Questions to Ask PA Students
Questions for talking with someone currently in physician assistant school, whether you are considering applying, mentoring them, or working alongside them on a rotation. Ordered from easy openers to the things students only say once they trust you.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Where are you in the program right now?
Why ask it
The obvious opener, and it changes every other question you should ask. A student six weeks into didactic year and one on their final rotation have almost nothing in common in daily experience, and the second has opinions the first has not formed yet.
What does a normal weekday look like for you at the moment?
Why ask it
Concrete and easy to answer, and far more revealing than asking whether the program is hard. Listen for the hours, the commute, and whether anything exists in the day besides study, since that is what applicants most consistently underestimate.
How did you decide on PA rather than medical school or nursing?
Why ask it
Most students have thought about this carefully and are happy to explain. The useful part is the reasoning, which usually involves training length, scope, cost, or flexibility between specialties. Answers that are only about it being faster tend to come with regrets later.
What did you do before this, and how much did it help?
Why ask it
Prior patient care experience varies from a few hundred hours to a decade as a paramedic or nurse. Ask specifically what transferred, since the honest answer is often that clinical confidence transferred and study habits did not.
What surprised you most once you started?
Why ask it
Reliably produces something specific: the pace of the didactic year, how much is self-directed, how little time there is between exams. This is the closest you will get to the information nobody puts in a brochure.
How do you actually study, and how did that change after your first exams?
Why ask it
Almost every student changes method in the first term, and the story of what stopped working is more useful than their current system. Be skeptical of anyone who says they study the same way they did as an undergraduate.
Which rotation has been the best so far, and what made it good?
Why ask it
Watch for whether the answer is about the specialty or the preceptor, because it is usually the preceptor. Students who name teaching, being allowed to see patients alone, and getting feedback are describing what makes any rotation work.
Which rotation was hardest, and what happened?
Why ask it
Ask for the specifics rather than the specialty name. Hard usually means an absent preceptor, a hostile team, or being given responsibility with no support, and hearing how they handled it tells you more about them than any question about strengths.
How much are you allowed to do with patients at this stage?
Why ask it
Ask what they do independently versus with supervision. Wide variation between sites is normal, and a student who is mostly observing late in clinical year is describing a placement problem worth knowing about.
What is the first thing you do when you do not know the answer in front of a patient?
Why ask it
The honest answer describes a habit: saying they will check, stepping out to look it up, asking the preceptor. Students who claim it does not happen, or who describe guessing confidently, are answering the question you actually asked.
How are you managing money through this?
Why ask it
Most PA students cannot work during the program, and the debt figure is large. Ask about the practical arrangements: loans, family support, whether rotations required paying for a second place to live. Applicants routinely plan for tuition and not for the rest.
How is your cohort with each other?
Why ask it
Ask whether people share notes and cover for each other or whether ranking makes it competitive. The atmosphere within a class is one of the biggest differences between programs and is invisible from the outside.
What has this cost you outside school?
Why ask it
A direct question that most students answer honestly if asked kindly: relationships strained, hobbies dropped, family events missed, fitness gone. Anyone considering applying should hear this before they start, and anyone supporting a student should hear it too.
Has there been a point where you thought about leaving?
Why ask it
Common enough that a flat no is unusual, and the answer usually names the specific week and what got them through it. Ask this later in a conversation, and only if they seem willing rather than performing enthusiasm.
What is the hardest patient interaction you have had?
Why ask it
Expect a death, a distressed family, or a diagnosis they had to sit with. Ask what support existed afterwards, since the answer reveals whether the program treats this as part of training or leaves students to absorb it alone.
How do you get feedback, and have you had any that was genuinely useful?
Why ask it
Formal evaluations are often generic. The valuable answer describes a preceptor who said something specific and difficult. Students who have never received corrective feedback in a clinical year are usually being ignored rather than performing perfectly.
Which specialty are you leaning toward, and how much has that changed?
Why ask it
Ask what changed their mind, since exposure during rotations moves most students at least once. A student certain of the same specialty since before applying may not have had broad enough placements to test it.
What are you doing to be ready for the certification exam?
Why ask it
Ask what the program builds in and what they are doing themselves. It is a fair question for a later-year student and the answer indirectly tells you how well the program prepares people, which is hard to ask faculty directly.
What are you looking for in a first job, and what worries you about starting?
Why ask it
New graduate anxieties are specific and telling: on-call expectations, how much supervision they will really have, whether there is onboarding. Their answer is useful to an applicant deciding whether the training length suits them.
Knowing what you know now, would you do this again, and would you choose the same program?
Why ask it
Two questions in one on purpose, and the gap between the answers is the informative part. Plenty of students would choose the profession again and a different school, and the reasons why are exactly what an applicant needs to hear.
Talking with PA students
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Know who you are talking to
Didactic and clinical students live different lives
First year students can tell you about admissions, workload, and teaching. Second year students can tell you about rotations, preceptors, and job hunting. Asking a first year about clinical placements gets you rumour rather than experience.
Ask about their program, not the profession in general
Students know their own school in detail and the wider profession mostly by report. Keep questions concrete and local, and go to practising PAs for questions about long careers.
Time it around their exams
End of rotation exams and finals dominate the calendar. A message offering to talk in two weeks gets a much better conversation than one asking for an hour tomorrow.
If you are considering applying
Ask what they wish they had asked
Students have recently been through exactly the decision you are making and remember which of their assumptions were wrong. This one question often produces more than the rest of the conversation.
Get the cost picture from a student, not the website
Published tuition omits rotation travel, second rents, equipment, exam fees, and the income you will not earn. A current student can give you real numbers for their own year.
Do not ask them to review your application
Students are not on the admissions committee and it puts them in an awkward position. Ask about their experience of the process instead, and direct application questions to the program.
If you supervise or support one
Ask what they have been allowed to do so far
Calibrating early prevents both the student who is bored observing and the one handed responsibility they are not ready for. Ask about the last rotation rather than assuming the curriculum guarantees a level.
Give feedback in the moment and specifically
Students consistently report that end of rotation evaluations are too late and too vague to act on. One concrete correction on the day is worth more than a paragraph six weeks later.
Check in after a difficult case
A student's first death or first distressed family often passes without anyone asking how they are. A short conversation afterwards is remembered for years.
What to avoid
Testing them
Rapid-fire clinical questions turn a conversation into an exam and shut down the honest answers you were after. If you want to know their level, ask what they have been doing rather than quizzing them.
Comparing their training to a physician's
Students hear this constantly and it ends the useful part of the conversation. Ask about the scope they are trained for instead, which is a more interesting subject anyway.
Asking for a lot without offering anything
An hour of a PA student's time is expensive to them. Offer something back: a contact, a specific piece of help, or simply keeping it to the twenty minutes you asked for.