Last Updated on October 21, 2021 by admin
How To Become A Physician Assistant In Maine?
If you have decided to pursue a blossoming and lucrative career as a physician assistant in Maine, then you should know that in order to gain your credential as PA-C, you may have to spend as much as six years, learning in clinical and academic settings everything you need to know about working as a physician assistant in the medical industry. These skilled and trained professionals work closely with licensed doctors, physicians and surgeons and they are a very important part of a larger team of health care providers.
The reason why becoming a physician assistant can take so long is because most certified and licensed PAs these days have a Master’s degree in Health Science, which means that in addition to the four year-training involved in getting a Bachelor’s Degree in Health Science, these professionals have also pursued a Master’s Degree in this field, which requires two additional years of theoretical and practical education that are needed to acquire the skills and knowledge required for treating, examining and diagnosing patients, as well as for prescribing various medical treatments and therapies designed to cure or to alleviate their condition.
In spite of the fact that becoming a physician assistant can be a lengthy, tiresome and highly demanding process, this is often regarded as one of the most lucrative medical professions that you can opt for, and the job growth recorded in all the states of the USA comes to support that theory. One of the most difficult parts is being able to enter one of the accredited physician assistant training programs, where the admission requirements are steep and hard to meet, as they involve an interview, some basic health care experience, one or more letters of recommendation from teachers and former employers as well as some pre-requisite courses that are relevant to the profession of physician assistant.
In addition to this, becoming a physician assistant in the state of Maine also involves some innate skills, as every PA must be genuinely passionate about medicine and must show a real interest in helping other people. Moreover, given the fact that physician assistants work under the supervision of licensed physicians, these professionals must also be able to take directions as well as to seek input from their superiors. Although they do enjoy some degree of autonomy in terms of decision making and prescribing treatments and therapies for patients, it is still the duty of the physician assistant to report back to the licensed doctor, physician or surgeon that oversees their activity, which means that PAs must have outstanding listening and communication skills.
Having said that, the first thing aspiring physician assistants have to do after graduating from high school is to do their best to earn their Bachelor’s Degree in health science, which includes all the necessary courses and training required for an entry-level position in the medical industry, such as statistics, health care ethics, medical terminology, quantitative methods and others. After that, most physician assistants in Maine choose to work as nurses, EMTs or paramedics to gain some medical experience prior to enrolling in the Master’s Degree-level PA training program that will help them take their future career as physician assistants to the next level by paving their way for the certification process.
Physician Assistant Career Description
As you may know by now, physician assistants work in collaboration with licensed doctors, surgeons and physicians in order to provide medical care of the highest quality. These professionals treat and diagnose illnesses, they assist in surgeries, they make rounds in hospitals, they perform thorough physical examinations and so forth. These professionals can be found in specialized medical practices, the armed forces, emergency rooms, state, local or regional hospitals, community health centers, private physicians’ offices and such, and it is not uncommon for them to administer immunization shots, to prescribe medications, to give injections and such.
Certification And Licensure Requirements
As mentioned above, the certification is an aspect of utmost importance for all physician assistants, not only in Maine but all over the United States of America. In order to get their credential as PA-C, physician assistants must sit for the PANCE examination after graduating from an ARC-PA administered PA training program. This is a 300 multiple-choice computerized medical examination that aims to assess the applicant’s basic surgical and medical knowledge.
Salary and Career Info
The interactive chart above is a visual representation of the annual salary of Maine PA’s compared to the national annual salaries, all based on the latest May 2022 Occupational Employment Statistics figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Physician Assistant Schools in Maine
At the time being, there is only one ARC-PA approved physician assistant school in Maine, which is the University of New England located in Portland.
List of All Accredited PA Programs
The accrediting agency is ARC-PA and they have 1 fully accredited AL programs listed as of November 2014.
1. University of New England
Initial Accreditation Date: April 1, 1996
Next ARC-PA Review: September 2016
Website: http://www.une.edu/wchp/pa
