Physician assistant residency programs are not required at present, but around 5% of certified PAs take post-graduate residency.
Advantages PA Residency Programs
- Permits new PAs to achieve a more extensive knowledge which will take an on-the-job training to attain.
- PAs who have taken physician assistant residency programs get higher salaries.
- Employers prefer to hire PAs who have acquired their physician assistant residency program.
- PAs need the additional training to change their specialties.
- PAs who had further training normally receives more responsibility and autonomy.
The specialized training gained from residency permit PAs to serve in a place where residents are short staffed in order to promote better quality care.
Disadvantages of PA Residency Programs
- Although a better or higher salary is expected when a PA finishes training, the salaries given by employers sometimes are equal to the ones who have not completed their physician assistant residency program.
- Residency needs more education that requires more school time.
- Physician residency programs increases student loans because of the extended length of training required.
- PAs taking PA residency programs are not likely to change specialties because it would need more investments in terms of time and money.
Physician assistants who pursue their residency state that it is the best experience to have especially if you already finished the training. Most say that the training also gave them the opportunity to earn higher wages while not working strenuously. This also gives more learning insights while working.
Residency programs can be finished in 12 to 14 months, although some have duration of 6 months or 18 months. Whatever the time spent in taking the training, an experienced PA can use his or her residency to further career advancements or to change their specialties.
Choose top pa programs that have long established reputations because these are the kind of trainings that bring a certified physician assistant to the frontline that requires quality clinical rotations. Likewise it is better to get your residency immediately after graduating from PA school than wait for a time to actually do it so as not to lose interest.
