How should I go about choosing my first clinical education setting?

[TheBeardMan10]

Hi Everybody,

I was just wondering what factors I should consider when choosing my first clinical setting. Any advice or recommendation would be great.

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[kdubz7w7]

Hi Everybody,

I was just wondering what factors I should consider when choosing my first clinical setting. Any advice or recommendation would be great.

My school recommended doing IP first as they are harder to find (I have no idea if this is true across the board or just my area), just to make sure we definitely got it in. I'm sure they are quite difficult to currently find with covid, however.
Other than that, choose something you think you'd find interesting. It's time to explore what you want to be exposed to and possibly specialize in. Some of my classmates just let fate take the wheel and basically threw a dart at the wall....I looked up different clinic websites, tried to get a feel for them and what they specialize in and whether I would like the clinic or not.
For me as an example, I started school wanting to do ortho, found I really enjoyed neuro, so my first rotation was an IP neuro setting, which I ended up loving. I tried and tried to find a second neuro setting and couldn't, but I never would have even known to explore that if I hadn't decided to make my first rotation sort of exploratory.
If you are incredibly nervous (I mean, we were were, but if you are by a lot) maybe choose a setting you feel more comfortable in so you can get your bearings.
For ortho settings, the students who rotated in high volume clinics seemed to be the most miserable, so maybe that's something to consider.
You can also talk to your CE director and see what she/he has to say. We all had to meet with ours and talk through options which was incredibly helpful.
I was in an inaugural cohort but had I the choice, talking to upperclassmen may have been helpful to find out what rotations people loved and hated. We rotate locally at my school for the first two rotations.

 

[wiseOldPT]

Really depends on how your program is set up. Are you done with all your coursework, or is this a clinical in the middle of didactic? If you still have coursework to go, try to choose a clinical in an area you've had exposure to already. In general, try to find a setting that will be a bit slower paced. Some private PT clinics that do 1-on-1 with patients can be better than a busy clinic seeing a new patient every 15 min. Smaller community hospitals (including their associated outpatient clinic if they have one) are nice because they see a wide variety and are not as rushed as bigger centers. I'm also not up to date on current Medicare rules regarding students- there at least was a period when if a patient was medicare, a student couldn't treat. In general though, really hard to predict. Your CI will make or break it- can be at an amazing center with a horrible CI. If the CI does not seem to be teaching you, tell your school early!

 

[ya1]

Hi Everybody,

I was just wondering what factors I should consider when choosing my first clinical setting. Any advice or recommendation would be great.

Maybe something close to where you live vs another state.

 

[LostLlama]

If I could do it all again, I would pick the settings I did not really want to end up in first. Not only are your performance expectations higher in the latter rotations, but it is usually a good idea to complete rotations with potential employers.