 They already can't afford it. Now you're charging them money just to get to where they want to be. Is that unethical? Hey guys, my name is Boris. I'm a physician assistant and for the last four years since I was still in PA school. I've been helping people get into PA school by editing essays, doing mic interviews, things like that. And I started out doing it for free and then of course as demand for the services grew and the time I had available to perform those services got less and less. Of course I had to start charging money. And what's really interesting is this PA influencer with way way more followers than me posted this thing because she's considering getting into the same kind of business is she basically had her audience rate. Is it cringy? Is it wrong? Is it morally incorrect to charge money to help somebody get into PA school by either editing their essay, giving them advice? Whatever it may be. Is it morally incorrect to try to help somebody get into PA school but of course have them pay for your time because your time is valuable? So obviously as somebody who's been doing it for four years you could probably see that my opinion is no, it's not ethically incorrect. That being said, I do think it's a very interesting question. So I want to discuss this question by answering the most. What I think is the best argument against charging money for pre-PA services and that is you're contributing to income disparities in healthcare providers by charging money that only some can afford. What that's basically saying is that we all know that the typical PA student is Caucasian, female and from a middle or upper middle class household which means they can afford paying $50, $100, $200, $300 to have their essay reviewed and they get the best that it can be and by charging money for these services to help people get into PA school you're ensuring that only the people who come from wealthy families who have money are able to get degrees like physician assistant. So that's the argument. And of course as providers and then PA schools, educators and whatnot one big priority that everybody has is trying to get more diversity into the field not just in terms of race and gender but also in terms of socioeconomic status. And also a lot of schools have veteran preferences because they want more and more veterans and get a veterans experience into the profession as well. So by charging money to help people get in a lot of people would say that you're just keeping the people at the very top of the socioeconomic ladder. You're only allowing those people to stay in the career which I completely disagree with. And my first argument against that would be the fact that people who can afford the services, right people that have some money. I would argue are actually the people that don't really need pre-PA services. People that have money, people who came from wealthy families or at least well to do families more than likely have connections, they have mentorship, they have guidance and more than likely they've had their life set up from day one to be a competitive PA school applicant. Again, these are assumptions but I would argue that somebody who comes from a wealthy family especially not a first generation wealthy family is more likely to have had mentorship throughout their whole life from day one, from elementary school all the way up to high school, college prep and then through college at how to study, how to get good grades, the importance of getting straight A's or damn close to straight A's, how important that is for college and for grad school. We all hear that, people without mentorship hear that but people who have it reinforced over and over again by successful parents, by successful friends, by successful family friends. Those are the people that tend to have the best grades and tend to get into the best grad schools and the most competitive programs such as physician assistant programs. Privilege is a real thing not just in the fact that somebody's skin color or somebody's money gives them opportunities I definitely would say that they do. However, I think it's much more than that. I think it's about the mentorship, the attitude within the family to study and getting good grades and even beyond that more than likely successful families have friends and family friends that are doctors that are physician assistants and they can tell the child from a young age exactly what they need to do how do they need to structure their life in order to reach their dreams as soon as possible. So the people that come from these families are the ones getting into PA programs at 2021-22 years old whereas people like me who have had to figure it out all by themselves get in at 29-28 30 years old, 31 years old because it takes that long to make all the mistakes necessary in order to realize what you actually have to do and finally do that. So basically my argument against this point is people that have the money more than likely don't even need to pay somebody for mentorship because they've had it their entire life. And the people that need that mentorship and need to pay somebody who's kind of a professional mentor basically a pre-PA coach pre-med coach whatever kind of coach is the people that did not have those connections and those advantages and those privileges growing up people who might be immigrants who might be from lower socioeconomic backgrounds people who might be veterans and spent the majority of their life doing other things all three of which I'm in all three of those categories so I definitely know firsthand how disadvantaged you can be and how hard it is to get up from that situation and get to where you want to go especially into such a competitive field such as PA medicine that kind of a deal. So unfortunately the people that need the mentorship the most are the people that have the most difficulty affording it. As I say in the introduction to my book step-by-step position assistant school personal statement writing and other PA school applications secrets in the introduction for this book I describe my typical client who I typically help and almost everybody is from those categories either a first-generation immigrant somebody who's a veteran or just somebody who grew up without a lot of mentorship and a lot of support and is trying to figure it out all on their own exactly like I did and that's why I'm passionate and continue to do what I do even though it's not exactly financially lucrative is because I want to bring as many of those people up into the medical field into PA professions into reaching their dreams because I didn't have that mentorship and it took me over a decade to figure out how to study the importance of studying how to be organized how to reach your dreams how to confidently interview all those things that most people do not have I want to share those things and so getting back to the point is it unethical