PA Week runs October 6 through 12, 2026, and it is a good moment to test whether the physician assistant profession fits you. Before you decide, learn what PA work looks like in more than one setting. A job title or a salary figure cannot show you how the daily work feels or which parts of it you enjoy.
You might enjoy repeated follow-up visits, or you might prefer the rapidly changing priorities of a hospital service. You might find difficult family conversations meaningful, or draining. You do not need to choose a specialty before applying to PA school, but you should be able to explain what you have learned about the profession and why you want it. The steps below turn this week into a plan for getting clinical experience for PA school that answers real questions.
Use PA Week to Ask a Better Career Question
The American Academy of Physician Associates (AAPA) marks PA Week from October 6 to 12, with events, social campaigns and scholarship fundraising for future PA students. AAPA now uses the title physician associate in its materials, so you will see both names during the week. They refer to the same profession.
For a prospective applicant, the most productive way to mark the week is to replace “Is PA a good career?” with a sharper question: “What parts of PA work do I understand, and what have I not seen yet?”
What Have You Not Seen Yet?
That question gives your next observation a purpose. If you have only seen short outpatient appointments, find out how hospital work differs. If your experience is mainly technical, such as taking vital signs or rooming patients, pay closer attention to explanation, follow-up and communication between professionals. If you have only shadowed one PA, ask how a colleague in another specialty spends a typical day.
AAPA’s Project Access program sends practicing PAs to talk with K-12 and college students about the path into the profession, and PA Week is a common time for those visits. If a session is offered at your school or a nearby campus, attend with two or three prepared questions about the work you have not yet observed.
Read Workforce Figures Carefully
The National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA) publishes specialty data from certified PAs. Its 2025 specialty workforce findings reported clear differences in hiring activity. Among respondents, 69.6% of critical care PAs, 64.1% of hospital medicine PAs and 62.6% of oncology PAs said their principal workplace was recruiting or hiring PAs.
What Do the Hiring Percentages Actually Measure?
Those percentages describe reported employer activity at the places where respondents work. They are not the share of applicants who will get jobs, a forecast for your graduation year or evidence that one specialty is the best personal fit. A specialty with heavy recruiting can still be a poor match for someone who wants long-term relationships with patients.
Use the findings to generate questions about work settings rather than to pick a destination. For example, you might ask a hospital medicine PA why their service is hiring, how shifts are structured and what new PAs find hardest in their first year. Keep compensation research separate. IMA’s AAPA salary report guide covers pay in detail, and our MD vs PA vs NP comparison helps if you are still weighing related careers.
Compare the Work You Actually Observe
Create a small comparison sheet before your next experience. Fill it with observations and confirmed explanations, not assumptions about a specialty.
| Part of the work | What to record | What to ask later |
|---|---|---|
| Patient relationships | A brief visit, repeat contact or longer follow-up | How does this setting shape continuity? |
| Decisions | A question the PA considered | What information changed the next step? |
| Teamwork | Who exchanged information | How are unresolved concerns passed on? |
| Work pattern | Interruptions, transitions and follow-up tasks | What varies between a typical day and a difficult one? |
| Learning | An unfamiliar issue the PA investigated | How does the team support continued learning? |
One observation cannot establish what is typical. Ask the professional whether the day you saw was representative, and note where your evidence is still thin.
How Does a Completed Sheet Look?
Here is a fictional example from a half day in a family medicine clinic. Under patient relationships, the student writes: “Most visits were 15 to 20 minutes; two patients were returning for blood pressure checks the PA had started months earlier.” Under decisions: “The PA ordered a lab test after a patient mentioned new fatigue, then explained when results would come back.” Under teamwork: “A medical assistant flagged a missed appointment, and the PA asked the front desk to call the patient.”
The questions column then writes itself. How does the clinic follow up when patients miss visits? How does the PA decide which new symptom needs a test today? None of these notes contain names or identifying details, and every entry describes something the student saw or was told, not a guess.
