Blog Series: What I Wish I Knew Sooner as a PA
Author: Benjamin Kunze PA-C
About the Blog Series: We’re excited to bring you the first of a four-part blog series by Benjamin Kunze - a PA with over 10 years of experience practicing across several specialties including emergency medicine, hospital medicine, and urology, in a mix of practice settings. He shares real-world lessons that don’t get taught in PA school, from landing your first job and negotiating better offers, to setting boundaries and building a career you actually enjoy.
Part 1: How to Land the PA Job You Actually Want in 2025
From Burnout to Better Fit
I started my career as a physician assistant (PA) in emergency medicine, but after a year of flip-flopping between days and nights, I was eager for a change. I transitioned to hospital medicine, which gave me more stability, but over time led to its own stressors and challenges. When my family relocated to a smaller town, I used it as an opportunity to try something new.
Instead of sticking to specialties I’d already worked in, I applied for PA jobs in any specialty I thought might interest me, even ones I knew little about or had minimal experience in. I asked questions in interviews I hadn’t asked before: What’s the culture like? What’s an average day of work going to look like? Who am I going to be working with everyday? How often am I going to get stuck working late?
That experience completely changed my outlook on searching for a PA job.
Join the fastest growing community in medicine
Retiring Traditional Job Hunting Advice
The advice most PAs hear when they start looking for a job: “You can pick two out of three - location, specialty, salary - but not all three.”
It’s simple, catchy, and sometimes true. But after more than a decade as a PA and multiple job changes, I think it’s time we retire this framework.
For one, it traps us into thinking about what we’re willing to sacrifice, rather than focusing on what matters most to you when it comes to day-to-day job satisfaction. Second, we tend to overestimate how important specialty is, and PA school doesn’t always give you exposure to enough subspecialties to predict which might be a good fit. Third, your job satisfaction is ultimately going to depend on a lot more than just location, specialty, or salary.
In my case, I eventually accepted a job in a urology practice, a specialty I knew little about at the time. I’d primarily worked inpatient before, and this included a large outpatient component. To my surprise, I loved it. The pace and schedule were manageable, the problems were interesting, and most importantly, the team was supportive and enjoyable to work with.
For years, I’d prided myself on knowing a little about a lot, working in hospital medicine. But in urology, I discovered that going deep and really learning the ins and outs of one field was not only just as rewarding, it was also a lot less stressful.
The patient mix was also a breath of fresh air. In hospital medicine, I was constantly juggling multiple chronic issues and managing care for patients who often had a poor prognosis despite aggressive interventions. In urology, patients often came in with one or two focused and fixable problems. That gave me the time, clarity, and satisfaction of addressing root issues without feeling like I was just putting out fires all day.
I’m not suggesting the solution to everyone’s problem is simply to switch to a less stressful specialty, or that practicing high acuity medicine will always lead to burn out. Rather, my advice is to reorient your job search around finding one where you are respected, the schedule fits your needs, you have sufficient support, and your day-to-day responsibilities mean you leave work happy.
The Real Drivers of Job Satisfaction
Instead of the traditional “pick two out of three” career advice, I recommend applying to PA jobs in any specialty that remotely interests you and then using the following questions to guide you toward the job you actually want:
- Schedule: Do you want a traditional 9-5? Or do you prefer shift work like 3x12s or 7 on / 7 off? What schedule works best with your partner’s or your kids’ schedules?
- Team culture: Are the people you work with collaborative, supportive, and respectful? Would you enjoy interacting with them on a daily basis?
- Flexibility: How easily can you take off work on short notice if you or your kid gets sick?
- Patient population: Do you thrive with high acuity, complex cases? Or do you prefer conditions with more straightforward, fixable solutions?
- Autonomy: Do you want to practice as independently as possible? Or do you prefer to work in more of a team-based role? Or somewhere in between?
- Responsibilities: What will you actually be doing day in and day out? For example, if you’re passionate about orthopedic surgery but land a job where you’re spending most of your time on post-op appointments, you might be happier in a different surgical specialty where you have an opportunity to first assist and build your own panel of patients.
