Top 5 Tips for Including Clinical Rotations on Your PA Resume
Clinical rotations expose you to many areas of practice. If you’re a new PA grad, we’ll show you how to feature your experience on a resume and go after the job you really want!
Want to know a secret? There’s one way to tell whether your physician assistant resume is successful, and that’s how quickly a prospective employer could tell that you’re qualified for the job. We have the tips you need to align your clinical rotations to the job description and get ahead of the game.
Applying for your first PA job after graduation? Here’s what you need to know.
How to Put Your Clinicals in the Right Order
Hiring managers around the country recommend that you review the job description and ask yourself where your clinical rotation skills match up. Here are a few steps to follow:
- Get clear on the specific medical and surgical specialty areas you’ll be pursuing as you apply for a job.
- Review the specialty areas where you did your mandatory and elective rotations during your clinical year.
- Decide how each experience ranks in order of relevance to the job description. Which rotations are most like the job you are applying to, and what have you done or learned that shows your qualifications?
- Write 3-5 bullets about your experience from the top 2-3 clinical rotations that relate to the job you’re applying to.
- For the remaining clinical rotations, just list the specialty area, the name of the organization, and the city and state.
As you can see, you may have a different resume for each job that you apply to.
A Real-World PA Resume Example
To help drive this home, here is an example if a Clinical Rotations Section, sourced from several PA resumes we’ve recently reviewed. The bullets would represent any skills and experience that aligns with the requirements of a specific job description. As a result, you may have more than one resume if you applying for positions in different specialty areas or environments.
CLINICAL ROTATIONS
- General Surgery Hospital, Anytown, NY Month – Month, Year
- Emergency Services Hospital, Anytown, NY Month – Month, Year
- Dermatology Hospital, Anytown, NY Month – Month, Year
- Family Medicine Hospital, Anytown, NY Month – Month, Year
- General Surgery Hospital Hospital, Anytown, NY Month – Month, Year
- Psychiatry Hospital, Anytown, NY Month – Month, Year
- Pediatrics Hospital, Anytown, NY Month – Month, Year
- Emergency Medicine Hospital, Anytown, NY Month – Month, Year
- Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital, Anytown, NY Month – Month, Year
Summary of skills and experience:
- Continuation and evaluation of established patient care
- Hospital rounding with on-call surgeon including evaluation of pre- and post-operative patients
- Medical interviews, physical exams, treatment plans, venipuncture, urinary catheterization, lumbar puncture, injections, suturing, splitting and castings, I&D
Free Resources to Help You Write Your New Grad PA Resume
At Melnic, we’re passionate about helping Advanced Practice professionals write effective, targeted resumes. Check out our Physician Assistant Sample Resume as a guide to organizing and formatting your experience. And, for more advice on this topic, see our recent blog post: How Do I Write a Standout Physician Assistant Resume.
We also offer a free, professional resume review when you create a Melnic Profile. Click here to get started.
This Week’s Top Physician Assistant Jobs
Our Melnic jobs board has physician assistant positions at some of the country’s leading hospitals. If you are a PA who is considering a change, take a look at some of these great job openings!
- Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto has a great opportunity for a PA in Heart Failure & Transplant. This role evaluates and treats inpatient and outpatient pediatric patients with congenital or acquired, acute, and chronic cardiac conditions, many of whom are recovering from heart surgery or transplant.
- Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital is also seeking a PA, First Assist in Neurosurgery to assist in OR, inpatient, outpatient, and community outreach responsibilities.
- Seattle Children’s Hospital has a role for a PA in the NICU to care for critically ill neonates, and babies with congenital diagnoses requiring specialized pre-op and post-op surgical care.
- In Houston, Texas Children’s Hospital is looking for a PA in the PICU to work in a fast-paced critical care setting and provide coverage for critically ill children with a variety of injuries and acute chronic illnesses.
- Penn State Hershey Medical Center has an opportunity for a PA in Thoracic Surgery. Assist physicians in the pre-operative and post-operative care of adult patients undergoing thoracic surgery.
Review our current list of physician assistant jobs, then contact us today!