Physician Assistant Resume

Physician assistant jobs have a bright outlook for future growth. That’s good news because it means that your skills are in demand by employers.

However, as the medical field continues to grow, the competition will too. To convince hospitals that you’re the right person for the job, you’ll need a strong resume.

Follow these four tips to write a successful physician assistant resume.

Highlight your physician assistant resume skills

As a physician’s assistant you must work with a wide range of patients, as well as diagnose and treat different medical conditions. Hospitals will be looking through your resume for evidence that you have the technical knowledge and personality to do the job well.

Use your resume skills section to showcase your most impressive physician assistant skills. While you may want to save your general physician assistant certification (NCCPA) for the education section, any specializations or other supplementary certificates may be listed here too.

To begin, here are some common physician assistant skills for your resume:

• Evaluation and diagnosis of patients
• Physical examination
• Long-term care
• Physiology
• Prescribing medicine
• Injections
• Suturing
• X-rays
• Pre- and post-operative care
• Active listening
• Medical software (Meditech, Teletracking)
• Care and treatment planning
• Collaboration
• CPR and First aid certification
• Physical therapy certification (APTA, CAPTE, FSBPT)

Open with a strong physician assistant resume summary

A well-written resume summary helps catch the attention of hiring managers by quickly advertising your experience, skills, and accomplishments as a physician assistant.

Hiring managers in the medical field are typically very busy. When you add a strong resume summary all your best qualifications are front and center, which makes it easier for the hiring manager to see what you can do in the workplace without reading too far.

Here’s an example of how to write a convincing resume summary for a physician assistant position:

Attentive and detail-oriented physician assistant with 5+ years of experience. Assisted family doctor to administer exams of more than 2,000 patients from over 600 families. AAMA Certified Medical Assistant and Phlebotomy Technician since 2011.

Include physician assistant-related keywords in your resume

Improve your chances of getting your resume noticed by including relevant physician assistant keywords in your experience section.

Resume keywords are any words or phrases that reference sought after skills in the industry. These words can be found in the “Requirements” section of the job description.

Take note of any keywords in the listing for the physician assistant job you want and incorporate them into your own experience and skills section appropriately. The result is that your resume will make you look like a perfect fit for the job you’re applying to.

Even better, some medical firms may use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), which reads resumes automatically. ATSs make their decisions based on keyword density, so adding these physician assistant-related keywords will help you get past the ATS and into the hands of a real human.

Check out this list below for some popular physician-assistant resume keywords to add in your resume:

• Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support  (ACLS) certification
• Current BLS (Basic Life Support) certification
• Accredited
• Surgery
• NCCPA
• Orthopedics
• Patient care
• Physical examination
• Clinic
• Outpatient
• Hospital
• Diagnostic
• Urgent care
• Internal medicine
• Injection
• Collaborative

Emphasize your soft skills

Last but not least, a good physician assistant resume should emphasize a select set of soft skills in addition to technical knowledge. Medical expertise isn’t the only thing that makes a good physician assistant, you’ll also need empathy and active listening when working with patients.

Select a couple of your best soft skills to include in the skills section or demonstrate in the experience section. Here are some ideas of physician assistant soft skills:

• Empathy
• Active listening
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Cooperation
• Adaptability
• Stress-management
• Patience