- Compensation beyond salary: How generous is the PTO? What are the retirement benefits like? Will the health insurance meet you and your family’s needs?
These aren’t always easy to discern from a job listing, but you can and should ask about them in interviews. Even within the same specialty, your day-to-day experience will vary drastically depending on these factors.
Lifestyle Specialties… or Lifestyle Jobs?
There’s a lot of talk about “lifestyle specialties” in medicine like dermatology, sleep medicine, and allergy & immunology. These are known for lighter call schedules, more manageable hours, and lower burnout. But for PAs, things aren’t always so straightforward.
A PA job even in a “lifestyle” specialty might have unrealistic patient volumes, or relegate you to unrewarding scut work. On the flip side, a high-intensity specialty like trauma or neurosurgery might offer great work-life balance if the call schedule is reasonable, physician support is readily available when needed, and the team respects your boundaries.
For PAs, I like to think about lifestyle jobs rather than lifestyle specialties. Your experience will be shaped by how your specific role is structured, how the practice uses PAs, and what kind of support you receive.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking a challenging PA role that leaves you beat at the end of the day, so long as that’s what you want. In fact, some PAs will get bored in jobs that are too slow-paced. The trick is to find what the right fit is for you. And you’ll likely find that your goals change with each chapter of life, depending on whether you’re prioritizing your career, family, or other goals, so it’s helpful to check-in with yourself to ensure your job (and the sacrifices it comes with) match your priorities.
Broadening Your Search
One of the great things about the PA profession is the flexibility. The original vision for the PA role was centered around adaptability to fill gaps in care and help where we’re needed most. But that vision only works if we’re willing to challenge ourselves and explore beyond our comfort zones.
I’m not saying you need to ditch your dream specialty or only consider lifestyle specialties. If you truly love, say, cardiology, go for it. But even then, you may be surprised at the opportunities for career growth, learning, and higher compensation that you can find by casting a wider net (even if only by including subspecialties like electrophysiology).
It’s Not You — It’s the Job
I’ve met a lot of PAs who have questioned whether they picked the wrong career. They feel stuck, underpaid, or undervalued. And sometimes, they’ve had back-to-back bad experiences at places that didn’t support them well.
If that’s you, take heart. The PA job market is tough for new grads in particular, and some employers take advantage of that. But there are great jobs out there, and even if it takes some trial and error, things get better with experience and persistence. Think of it like this: if you're on a bicycle and not moving, you’ll fall over. But if you keep pedaling - applying, interviewing, asking questions - you’ll eventually find a path forward.
The best time to apply for a PA job is when you’re still employed. Even if you’re just curious, it’s often still worth going on a couple interviews. Worst case, you learn more about the market. Best case, you find a role that dramatically improves your quality of life.
Where to Find Better Jobs
Most jobs get picked up through the usual search engines, so simply running a search for “PA jobs near me” or “physician assistant jobs” will get you started. But don’t forget about the less obvious sources:
- Career pages of your local hospitals & health systems (including outpatient jobs listed on the main hospital website’s “career” page)
- State PA societies
- PA school job boards
- Government jobs on USAJobs.gov
- Rural jobs on 3RNet.org
- Word of mouth – ask your physician, PA, and NP colleagues, or even professors at nearby PA schools
- Marit is working on a curated careers experience, built specifically for clinicians. It’ll help you find jobs that match your priorities, whether that’s compensation, schedule, or culture. Stay tuned!
As a reminder, if you’re pursuing Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), always check employer eligibility. What matters is who signs your paycheck, not just where the job is located. Use the employer’s EIN at studentaid.gov/pslf/employer-search to check if they qualify.
Final Thoughts
If there’s one thing I hope you take away from this post, it’s this: don’t limit yourself. The old “pick two out of three” framework inherently assumes you have to sacrifice something in your search to find a satisfactory job, but that’s not always the case. By broadening your search, asking the right questions, and focusing on the factors that matter most to you, you’ll be well-prepared to land the best job for you.
