Physician associate then Medicine

To be completely honest, my thought process was that medicine is competitive- especially grad entry. I was limited to where I applied by my Alevels and didn't want to spend 2/3yrs applying and find myself still working as an emergency care assistant at the end of it all.
The PA role is a great alternative- you are essentially doing a junior doctor role for a good pay rate (before I get jumped on like I have done in other threads- there are some differences especially in responsibility and being able to request X-rays etc. But you are taught to diagnose and manage a specific set of illnesses- not all)

Pros: The training isn't as long (2yr masters), the role is flexible- you can stay in one department for years and decide to move to another very easily and not drop back to square one like you do as a doctor, less responsibility- this could be a pro or a con depending on the individual but as an emergency care assistant I can go home and sleep easy after a shift on the ambulance whereas a paramedic may worry about whether they should have discharged on scene etc. Good pay.

Cons: No current progression- only PA to senior PA, less responsibility, the role of a PA is variable between trusts and not well understood or known by staff or public.. Yet! No current regulation (although this is due to be discussed by government this year).


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Great, thank you! They are more or less the reasons i've decided to apply to a PA course, but it felt too basic if that makes sense? Like I don't feel I could go into an interview and say I want to be a PA because it's less responsibility and doesn't take as long to qualify! Although I suppose that's only if you're trying to justify doing PA instead of GEM?

Yeah you're right and I remember thinking the same thing! I was asked why I hadnt applied for medicine and I said that I saw the PA role as a career in itself just like many nurses/paramedics/radiographers don't want to be doctors (which I do believe!) and that it was a new role and I was excited to be a part of the potential it had to progress (again true!). Hope that helps

We queried it as well, especially as the course is open to all students who have studied a clinical or science related undergraduate degree but not necessarily biomedicine- I have a social sciences background so it went way over my head! I showed my med student friend who also said they weren't studying it in anywhere near the level we were, but the module leaders insisted we just had to get on with it because it is a masters.

Its probably because it is technically a higher level qualification (level 7 as opposed to level 6). All of our modules are masters level apart from pharmacology. Or in our university we were taught by the biomed department so they may have just seen "masters level" and not thought about what we actually need to know.

They are entirely different things. PA is not 'Doctor Lite'. What is it that you actually want to do?

They were looking into scrapping 4 year courses because the EU likes doctors to be to hit the ground running and that requires 5 years of medical school. At the moment FY1 is being considered as a GEM students 'fifth year' as you have minor responsibilities and are still spending a considerable amount of time in training and basically doing an apprenticeship as an FY1.

However, as Brexit has happened/is happening I don't think this will matter anymore. And if Hunt wants to stay true to his word (if that means anything) about recruiting/training more British doctors then scrapping the accelerated 4 year GEM course would be a stupid way to go about it. However, this is a man who scrapped nursing bursaries which has now seen a significant drop in applicants and will leave us with even worse nurse shortages than we already have in the future (especially as less foreign nurses are feeling unwelcomed due to the nations stance on Brexit).

What is stopping you from applying to medicine at the moment? If you can apply to be a PA then you can likely apply for medicine, although you might have to cherry pick only a handful of universities to apply to depending on your circumstance.