1st time volunteering. Any tips?

[Mixed Breed]

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Next week I will begin to volunteer at an outpatient PT clinic. I'm volunteering to learn about the profession and to fulfill my volunteer hours for PT school. I still haven't started my prerequisite courses in order to apply to PT school but am surely headed in that direction. With that being said, are there any tips I should keep in mind to maximize my chances of learning and leaving a good impression on the PT staff and clients that I will interact with?

I have some limited knowledge about PT based on my own experience having undergone 5 months of Physical Therapy after knee surgery (which was recent).

 

[dmoney26]

i'll give you the advice someone gave me. ask as many questions as possible. if u ask questions they'll see your eager to learn and who knows maybe you can get a job as an aide if they like you enough.

 

[francium]

What got me to start bonding with the PTs was asking about their experiences in PT school, how they did in their own application process, etc. I got a lot of good tips for my own application process & we got a few laughs about hearing each other's stories.

 

[markelmarcel]

Hopefully you'll be with some PTs that are willing to answer all your questions; whether they be about patients (as long as the whole HIPPA thing is covered with you and the patients are ok with you being there) or about their own experiences. It really helped me, being a nontraditional student, when I found out one of the PTs I was shadowing had also been a nontrad/career changer. It made me feel like it was less impossible seeing that someone had turned their entire life around into another career. 🙂