Separate Interest From First Impressions
A dramatic moment can dominate your memory of a shift. It may reveal something about your interests, but it does not describe the whole job. After observing, write down which parts held your attention when nothing unusual was happening.
Did you enjoy hearing a clinician work through an uncertain complaint? Were you interested in how the team explained a long-term plan? Did you notice the documentation and phone calls needed after the patient left the room?
These questions help you describe your preferences precisely. “I liked the pace” is a starting point. “I was interested in how the PA reorganized priorities after new information arrived” gives you something specific to investigate next, and something concrete to discuss in an interview.
Also record discomfort without treating it as an immediate career verdict. You may need more context, more exposure or a conversation about how practitioners build confidence over time.
A Simple Plan for PA Week and the Month After
You can turn this week into a short, structured project:
- Days 1 and 2: List every PA-related experience you have had, with the setting and what you actually did. Mark gaps, such as no inpatient exposure or no specialty outside primary care.
- Days 3 and 4: Write three questions you cannot answer yet. Send one to a PA you know, an advisor or a Project Access presenter.
- Days 5 to 7: Choose one next experience that fills a gap and research its requirements, timing and cost.
- The following month: Complete the experience or conversation, fill in the comparison sheet and write a one-page reflection.
This plan keeps exploration tied to evidence rather than to collecting experiences for their own sake.
Build a Realistic Next Step
Suppose your only PA observation took place in one outpatient clinic. A sensible next goal is to learn how follow-up, team communication and work patterns differ in another setting. That is more useful than adding another experience simply because its title sounds impressive.
Start with what you can access. A conversation with a PA, an approved local shadowing opportunity or a carefully chosen educational placement can each answer different questions. Ask about the role you will observe, the learning arrangements and who can explain the context.
If you are considering an international experience, compare the credentials and responsibilities of each professional you meet. Do not assume a local job title is equivalent to a U.S. PA credential. IMA’s pre-PA internships run in Mombasa, Kenya and Cusco, Peru, with stays from two weeks, rotations through a new hospital department each week and six to eight hours a weekday with the clinical team. Pre-PA students mainly observe, and the program page explains what you may and may not do.
Keep Learning and Application Requirements Separate
An experience can be educationally useful without meeting a particular school’s patient care requirement. CASPA, the centralized PA application, lists shadowing, healthcare experience and patient care experience as separate categories. Shadowing means following and observing a healthcare professional at work, while patient care experience means work in which you are directly responsible for a patient’s care.
Before relying on any experience for an application category, ask each target school how it treats the duties you will actually perform. Describe the role accurately rather than leaning on the word “internship.” IMA’s guide to what a physician assistant internship involves can help you compare options.
The same habit of watching the whole team applies across professions. Our Dental Hygiene Month guide shows how pre-dental students track one question through a visit, and the method works just as well on a PA shift.
Your goal for PA Week is a clearer decision about the profession. Strong career exploration gives you specific reasons for your interest, honest limits to what you know and a practical plan for what to learn next.
Frequently Asked Questions
When Is PA Week 2026?
PA Week runs from October 6 to October 12, 2026. AAPA organizes events and social campaigns during the week, and many schools host PA speakers for students interested in the profession.
Do I Need to Choose a PA Specialty Before Applying?
No. Focus first on understanding the profession and your reasons for pursuing it. Explore different settings without treating your first interest as a permanent decision.
Do the Workforce Percentages Predict My Chance of Getting Hired?
No. The NCCPA percentages describe reported recruiting or hiring activity at respondents’ principal workplaces. They do not measure your future job prospects or any school’s admission rate.
Should I Choose an Observation Based on Salary?
Salary can inform your career research, but an observation should help you understand daily responsibilities, patient relationships, learning demands and the kind of work that interests you.
Does International Observation Automatically Count as Patient Care Experience?
Do not assume it does. CASPA separates shadowing from patient care experience, so ask each target school how it classifies your actual duties and what documentation it requires.
What Should I Record After a PA Observation?
Write a specific observation, the explanation you received, what interested or challenged you and a question for your next experience. Keep names and other patient-identifying details out of your notes.
