Hello i'm going into my senior year of high school and had a spark interest of the entering the health care field due to processes recovering of my 2 ACL reconstruction surgeries. I really liked the environment of Physical Therapy and the warm, welcoming atmosphere my PT and her co-workers had in the building. I started to do research about the health care field and how to to purse a career in Physical Therapy, but as I dug deeper I found out about Med School too. I can really see myself doing either but Im really torn on which to go purse because while they are both are similar careers, they pay very differently. Dont get me wrong, I love the idea of both careers but I don't want to be 6 figures in debt for something while I can make almost 2-5 times amount if i become a physician. Any advice?
Physical Therapy vs Med School??
- Thread starter TheKing44
- Start date
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2016
- Messages
- 663
- Reaction score
- 223
Physical therapy is 4 years undergrad + 3 years professional school
Medicine is 4 years undergrad + 4 years med school + minimum 3-4 years of residency to become a primary care doc
Med school tuition is significantly more (anywhere from $35,000-$60,000 per year depending public vs private school & location)
PT school ranges from $10,000-$20,000 per year
Docs make more but they start making the money a lot sooner and with a lot more debt. Really both fields make the same in the long term if you ask me.
Specializing in a high-paying medical field requires the best grades in your med class (remember you're competing with all your other smart classmates at this point; not C students).
Did you consider PA school? What about becoming a CNP?
Medicine is 4 years undergrad + 4 years med school + minimum 3-4 years of residency to become a primary care doc
Med school tuition is significantly more (anywhere from $35,000-$60,000 per year depending public vs private school & location)
PT school ranges from $10,000-$20,000 per year
Docs make more but they start making the money a lot sooner and with a lot more debt. Really both fields make the same in the long term if you ask me.
Specializing in a high-paying medical field requires the best grades in your med class (remember you're competing with all your other smart classmates at this point; not C students).
Did you consider PA school? What about becoming a CNP?
Becoming a Physician's Assistant (PA) or Nurse Practitioner (NP) might actually be a really good fit for you. In both fields, you are able to specialize in a specific area of medicine, just as you would if you were a physician. They are very similar jobs, the biggest difference is that PAs must practice under the supervision of a physician while NPs may practice independently. The training is much less expensive and time consuming than what is required to become a doctor, and both pay an about 15k-20k more than the average salary for PTs.
To become a PA, you don't need to go to nursing school, you just complete the required prerequisites at a university. Though this technically only takes about three years, almost all PA school applicants have bachelors degrees, so you pretty much need one to be competitive. As long as you have the prereqs you may major in whatever you like, but most people choose traditional science majors like biology, chem, anatomy, etc. During or after college, you must gain hands-on medical experience. There are many different ways to do this, you can find a great list here. Once you have built up a good application, you apply to PA school, which lasts 2-3 years depending on the program.
To become an NP, you must go through 4 years of nursing school, graduate and gain experience as a registered nurse (RN), then return to school for a NP masters degree. This program is normally 2 years long, but I think they can range from 2-4 years.
To put it simply:
Becoming a PA is 4 years of college + 2-3 years of PA school
Becoming a NP is 4 years of nursing school + at least 2 years of experience as a RN + 2 years of NP program
PA doesnt said that bad, Ill look more into it. Thanks guys