to charge money for that kind of professional mentorship trying to fill in the knowledge gaps where they might exist that may not have been filled in by a parent or a family member in these people that want to get into these very competitive programs is it unethical to kind of like kick someone while they're down as some people would say and they already can't afford it now you're charging them money just to get to where they want to be is that unethical? I say absolutely not so when I began this business in my first year of PA school I started doing it for free and the whole reason I wanted to do it was because I wanted to help people and the way it actually started was I posted my physician assistant essay online which you can see that video right here and it got pretty popular people seemed to really like my personal statement and so they were emailing me to ask me for help with their own personal statement and of course I was busy as a PA student but I did have a little bit of spare time and even more than that I just really really enjoyed using what I know using my experience being able to actually help people because as a student you're not helping anybody you're helping yourself you're trying to study you're trying to become the best student you can be you're trying to get through the program in order to get this career which will eventually help people but as a student you're not serving anybody you're not helping anybody and so that's probably what drove me especially in the beginning is to do it for free is because I just I needed to fill that gap in being a student and not being able to help anyone I wanted to help people right away even though I wasn't a PA yet I wasn't practicing medicine I just I wanted to do something for somebody else so I posted my essay I offered to help people with their essays and I did it for free at first and pretty quickly demand started just spiking it went way up over the few months that I started doing this and some people you know they tip me 20 bucks 10 bucks 50 bucks someone even gave me 80 dollars which I thought was pretty crazy at the time for helping them with their personal statement because they said that they were very happy with it after we worked on it together and so at first it was free and people just kind of like threw me you know a 10 spot 20 bucks whatever on Venmo just to like help me out for helping them out but there was no set price of course as demand grew I only had a little bit of time spare time as a PA student so I had to start charging a little bit of money up front to kind of reduce the amount of people trying to get my help of course then the website happened and this that and the other and things logically grew because the product was good people were really getting a lot of assistance from my help and they were very happy with their personal statements after we had worked together but demand continued to grow as did the price because that's what you do when you have less time or less supply my supply was just my time you have less of it than you can to serve everybody so you have to keep raising the price to get the number of people trying to get that product down so it's just simple economic supply and demand I really want to help but I can only do so much and so price went up until it got to where it is now which as a practicing PA I feel is the absolute bare minimum I can charge to make it remotely worth my time to do this it's financially still not smart for me to do this kind of stuff whether it be meeting on Zoom or editing essays or doing my interviews financially it still does not really make sense I just I really enjoy doing it because I get so much gratification out of one helping somebody who was in the situation that I was personally in up to get where they want to be to what I'm really trying to do I'm not just trying to get people into PA school what I'm teaching is communication somebody who's trying to explain to someone why they want to be a PA they feel it they feel it in their gut they feel it in their soul they just can't put it on paper and what I'm helping this person to do is express themselves and communicate clearly exactly why they want to do what they want to do which makes them a better communicator which in turn makes them a better student and hopefully eventually a better practicing physician assistant that helps everybody so what I really am teaching what I'm really passionate about is communication teaching people to be confident and teaching people to communicate which is my biggest passion ever is just bringing people up and filling in those knowledge gaps that I had to learn over a decade for myself teaching that to people in a 20, 30, 1 hour session kind of a deal over Zoom so going back to the original question is it unethical to charge money? I don't think so because an hour of my time 20 minutes of my time steering people in the right direction which could have taken them years of their life to figure out or helping them craft their essay and helping them express themselves in a way that makes people understand why they want to be a PA which eventually will get them into the program that they really want to be in what is that worth? You know, I'm not charging thousands I'm not charging even hundreds it's what I think is a pretty affordable amount in order to help somebody do what they got to do however, I completely recognize that some people can't afford that and I was definitely in that situation back when I was in college before college I didn't have any money after college for a while I didn't have any money I was in so much student debt and I was making absolutely nothing so I totally get that that's why things like the book came about for just a few dollars you get all my best wisdom about filling out the application about writing your essay from the ground up just for a few bucks which would take me hours and hundreds of dollars to explain to you over a Zoom session it's all in there in one very affordable product another thing I'm doing is I'm bringing on a protege somebody who's doing the same thing that I am but for a much lower cost because he's currently in PA school another person Elijah you may have seen him on another video you may have seen him on the other video that said low GPA to PA it's like two or three videos ago maybe a few weeks ago he's an inspiration he took a very long time to get over his low GPA and his life circumstances and he's just an incredibly communicative smart likable kind of guy and I'm really excited to bring him on board to the whole Boris the PA brand in order to help people for a lower cost than what I can do so I'm trying as hard as I can to get people the help they need for a price that they can afford and of course you can get the book any pre-PA services that I offer and also pre-PA services that Elijah offers on my website Boris the PA and I'll see you in the next video