PA SPOTLIGHT • BY BECKY MUELLER, PA

PA Helpers & PA Certification in Canada

PA Helpers Canada

What I enjoy about Teaching PA Students

I really like to see them learn, and actually to be honest and sometimes I feel I am the one who is learning more than they are. They remind me of things I’ve forgotten. I’m learning new avenues and ways of expressing how to enhance someone’s current skills and abilities into finding the way to the connect to the medical knowledge piece.

I firmly believe we all have an excellent skill base, and achieving of this goal of being an excellent practitioner is all based on knowing and understanding what your skill base is, and linking that to the ultimate goal.

PA Helpers Canada & PA Certification

So PA helpers is an online preparatory course to help people pass the PACCC exam in Canada, at least it’s limited to Canada as of right now.  The US system has a lot of organizations to help PAs pass their exam. All of the PAs in the US have many courses they can take. This includes in-person courses, online courses, workbooks, etc. but there has been nothing in Canada. So if you are a PA in Canada looking for resources to prepare you for the exam, I mean, the obvious place is the US because our exam is based off of theirs, but is also inadequate source, because its US units, US guidelines, US drug names. None of that is helpful for our exam.

And although, yes, your basic is content is the same, but all of those details are different. Studying off of that is a bit of a waste of time, and we have this huge gap here in Canada and we needed to fil it. Rachel Thompson and I are working very hard to get that done, and out. The students took their exam yesterday, so they have just finished our first round of students.

We hope to continue to make improvements to that, and help the students to continue to find some value in it. I hope to take it to other countries that also don’t have resources available to help them study for their national exams. But that’s a future endeavor.

Visit PAHelpers.ca

Where can people find more information for PA Helpers.

We are at pahelpers.ca. You can also email rlmwriting@gmail.com. You can find our links on LinkedIn, we’re always posting the Facebook groups of the different Canadian PA groups as well as Instagram.

Tips for PA Students

 It’s tough. It’s really tough. I don’t wish to be back in school, I feel for the people who are still in school because it is a tough process and it is very heavy. One thing you have to remember is that it’s only two years, take a deep breath.

Usually people find that either the first or second year is harder for them. They either like the academic stuff or they are in the books, or they like to be with the patients. One of those will be slightly easier, or slightly more fulfilling than the other. Most people would pick the second year where you are actually seeing patients. It’s still challenging and you are still working a lot, but it’s a little bit more fulfilling which is easier to do day after day.

I think you need to find camaraderie. Find that friendship. Don’t reinvent the wheel. If someone understands something better than you, ask them to help you pick it up, because that is the whole point of teamwork anyway. The other thing is that’s you just to have focus. You have to illuminate as much activity in your life as possible. Don’t keep a job during PA school – its not feasible and you are going to put so much stress on yourself its not worth it.

Also have a plan, “What is your day to day plan?” to ensure you get studying in that you need to get done.

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