Bridge Programs to MD and DO:
My Opinion:
Lately several people have been telling me I should be a PA. They dont say directly why other than the fact that they think I am too old to make it to MD. I say screw them. They aren't me and dont really know me. Making broad statements about my future and what they want me to become is not in alignment with my life goals.
It did get me thinking the past 2 weeks though along the lines of becoming a doc in progressive steps. This is a very common pathway for nurses as they build up their skills over time and icrease their training in phases over several years. I have discovered that there is a serious lack of training steps between the PA and MD/DO levels. A big part of this is that hospitals and practitioners wont benefit much from training more PA's to become docs. It takes perfectly good, actively working PAs out of the working field for 5-7 years to train them. The PA's also loose income during their schooling years back in training that they would otherwise earn gainfully employed. Not a good idea in general.
While trolling the net I DID find a couple of leads though on the fringes in regard to PA-to- MD/DO bridge programs that are starting to pop up in the US. Here is an announcement I found:
Available Programs and blog: (reposted from Student Doctor Forums)
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=731110
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=731190
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine: (3 year track PA-to-DO program)
http://lecom.edu
LECOM will announce a newly approved pa-c to physician( DO) bridge program within the next 2 weeks. the director of the program( Dr. Kaufman) is a DO who was previously a PA.
Details available at this point:
program length 2 yrs, 10 months.
format: all of ms1 and ms2 then a hybrid clinical yr
ba/bs degree and mcat required for admission
first class size 12 seats
grads eligible for match to any residency but they will prescreen applicants to try to get 50% who are interested in primary care.
it’s been a long time coming. we need to send the best and the brightest to this so that it catches on and becomes an option at other medical schools.
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A Good conversation about PA-to-MD bridge programs:
My Opinion:
Lately several people have been telling me I should be a PA. They dont say directly why other than the fact that they think I am too old to make it to MD. I say screw them. They aren't me and dont really know me. Making broad statements about my future and what they want me to become is not in alignment with my life goals.
It did get me thinking the past 2 weeks though along the lines of becoming a doc in progressive steps. This is a very common pathway for nurses as they build up their skills over time and icrease their training in phases over several years. I have discovered that there is a serious lack of training steps between the PA and MD/DO levels. A big part of this is that hospitals and practitioners wont benefit much from training more PA's to become docs. It takes perfectly good, actively working PAs out of the working field for 5-7 years to train them. The PA's also loose income during their schooling years back in training that they would otherwise earn gainfully employed. Not a good idea in general.
While trolling the net I DID find a couple of leads though on the fringes in regard to PA-to- MD/DO bridge programs that are starting to pop up in the US. Here is an announcement I found:
Available Programs and blog: (reposted from Student Doctor Forums)
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=731110
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=731190
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine: (3 year track PA-to-DO program)
http://lecom.edu
LECOM will announce a newly approved pa-c to physician( DO) bridge program within the next 2 weeks. the director of the program( Dr. Kaufman) is a DO who was previously a PA.
Details available at this point:
program length 2 yrs, 10 months.
format: all of ms1 and ms2 then a hybrid clinical yr
ba/bs degree and mcat required for admission
first class size 12 seats
grads eligible for match to any residency but they will prescreen applicants to try to get 50% who are interested in primary care.
it’s been a long time coming. we need to send the best and the brightest to this so that it catches on and becomes an option at other medical schools.
==================================
A Good conversation about PA-to-MD bridge programs:
Any shortcuts for P.A. becoming M.D.?
My son is in a P.A. program right now, but is thinking he might want to go to medical school, instead. I'd really like to see him finish his P.A. degree first. Someone told me that there are some med schools that will count his P.A. coursework/experience towards their progams, cutting off a year or two of classes. Is this correct?
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 02-18-2010, 06:17 PM | #2 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,172
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There is no such bridge program from PA to MD although the idea has been discussed.
If he wants to eventually get into med school, he should finish his PA program. Med schools are weary of taking people who drop out of degree programs. |
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| 02-18-2010, 06:21 PM | #3 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Orange County/Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 1,465
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AFAIK, there is currently no such programs. You could try Googling it....
There have been many discussions concerning this, but they haven't made it much beyond PAs' wishful thinking. |
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| 02-18-2010, 09:04 PM | #5 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 2,167
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It probably will never exist, certainly not by the time you son is done. Things like this take years to plan from the start and I haven't heard of anyone starting. The problem is it isn't like PAs just learn the first quarter of medical school and then stop. They cover a wide range of topics present through medical school, just perhaps not with the same focus and detail. So it isn't like they can say well we know they learned these classes so lets just have them start a year later than everyone else. It's also pretty difficult for medical schools to just insert students into the curriculum.
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| 02-20-2010, 09:20 AM | #6 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 1,609
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I see your point!
Son could stop his program with a B.S. degree in P.A. studies, saving him 13 months. That only gives him one year to squeeze in o chem, physics, and one semester of calc (assuming his stats class could count as a semester), along with his regular classes. An MCAT prep class would be of help, too. It looks like that could take up as much time as a 3 credit class. Any opinions? |
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| 02-20-2010, 02:08 PM | #10 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 1,609
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I would rather he become a P.A. for all those reasons, plus the fact that it's half the schooling. His girlfriend's step dad, a physician, told him it's like "Batman and Robin". Do you want to be Robin all of your life? It's kind of interesting, because I guess it's perfectly fine that the girlfriend can be "Robin" all of her life.
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| 03-24-2011, 01:05 PM | #14 |
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Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 392
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Do you mean LECOM? It's a PA to DO program that's three years long, but functionally it's the same thing.
LECOM - Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine & School of Pharmacy |
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| 03-25-2011, 06:03 PM | #15 |
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Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 754
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As a PA student, I would suggest that he at least graduate and work for a while before deciding whether or not to go back for a MD/DO (LECOM is the only bridge program that exists at the moment). Not only would it minimize debt, but it would also give him a chance to feel out the PA realm. Remember, not only would he have to complete the bridge, but would also have to do a residency, so that's at least another 6 years post undergrad as opposed to 13 mos.
It also depends on which area he's interested in practicing - in family medicine/peds, PAs are a lot more like Batman than Robin, to use the analogy from earlier in the thread, and can do much of what MDs do. There are certain specialties where they're utilized more like an extension of the MD (surgical specialties like ortho, for example). It really all depends on your personality type as to what makes you feel comfortable, in my opinion. |
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