If you’re applying to physician assistant school, then clinical experience is a valuable aspect of your application. Not only do schools have a minimum number of healthcare hours needed to be able to apply, but working in the clinical environment also helps you develop foundation medical skills you will build upon in PA school. 

So the question becomes – what type of experience is the most beneficial? 

If you want to increase your chances of getting accepted to PA school, then you want to make sure you’re gaining the strongest type of clinical experience possible. With many schools receiving thousands of applications per cycle, even small details in your CASPA application can help you stand out and get selected.

One of the first things you need to understand is the fundamental difference between HCE (healthcare experience) and PCE (patient care experience). 

Here is how CASPA defines the two:

Healthcare Experience (HCE)- 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. 

Examples of HCE duties include filling prescriptions, performing administrative duties, administering food or medication or other activities of daily living (ADLs).

Scribing is a good example of a job where you earn HCE, as is patient care techs and many CNAs.

Patient care experience is slightly different and is defined by CASPA as:

Patient Care Experience (PCE)- Experiences in which you are directly responsible for a patient’s care. 

Examples of PCE duties include performing procedures, intubation, first-assisting in surgery,  giving injections, performing breathing treatments and creating patient treatment plans. 

Paramedics, EMTs, and nurses are great examples of PCE. 

Basically, PCE jobs have more hands-on duties and a higher level of responsibility for direct patient care than HCE jobs. 

So how do you decide which job is right for you?

Though both types of experiences are very valuable to any pre-PA student, patient care experience trumps healthcare experience when it comes to actual skills learned and duties performed.

Most schools see direct-patient care roles as the “stronger” of the two types and weight them heavier when it comes to admissions. PCE is closer to the role of a PA in the fact it includes a lot of direc-hands on patient care. While you can learn a LOT about the medical language, charting and ordering diagnostics from a scribing position, you don’t learn those kinesthetic hands-on skills like injections that are essential for future physician assistants. 

If you’re considering obtaining a healthcare job to help gain clinical hours to apply to PA school, then you want to make sure you’re looking at the DUTIES listed for each position. 

Choose the role that has the most direct contact with patients, higher level of responsibilities and the most hands-on clinical duties. Job duties can vary widely within the hospital or clinic setting, even when the title remains the same. Make sure you are choosing the right position to help you learn, grow, develop new skills and help get you accepted into PA school. 

Also, if you want to make sure your CASPA application is competitive and super strong, make sure you check out our CASPA Application Review and Editing service where we edit your entire CASPA application, including personal statement editing, then meet you on Zoom for an hour feedback session. This is what will take your application from average to outstanding, so definitely check it out!