option, a post-bac. Another option that I've seen a few times, what's his name? Okay, Elijah, who I've done a few videos with, he actually got a master's in some sort of a biological field before PA school and he did very well in his master's. And then a fourth option that I don't know why no one talks about, a fourth option is getting a second bachelor's or getting like an accelerated bachelor's in something that's already a health profession. So X-ray tech, nurse accelerated BSN programs are fantastic. They're a year, maybe two years. You get a second bachelor's as a BSN, you can work as a nurse. So you're getting experience and you're getting your grades up at the same time. So that's always a really good option, accelerated BSN or some sort of other health training program where you can still get undergraduate courses and get your GPA up and get your experience at the same time. 100% agree. And that's something that I've met some students who have done that and have had success in getting again, doing that additional kind of bachelor's in a health related field and then being accepted into a PA program when they apply. And the other thing to also add for our lower GPA applicants is really again doing your research about the programs and being selective with the PA programs that you choose to apply to because there are programs out there who are really, really looking to accept the student with the highest GRE score, with the highest GPA and with the highest XYZ hours. And there are programs out there who are looking more holistically at your journey, your life experiences, the diversity and the story that you have to bring to the table. And so you need to find the programs out there that are not just gonna view you as a GPA and GRE score and are gonna view you as the like talented individual that's overcome a lot of that adversity to get to this point to apply. In my case, I felt not plugging in UC Davis but I really felt like UC Davis put money with her math list in terms of diversity. And we really had students who maybe weren't the best test takers and struggled academically but were provided that support from our institution and from classmates, but the diversity was there. We had, I had classmates who were immigrants from Nigeria, from Afghanistan who literally it was a melting pot of culture that was difficult to replicate and something that I haven't seen at many other PA programs. And so, and there are programs out there who really are about that, about looking at the whole journey of the student. And I would say, do your research to find those programs because those are programs that I don't wanna call them like lower GPA friendly, but they are because they're again, considering you as a whole package and not just a test score or a GPA. I really love that you said that. Selecting the program you apply to 100%, making a personal connection with somebody in admissions, if they will, not everybody will, but some will talk to you and through the months and the years that you talk to them, they'll give you advice, you follow that advice, they see that you're reliable. That's essentially how I got it. I was talking to the admissions dean for three years before I got in. So, I mean, it's just, it's something that you might have to do and it's a good way to go. Yeah, absolutely, you can definitely do it. And just one more thing, if there's any admissions folks or any like PA school staff or admins watching this by any chance, or if you know any, share this with them, me and Mario, both not tremendously high GPA people, both from, you know, not your typical dad's, not a doctor, not your typical pre-med background. And here we are succeeding in PA school, doing quite well, graduating on time, passing the pants the first time, you know, getting good jobs, doing well in our jobs so far, at least, you know, and also helping others and bringing others along. So, give people a chance, man, give people a chance. 100%, 100% because there are students out there. And I mean, I hope in the future to get involved with admissions and be involved in like the PA education types of things. But really students who have that typically, not always, but typically, I've noticed students who come from like that community college background are typically students who have had to come. We just know this, like from potentially a more difficult upbringing, and you know, they probably didn't have the parents who were able to just pay for an Ivy League and have them go directly into a four-year university or have, you know, people in medicine and that breeds a different kind of student that I think translates well to being a great provider in clinic because you're able to, again, you're gonna, if you're a, schools are looking for students who wanna work in underserved communities and what best place to find students coming from those same communities with those same adversities that struggled and came out of those places. I feel like those other students that are typically are gonna want to be on just doing a service requirement, like getting the National Health Service Corps doing that for two years, these are students are gonna wanna stay even after that and be part of caring for that underserved community for decades of their career. And so, yeah, that's our message from Boris and Mario to our admissions people watching this. All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed that. So that was our first three topics of my collaboration with Mario, the Mexican PA. We discussed our introductions, who we are, why we chose the physician assistant route, a very deep dive on PA versus MD, reasons to choose physician assistant versus medical doctor or DO. And then of course our advice to pre-PA students in specific, those of you who might have a lower undergraduate GPA but still want to be where we are now practicing physician assistants. So hopefully you guys will join us next week on Mario's channel for three more awesome topics in this collaboration. And Boris, thank you for having me on your channel. It's been great and I'm excited for the rest of this discussion. And again, your followers can follow me at the Mexican PA on YouTube, on Instagram and on TikTok. And I'm excited to keep this discussion going and hopefully you found some value from in today's talk and the future conversations that we will be having. My name will play this. Thank you for having me. Yeah, 100%. All right guys, see you in the next video.