Question for any healthcare professional

Hi there. I think you are right to be cautious about the PA training. There has been a lot of controversy around the scope and safety of their practice for a long time. Hopefully, that will lessen in December with the long-awaited regulation by the GMC. There is a lot of worry about PA's replacing doctors in the skill mix, having a detrimental effect on patient safety. These concerns are not to be taken lightly. There is a real worry that the rush to fill the huge HCP staffing gaps in the NHS by getting people into the workforce fast and furious is compromising care quality and patient safety. Plus, this 'skill-mix' tinkering is an excuse to spend less on the workforce. Why have 1 fully trained Dr when you can have 2 PA's? Or 2 fully trained RGNs when you can have 3 NA's (the nursing version of PA's)?
There is also concern in the nursing community re PA's, not just from a patient safety POV. PA caseloads often overlap with the types of patients seen by Advanced Nurse Practitioners (ANP). So that's PA's with 2yrs of training (often with zero prior healthcare experience) vs (ANP's) with a minimum of 5 years training (BSc & MSc). It is rare, if not unheard of to go straight from newly qualified to advanced practice, so most ANP's have multiple years of clinical practice experience under their belt by the time they reach ANP. So we have an issue of a knowledge and experience gap, but also there is a concern re the loss of progression roles for nursing.
I also wonder about the career progression of PA. It seems quite a closed pathway. Again, maybe this will change with regulation under the GMC but nursing does have more options to move through NHS banding, work in research, work privately, or work in other scenarios like local authorities (school nursing for instance). Nurses are autonomous practitioners, unlike PA's, so that's another bonus. You'd be working as part of a multi-disciplinary team but that's a different thing and comes with the territory in healthcare.
At the end of the day, no one can tell you what to do, or what is best for you. Only you know that. A lot could change with the PA role in the next 5 years, now it is being regulated but you'd be basing your decision on a gamble unless you wait and see a little longer. See if the landscape changes. Whilst I've probably made nursing sound like the better option, it's not perfect and I'm not sure I'd recommend it wholeheartedly either! When it's good, it's great, but the politics, the emotional labour, the shifts (hospital) are a killer and hard on family life and relationships, you can be like ships in the night if you have a partner who works 9-5.
Have you looked at Physio, Occupational Therapy or Radiography? Still patient-facing but better work-life balance. Those are what I would look at. You can usually do them as MSc pre-registration courses too (2yr not 3yr) because you have a healthcare science background), limited university choice though.
Sorry for mega message! Best of luck

If you are a 3rd year biomedical student then your logical next option is 4 years of graduate entry medicine in reality.
Physician associate is a fixed role, there is no progression and the qualification is not accepted abroad. The Royal colleges also seem to be taking an increasingly hostile view toward the role.

Go for nursing - hands down a better career option. Trust me I did PA and masisvely regret. Nurses can progress through the banding, and can expand scope to do procedures and independant prescribing in a way much more accepted than PAs can. Also you have a better chance of senior leadership positions. Also lots of nursing vacancies unlike PA!

Yeah, I did this degree to figure what I wanted to do because I didn’t know at 18. All I knew was that I wanted to work in healthcare. A lot of my peers will be applying for graduate entry medicine and my sister is also applying to med school next year but I’ve personally never intended to do medicine and considering I don’t share the same passion to be a doctor as others, I don’t think I’d be very successful. My plan is to do adult nursing. I’ve spoken to a few nurses and that was an option I previously considered. I think I’d make a better nurse than a doctor. Hopefully with experience, there will be progression and I like that I will be able to work in any department. Anyways, I’m going to take a gap year once I graduate to get some work experience so I can figure it out and make an informed decision. I thank you sincerely for your time and response though and I agree, it’s a very uncertain time to be a PA and I don’t have any intention of pursuing that anymore.