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Im a current PT student half way through my program. I will definitely be finishing my program but I was thinking about doing D.O. afterwards? Any thoughts?
Any P.T.'s looking into M.D or D.O.?
- Thread starter nokabob4u
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A fellow research tech I used to work with went to a PT school thinking it was what he wanted to do, but pulled out after less than a year seeking to instead go to med school. I'm sure many people struggle with PT vs medicine.
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Go for it if you think that's what you want to do, but I'd suggest seriously thinking about why you want to do medical school before starting applications. Ask yourself if PT wouldn't satisfy your parient care need. And also why you only found out at this juncture that PT is not for you (when previously you thought it was a good fit). Don't make the same mistake on choosing another professional school, especially one that takes a good seven years to train in.
If your heart is not in PT, it most likely never will be.
With that being said, there is plenty of crossing over between medicine and physical therapy, and you will be able to obtain good medical experience while working as a PT, and while on your clinicals. You may find, like I have, that PT is semi-fulfilling and just a small taste of what you REALLY want to do. You delve deeply into the medical, scientific and etiologic aspect of cases while shunning the PT interventions. Your patient education involves in-depth description of the arthroscopic Bankhart repair to the patient, and percentages of success/failure rates, because the ortho never did. You dislike the fact that, outside of therapeutic exercise, most of our interventions are theoretical and unsupported or downright disproven by the literature (ultrasound, diathermy, e-stim, iontophoresis, etc). Not to say that exercise is wrong, but it does not require 7 years of my life to learn to instruct it correctly.
Make sure you have all the pre-req's covered; my PT pre-req's were taken with School of HP and not arts & sciences, and unfortunately most med schools won't accept those classes as sufficient (chem, A & P, biochem). I am currently taking all the basic pre-req's while practicing as a PT (have been a PT for 2 years).
Good luck
With that being said, there is plenty of crossing over between medicine and physical therapy, and you will be able to obtain good medical experience while working as a PT, and while on your clinicals. You may find, like I have, that PT is semi-fulfilling and just a small taste of what you REALLY want to do. You delve deeply into the medical, scientific and etiologic aspect of cases while shunning the PT interventions. Your patient education involves in-depth description of the arthroscopic Bankhart repair to the patient, and percentages of success/failure rates, because the ortho never did. You dislike the fact that, outside of therapeutic exercise, most of our interventions are theoretical and unsupported or downright disproven by the literature (ultrasound, diathermy, e-stim, iontophoresis, etc). Not to say that exercise is wrong, but it does not require 7 years of my life to learn to instruct it correctly.
Make sure you have all the pre-req's covered; my PT pre-req's were taken with School of HP and not arts & sciences, and unfortunately most med schools won't accept those classes as sufficient (chem, A & P, biochem). I am currently taking all the basic pre-req's while practicing as a PT (have been a PT for 2 years).
Good luck
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