Did you or DH go to medical school in ISRAEL?

amother

Seafoam

Fri, May 29 2015, 10:29 am

Jawscience, can you give some example/range of what hours could look like for fellowship - like is it crazy the way residency is?

mha3484 the MSN sounds nice but from what you said earlier it seems that you need to be an RN first. Which would mean starting at the beginning of nursing school now, and working as a regular nurse in between or while doing the masters. That's the part that I think is a turnoff.

Frumdoc

Fri, May 29 2015, 10:33 am

Very few people can reliably say they want to sub specialise in one area before med school and stick to that - the reality is different to expectations and you need to do what you have a passion for or you will resent the hours and commitment.

I did subspecialty training in 5 different areas after completing my internal med residency equivalent (training is totally different in my country) before settling on my chosen career and spending another 5 years plus training in that.

JAWSCIENCE

Fri, May 29 2015, 10:51 am

amother wrote:

Jawscience, can you give some example/range of what hours could look like for fellowship - like is it crazy the way residency is?

I have no idea what these paths look like in Israel.

In the U.S. it not only depends on what fellowship but where you do it - a hospital with more residents might not need fellows at night etc. In general there are less night/ weekends because you can take a lot of the call from home and go in for emergency on the nights weekends since a resident is there. It's also a little less early of a start but usually just as late of a finish. And if you are doing something like interventional cardiology..well people's arteries need to be unclogged at all hours of the night too.

bradybunch

Fri, May 29 2015, 11:38 am

FWIW, I'm really not a superwoman type either. I think people are just capable of more than they realize -- we all just do what we have to do to get through the day. What JAWSCIENCE said re: PA vs MD is important I think, and I completely agree. People told me also that I ought to go to PA school, but that's really not what I wanted to do as a career. It's not inappropriate to suggest it as an alternative for people who aren't sure, but it sounds like your DH is sure of what he wants.

Honestly, sometimes I wish I was more available for my kids, but in general I love what I'm doing and I love my work so much that I think it makes me a better mother because I really feel fulfilled by my life choices. I think my kids are doing pretty well and while my husband does a lot more of the home and child-related tasks than most men, we are really partners and have a good relationship. I wouldn't assume that your DH is going to be completely unavailable or not able to be a good husband and father. But again, as another poster pointed out, I'm coming from the perspective of the doctor rather than the partner

Anyway lots of luck and I will keep an eye out for updates from you!

amother

Seafoam

Fri, May 29 2015, 11:46 am

Except I am clearly not capable of more than I realize, quite the opposite, because my home and life are already falling apart, I always feel overwhelmed and not quite managing, and that's with a DH who is around quite a bit because his lab job ended (grant expired Sad

) Right now, for example, he has the kids out in the park after putting in a load of laundry and helping with the dishes, and they're going to pick up the groceries on the way home. I am grateful. Because otherwise I would be even more overwhelmed since everything is a mess, barely anything is made for Shabbos yet, I'm behind in paperwork I need to do for work, and I'm overtired because I don't have my act together enough to sleep properly. (This is at the end of a full workweek for me, with taking kids to and from school plus a couple of appointments, which I know is normal but somehow I am not coping so well.)

So I don't think it's just fear and lack of confidence when I say I am not the kind of superwoman who can singlehandedly run the family while DH focuses on his career for 80 hours a week. Plus, did I mention the family is growing? (Yes, I know about BC. It is obviously not perfect. I am not sorry either. But also not expecting life to get easier as a result.)

amother

Lemon

Fri, May 29 2015, 12:34 pm

I have not read through every post on this thread, but quite a few of them.
My DH is actually about to start PA school. He is in his mid-30s. He had so many people and professors pushing for him to go to medical school, but at this stage in our lives I would not even think about it. My DH was definitely not set on it like yours is, but it was ultimately my "no" that pushed him to PA.

I'm not sure where some of you are getting information, but my DH has been an EMT for 8 years before he starts PA school, and although not all students have such hands-on experience, many do. So the generalization that PA graduates don't have experience is definitely not true.

Also, from all the doctors that my DH has been in touch with and working with - most doctors prefer NPs to PAs. PAs are trained in the same way that medical students are with the same "philosophies" while NPs are trained as nurses. Doctors usually feel like they are more on the same wavelength with PAs rather than NPs

If you want to look into the PA profession more, I would also suggest looking around at how PAs do in different states. The salary range and job descriptions can be vastly different from state to state. Where I live the starting salary for a PA graduate is close to $100,000 and that is before benefits. There are also many opportunities here and you have better prospects of working your way up.

amother

Seafoam

Fri, May 29 2015, 1:28 pm

That is exactly what I'd like to learn more about - whether PAs are on the same wavelength as doctors (DH seems to think less so) and how nurse's perspective would be different. This is something I don't fully understand as I'm not in the field, and DH has done some shadowing but I still don't think he really gets all the ins and outs of it.

My DH is not EMT style but he has been a mohel (lack of demand = not much business currently but he trained very well and did a few jobs) and that's what makes him fancy himself a doctor type.

It seems that even though PA salaries differ in different places, they are basically in demand and doing well all over. Salaries in every field differ geographically as do costs of living so it all evens out somehow.

nylon

Fri, May 29 2015, 2:54 pm

Not all NPs have experience as floor nurses. There are 3 year BA to MSN programs--1yr accelerated BSN followed by 2yrs MSN. Some doctors (and even some nurses) do think the quality coming out of these programs isn't as good because of the lack of experience in nursing.

