For pre-physician assistant applicants, knowing the difference between healthcare experience (HCE) and patient care experience (PCE) is critical when it comes to entering your experiences into CASPA. One of the most common mistakes we see are experiences that are labeled with the wrong Experience Type. We want to make sure your PA school application is perfect before you submit, so let’s break this down so you know exactly how to label your clinical experience. 

HCE stands for Healthcare Experience, while PCE stands for Patient Care Experience. Both of these terms are important for pre-PA students because they relate to the kind of experience you should have in the healthcare field before applying to a PA program.

Now, when we talk about HCE, it refers to any experience working in a healthcare setting that you DON’T have direct hands-on patient clinical skills. Direct meaning you are actually doing hands-on patient care, and clinical skills meaning you are performing clinical duties, such as taking vital signs and performing wound care. Again, HCE is a position that is in a healthcare setting but where you do NOT have hands on patients responsibilities. This is something like a medical scribe or working in a psychiatric setting, which is typically focused more on mental health than physiological processes, or if you are a CNA and your duties are performing activities of daily living, such as bathing and toileting, then this would be HCE because these aren’t clinical skills. Another example of HCE is if you work at a hospital and answer call lights for inpatients, and so on. 

On the other hand, PCE specifically focuses on experience that involves direct and hands on clinical skills, where you are interacting and caring for patients. This could be working as an EMT, a phlebotomist, or patient care tech, or any role where you’re directly involved in taking care of patients’ using clinical skills .

As a pre-PA candidate, having either HCE or PCE is crucial because it shows admissions committees that you have exposure to the healthcare field and understand what it’s like to work with patients. It demonstrates your commitment to the profession and helps you develop skills and qualities that are essential for a successful PA career.

Now, when you go to enter your experiences into CASPA, we recommend you label your HCE and PCE using CASPA’s definitions for each which are…

Per CASPA: “Healthcare Experience: Both paid and unpaid work in a health or health-related field where you are not directly responsible for a patient’s care, but may still have patient interaction; for example, filling prescriptions, performing clerical work, delivering patient food, cleaning patients and/or their rooms, administering food or medication, taking vitals or other record-keeping information, working as a scribe, CNA (depending on job description), medical assistant, etc.”

(As an aside, note that CNA and MA are listed in CASPA’s definitions as HCE, but these job descriptions vary by state and facility and specialty. So if you are a CNA or MA that has daily clinical duties (taking vitals, assisting with procedures, wound care and so on) you can list this under PCE.)

Per CASPA: “Patient Care Experience: Experiences in which you are directly responsible for a patient’s care. For example, prescribing medication, performing procedures, directing a course of treatment, designing a treatment regimen, actively working on patients as a nurse, paramedic, EMT, CNA, phlebotomist, physical therapist, dental hygienist, etc.“

A few things to note: Do know that there are some programs that will accept certain HCE positions as PCE hours, which is great if you have tons of CASPA defined HCE…because you can apply to PA schools that count your HCE hours as PCE. You still should list your experiences according to CASPA definitions, even if PA schools that you apply to consider your HCE position part of their PCE requirements.

Also, if you are applying for positions and wondering which positions to apply to or what position to take, look into the job description for the positions and go with the one that has the most hands on clinical skills…this will be more competitive for your app and make you a stronger candidate. Remember, it’s less about your title and more about the job description.

On that note, as for which is better and makes you more competitive, we say to go with PCE because it directly involves patient care, which is a significant aspect of the PA role. PCE positions allow you to really develop a solid clinical foundation and show that you can directly care for patients on a skilled level.  

Finally, if you can swing it, having a mix of both HCE and PCE can be advantageous as it showcases versatility and a well-rounded understanding of the healthcare field. So, it’s a good idea to aim for a balance and gain experience in both areas if possible, but if you have to choose, go with PCE. 

We hope that clears up any confusion for you on how to label your experiences and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out! 

If you really want to make sure your application is on par to stand out from the stack, look into our CASPA App Editing and Feedback where we edit your entire app including PS and COVID essay editing and experience details paragraphs editing. 

Keep up the awesome work!