Observation hours question...?

[jaybanks95]

Hey, I'm a pre-pt student. I have roughly 200 hours of observation at 4 different outpatient clinics. They were all essentially neck and back clinics, so I don't have much variety in my settings. I recently applied for a pediatric therapy internship and interviewed, but I discovered that they do more speech and occupational therapy than anything. I think it would be a great experience and a cool way to work in a pediatric setting, the only problem is that I wouldn't always be observing with a physical therapist (they have one on staff part time), so I don't think this would really count for much in terms of my observation hours. Do you think I should take it, or should I search for another physical therapy shadowing position. I'm trying to reach out to some nursing homes, but I know I won't have another opportunity to work pediatric before I apply for PT school next summer. Any thoughts or suggestions? Will physical therapy schools be impressed that I did this sort of internship, or will they not count it for much since it wasn't directly linked to physical therapy.

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[DPThopeful1859]

I think your best bet would be to check with the schools you're primarily interested in. For me, I worked in a hospital based outpatient clinic for years, where they did PT,OT and ST, so I dabbled in all 3 arenas which I believe helped me understand how important all of them truly are. Some schools are more picky about the various settings versus the hours obtained, so unless you ask for clarification, you might not fully know. I know hours in peds can be hard to come by, so in my opinion, even if it was a small amount of PT, but more OT and ST, I don't think it would truly hurt. Maybe find another outlet to shadow closer to when you apply that will give you a bigger shadowing opportunity for PT.

 

[mn977]

Go to the PT department of a children's hospital. I volunteer at a peds outpatient/inpatient dept for a major children's hospital in NYC. Most important thing to note, you can't get hours verified by a non-pt so you need to make sure you've got a PT verifying your hours. I've observed a few hours of OT but only because the depts are together in the same space. You really should be observing mostly PT to get the most out of the experience so just make sure you're volunteering when that part-time PT has patients for you to observe. You also need inpatient hours for a lot of PT schools so I would place that as a higher priority.

 

[MuscleAndBones4Life]

I'd say take the peds hours. As long as a PT signs off on your hours in the end, it won't make much of a difference.

 

[nd_dpt]

I did observation in a neuro clinic that had a PT, OT, and ST. The PT didn't always treat patients all day, so in the mean time I would observe the OT. During PT school interviews, I talked about how I had the chance to see how all the therapists worked together to give the patient a well rounded rehabilitation experience. Just be sure to get in as many hours with the PT as possible.