A Unicorn PA
If you are unsure what a Unicorn PA is, this episode is for you.
A Unicorn PA – that rare, elusive, mythical creature that is hard to find – a PA who loves their job and has a great quality of life, it sounds too good to be true. In fact, it’s not too good to be true.
We are sharing what the qualities of a Unicorn PA:
- Professionally: A job you love in a specialty that fulfills you with a schedule that works for you and your family during this season.
- Personally: Abundant time, energy and money.
Unicorns are rare, but not unheard of, and Unicorn PAs exist out there in the wild. It’s unique to you, your life, your experience and what’s necessary for you during this season.
For a time, that was very different early on in my career. Things have changed as our family has grown and seasons of life have come and gone.
The concept of a Unicorn PA might be new for you, but after this conversation you’ll know what you are aiming at in your career as a Physician Associate and your life.
One of my most common direct messages includes the following questions: What is a unicorn PA, anyway? Where are these unicorn jobs hiding? I’ve been a PA for a while. I’ve never had a Unicorn job. Do PA Unicorn Jobs *really* exist?
Let’s Define “Unicorn PA”
Today we’re gonna dive into what a Unicorn PA is. Just in case, you don’t have a 4 our-year-old daughter who is completely totally obsessed with unicorns. I’m gonna tell you what a unicorn is. For the purposes of our discussion, a unicorn is something that is highly desirable. It’s a gem, it’s something that everybody wants, but a unicorn is difficult to find and rare.
A Unicorn PA is a PA that has 3 things in their work and 3 things in their life.
Work:
- A job they love
- In a specialty they enjoy
- With an awesome schedule that works well for themselves and their family during this season
Home:
- Abundant time
- Abundant energy
- Abundant money
Abundance: more than enough. That means that Unicorn PAs have more than enough time, energy and money.
Unicorns in the Wild
I’ve been posting a ton over on Instagram about Unicorn PAs and you have been *loving it*. But it seemed beneficial to define what a Unicorn PA is. A Unicorn PA is highly desirable and that is true. Rare, but they exist. They are out there.
There are two ways to end up with a Unicorn Job as a PA. One is to go out and find one and two is to change your existing job to become a Unicorn Job. You have to seek those opportunities out and one of those opportunities exists on the other side of difficult conversations.
Watch Here
Negotiations as a Unicorn PA
Those conversations, the hard ones that make your palms sweat, are negotiations. No one loves to negotiate because we didn’t learn how to do it in school. We graduated PA school and we had these skills: ACLS, team-based practice competencies, and you went on to become a PA-C after taking the NCCPA PANCE and you get to put that dash-C after your name.
The bottom line: as a PA-C you know how to save peoples lives. You know how to resuscitate people. You understand how to do the things that you need to to keep patients safe but you don’t know how to negotiate.
Don’t feel bad about this lack of negotiation skills. I didn’t know how, either. So I built a framework on how to approach negotiations because I didn’t know how to negotiate.
Learn to Negotiate
So I created The PA Pay Academy. It’s a digital course where you can learn how to negotiate, too! The doors are opening in January of 2023 right now it is on presale.
Back to Unicorn PAs – finding a Unicorn Job as a PA is specific to you and what you value during this season of life. A key piece of becoming a Unicorn PA is knowing what you value and what you want.
Negotiation is key in getting that Unicorn Job or creating changes in your current job to make it your Unicorn Job as a PA. You can start to use it for things other than getting a raise or reducing your hours or improving your admin time all of which you probably need to do and all of which will be helped by the course so go to www.tracybingammon.com/ppa.
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