A friend of mine who is an internist says she prefers PAs to NPs (and it's my experience that PAs are very prevalent in internal medicine offices). That said advanced practice nurses have more options open to them--there are NPs in peds, family medicine, anesthesia, women's health, nurse midwifery, psych, neonatal....

amother

Lemon

Fri, May 29 2015, 4:17 pm

When I used the word "wavelength" I did not in any way mean "equal". Doctors definitely look at PAs as working under them, but they are trained with the same curriculum/information so they talk the same language. If you look at the difference between the curriculum of a PA school and that of an NP program, PA school is very similar to medical school - in a condensed version.

Quote:

there are NPs in peds, family medicine, anesthesia, women's health, nurse midwifery, psych, neonatal

This is actually another benefit of being a PA over an NP. NPs specialize in a specific area - similar to doctors. PAs graduate and can be trained into any field and then switch from field to field at any time (as long as the supervising doctor wants to train them) - and they have many more options over NPs. PAs can work in emergency medicine, urgent care, pediatrics, surgery, orthopedics, geriatrics, general medicine, cardiology, plastic surgery, dermatology, and more... almost any area.

Also when I mentioned the difference in salaries based on states - this really is something important to look into. Whereas with most professions, salaries are usually higher or lower with respect to the cost of living, with PAs it actually has nothing to do with that. The salaries are more tied to the number of students graduating in that area and the laws governing PAs (which vary state to state). For example, New York City features many PA schools and therefore has an abundance of graduates each year looking for jobs. Therefore, the salaries for a PA are some of the lowest in the country.

It's also very important to know which states are considered "PA Friendly" and allow the most autonomy independent of a doctor. In some states PAs are even allowed to open their own practice.

It takes a lot of hard work and dedication (which it seems your DH is willing to do) but PAs can definitely make a name for themselves and move up with experience and get a lot of satisfaction from their jobs for a lot less than medical school. PA school is a fraction of the cost of medical school and you can start working after a 2-yr program, instead of after 8 years!

bradybunch

Fri, May 29 2015, 4:55 pm

So in my experience as a doctor, and just in my personal experience, doctors tend to have a lesser opinion of PAs than of NPs, and largely *because* PA training is "condensed medical school." There is a lot of respect for having the nurse's perspective on things, but there is a certain intrinsic arrogance in PA training that suggests that medical training can be accomplished in such a short period of time. Again in my experience, the PA students in the medical university where I got my MD really made this relationship worse, with their arrogant attitude that they could do pretty much everything we could do and weren't going to suffer for it the way we were.

I know many doctors who have a very low opinion of PAs and will not hire them (but do hire NPs). An older doctor I am close to stopped allowing PA students to come through her practice because she felt like they were so poorly trained and poorly prepared for the work. There is definitely an attitude among some doctors that PAs are not appropriately trained to do the work they think they can do. On the flip side, I do not know anybody who has a poor opinion of NPs as a whole or who refuses to hire them. The same doctor I just mentioned recently hired an NP. On the other hand, you will find more PAs working in hospitals, particularly in surgical fields where they do a lot of the pre- and post-op care.

I personally do not have a strong opinion, although I've had better interactions with NPs. I am somewhat biased by my interactions in medical school with the arrogant PA students who were really quite rude (and it wasn't just one or two of them). Regardless, none of this matters much because the OP's DH doesn't want to be a PA.

Oh, I do think some of the NP vs PA debate is regional. If you look at hiring statistics, some regions hire many more PAs and some regions hire many more NPs.

Savta S

Tue, Jun 23 2015, 6:10 am

Hi. My daughter went to medical school, Hebrew University. It's just as grueling as the programs in the USA. However the cost is very low, relatively insignificant, for Israelis that have either served full military service or national service. There are programs geared to foreigners, in English. Those programs costs are comparable to those in the USA. I have heard of olim being admitted to the Israeli programs, who of course, haven't met those abovementioned terms. I don't know how that works. But the Jewish Agency aliya department should be able to help you.

amother

Maroon

Tue, Jun 23 2015, 7:06 am

My husband went through the MD, PA, RN thought process a few years back. At the age or 27 with 2 kids, medical school wasn't option, namely because how would we survive financial for all those years. That left PA and RN. My husband felt that the nursing field has a lot more opportunities then PA. You can work clinically, become an NP, be a transport, flight nurse, you can work in a managerial position (nursing home, home care agency) you can even have a 9 to 5 office job (chart review). There are so many things to do with the degree. An NP can work independent of a MD, a PA cant. The actual schooling was a little annoying because of all the "nursing theory" but he did come out knowing a lot, and like most jobs, he learned on the job. Then he found out about a field called Nurse Anesthetist. After obtaining an Bachelors in Nursing( a 1 year accelerated degree), and working in an ICU setting for 2 years, you can apply for a CRNA program, where you basically are trained in all aspects of anesthesia . A CRNA can literally do EVERYTHING that an MD anesthesiologist does! Obviously they are not paid as well but with a salary of 150-180 plus benefits, its good enough for me, especially since the schooling is only 2 years! And so when graduating his BSN program, his goal was getting a job in the ICU. It took 6 months and a lot of siyata dishmaya but he did it! And he got in to CRNA school and started last month, after only 1 year in the ICU! (that's a story in itself...) CRNA is obviously a very competitive field, and unless your GPA is over a 3.5 I would event bother, but my husband persevered and followed his dream. He started the process at 27 and will be finished at 31, with a year of working and making money in between. The next 2 years of CRNA school will be very difficult for us financially, and we will come out with a lot of loans, but we feel the end justifies the means. Just wanted to share my story to give chizuk to all those people out there whose husbands decided to go into the medical field a little late in life. Feel free to ask any questions. My husband has had lots of people call for information on the career and process. Hatzlacha!