Welcome!

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Hi! My name is Meredith and I am an junior at Duquesne University. I enjoy swimming and reading in my free time, as well as spending time with my family. This blog was created in order to share my story of pursuing a Physician Assistant degree with you! My posts will mainly discuss different advancements in the medical field, as well as my own research and experience with my major. Thanks for stopping by, enjoy!

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Why does the medical field need PAs?

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Good evening and happy Wednesday! Today's post is going to be short and sweet... and I am going to discuss three major reasons of why physician assistants are in high demand in the medical field. The first reason is because there is a large population of United States citizens who have recently entered the retired and elderly age category. These people were from the "baby boomer" generation, when the number of children being born in America skyrocketed, following World War II. With this increase of elderly Americans, there is also an increase Americans who are becoming ill or needing to go to the hospital. PAs help to meet that demand in seeing and treating the sick. Another reason why physician assistants are needed in the medical field today comes from the hardships that many people face in their journey of becoming a doctor. Since the road to a medical doctorate is timely and expensive, many people choose not to do it. Therefore, PAs are often needed in order t
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Dream speciality

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Hello! Tonight I am going to quickly discuss what it means for a physician assistant to pick a speciality and what kind of field I would like to hopefully pick to specialize in. Many PAs pick a specific area that they would like to work in, and this is usually acquired during the rotation process of their major (at least at Duquesne). This is a very convenient aspect of the physican assistant program at Duquesne because the ability to learn more about specialty areas of medicine is integrated right into a semester's curriculum. There are 7 rotations total (pediatrics, surgery, OBGYN, etc.) and the final rotation is chosen by the PA student. This part of the rotation set-up is another factor that attracted me to the program at Duquesne.   So in the end, if I am lucky, I will hopefully be picked up the hospital/practice that I am assigned for my last rotation. Growing up, I always wanted to specialize in surgery and try to work in an emergency room. Recently, however, I have be
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Nurse Practitioner vs. Physician Assistant?

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Good evening! Today's post is going to briefly discuss the similarities and differences between nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs). Both jobs are extremely similar but it is important to understand the distinctions between the two. I learned a lot of information regarding two occupations in one of my PA classes that I took at Duquesne. Both occupations are generally able to, but not always: diagnose and treat patients  prescribe different medications  preform medical studies, screenings, and vaccinations have access to the medical histories of patients Additionally, both PAs and NPs work alongside different kinds of doctors. This is not always the case, however, because some PAs or NPs can work in their own independent businesses.  A large difference, however, between the two is that NPs usually pick a specific area of medicine in which they would like to work in. This may be pediatrics, oncology, geriatrics, cardiology, etc. They will theref
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