Clinical Rotations

[KinesStudent]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

How do they work? Do students pay for everything out of pocket? Tuition covers? 1/2 & 1/2?

Any input is greatly appreciated but in particular I am considering USA-San Marcos.

 

[DPTgrad]

Depends on where you go.. I am enrolled in a small liberal arts college where we had the selection from maybe 75 affiliations, some of which will provide housing for you or refer you to someone who can. Otherwise, our program does not include our housing, travel, etc, so during our clinical rotations we are responsible for finding somewhere to live and paying for it.

For specifics you will have to speak with faculty or students directly, as I know some programs go about it differently.

 

[KinesStudent]

Thanks DPTGrad,

Its my understanding that some rotations last around a month. Are you expected to live in a hotel for this duration is housing is not available?

Secondly, (this may be redundant) would costs incurred in a situation mentioned above be considered when applying for loans?

 

[KinesStudent]

Thanks DPTGrad,

Its my understanding that some rotations last around a month. Are you expected to live in a hotel for this duration is housing is not available?

Secondly, (this may be redundant) would costs incurred in a situation mentioned above be considered when applying for loans?

 

[callmecrazy]

How do they work? Do students pay for everything out of pocket? Tuition covers? 1/2 & 1/2?

Any input is greatly appreciated but in particular I am considering USA-San Marcos.

Different programs are all over the board with this. All of my clinicals are local, and we're paid a stipend during the last rotation. No extra costs. On the flip side, very few schools pay stipends and many require travel for one or more rotations. Absolutely contact the school(s) you're looking at for specifics if it's a deciding factor for you because they can vary so much in distance/length/etc.

A suggestion for housing: If you are completing a rotation in an area where there is another PT program, contact that school. As a student, I've received a number of forwarded emails, via my own school, looking for temporary housing for visiting students that are here for a rotation. One has stayed with me, and two more will be later this year. I'm a little biased, but I think it's a nice alternative to a hotel!

 

[DPTgrad]

Well, I know people who have stayed in hotels but here are a few hints to finding somewhere to live:
- Try craigslist in the region
- Go on the internet and search the rental section of the towns (and neighboring towns) newspaper where you will be
- As the person above said, ask the schools nearby
- Call your clinical site and see if anyone there knows anyone who has a room open
- Try and see if you can find a friend of a friend of a friend you might be able to stay with (my friend did this in Baltimore, MD and saved herself a buttload of money)
- If anyone you go to school with lives near your clinical or has family nearby see if they can arrange for you to stay with them
- If you do find a rental and the landlord is not sure he wants a short term tenant offer him the option of adding their place onto your schools list of places that people have stayed. If you reason with them they will realize that being on the list means twice a year somebody is going to start calling looking for somewhere to live. The landlord of the apartment I am staying at right now was a little skeptical but when I told them that they seemed happy knowing they would always have someone who really needed somewhere to stay
- If it does come down to a hotel you can work with the managers and sometimes they will give extended rates. Also, you might be able to get a part time job helping out with menial tasks like laundry at the hotel, if anything just to help pay some of your bills.

As far as loans, some people take out extra and some don't. My parents are helping me but I am in my last rotation right now and I am finishing up with 100k in debt so I took out an extra 4 thousand for cost of living. I mean whats an extra 4k onto 100k. Sigh. If you are able to work over breaks I suggest you save for your clinicals, as that helps too.

Hope this helps a little bit! Good luck!

 

[KinesStudent]

Well, I know people who have stayed in hotels but here are a few hints to finding somewhere to live:
- Try craigslist in the region
- Go on the internet and search the rental section of the towns (and neighboring towns) newspaper where you will be
- As the person above said, ask the schools nearby
- Call your clinical site and see if anyone there knows anyone who has a room open
- Try and see if you can find a friend of a friend of a friend you might be able to stay with (my friend did this in Baltimore, MD and saved herself a buttload of money)
- If anyone you go to school with lives near your clinical or has family nearby see if they can arrange for you to stay with them
- If you do find a rental and the landlord is not sure he wants a short term tenant offer him the option of adding their place onto your schools list of places that people have stayed. If you reason with them they will realize that being on the list means twice a year somebody is going to start calling looking for somewhere to live. The landlord of the apartment I am staying at right now was a little skeptical but when I told them that they seemed happy knowing they would always have someone who really needed somewhere to stay
- If it does come down to a hotel you can work with the managers and sometimes they will give extended rates. Also, you might be able to get a part time job helping out with menial tasks like laundry at the hotel, if anything just to help pay some of your bills.

As far as loans, some people take out extra and some don't. My parents are helping me but I am in my last rotation right now and I am finishing up with 100k in debt so I took out an extra 4 thousand for cost of living. I mean whats an extra 4k onto 100k. Sigh. If you are able to work over breaks I suggest you save for your clinicals, as that helps too.

Hope this helps a little bit! Good luck!

Thanks DPTGrad, all of your insight really helps.

 

[dizzy88]

I imagine that this issue varies greatly from program to program. Personally, I'm choosing to do all of my internships in-state. The cost of housing/living is not covered if you go out of state (in some cases you can get lucky, but I'm not counting on it), so staying home saves money that way. I also intend on working in the city I live in now, so I might as well start forming connections here.

Tuition is for 9 credit hours in our summer internships (10 weeks), and 12 hrs for the 2 internships we have in the spring (8 weeks each). I take out loans for tuition. The only other expense is to make sure you keep up your certs, immunizations, etc. Many people buy books to help educate them and prep themselves for the types of patients they are seeing.

 

[DPTgrad]

Unfortunately I didn't have the option of stay home for my 2 rotations this time around. We do a lottery system, so while I was close to the top when my first two were arranged, I was at the bottom the second time around. We have a lot of locals who attend my school so pretty much all the places in the vicinity were snatched up.

 

[markelmarcel]

Am I unknowledagble about this?? I don't forsee myself having a clinical more than maybe an hour from where I'm staying...

 

[FitnessDoc2012]

I have been told that it is possible to have 50-75% of clinicals out of state, plane ride away.....this just equals more and more money to get the DPT on top of the absurdly unrealistic cost of tuition for a starting salary of 65k.

 

[markelmarcel]

I have been told that it is possible to have 50-75% of clinicals out of state, plane ride away.....this just equals more and more money to get the DPT on top of the absurdly unrealistic cost of tuition for a starting salary of 65k.

That's nuts. When I was at my interview or the open house (don't remember) for Chatham they just said about out of state students having a chance to go out of state (aka go back home) for a clinical if they were at the bottom of the lotto.

I definitely want to get more information, because they made it sound like everything would be relatively close to the city, within the city, or within the state.

edit... just read this on Chatham's website, so I'm not crazy 😉

"Affiliations with approximately 500 clinical facilities provide the students with a variety of selections. A large portion of the affiliations are concentrated in the Western Pennsylvania area, but many are located throughout the United States. Some students have also had the opportunity to go abroad for a clinical experience. "

 

[FitnessDoc2012]

I think its absolutely ridiculous that PT schools don't give students a stipend if they make them relocate away from either the school proximity or their home proximity....we already pay a crazy high tuition, the clinical stipend should be built into that...every student should get a stipend of $2000 per clinical or something like that

 

[atstudent]

I think its absolutely ridiculous that PT schools don't give students a stipend if they make them relocate away from either the school proximity or their home proximity....we already pay a crazy high tuition, the clinical stipend should be built into that...every student should get a stipend of $2000 per clinical or something like that

Sorry but I have to laugh. You aren't the only ones who have to travel for internships. I spent last summer in Wisconsin (6 hours from home) for 7 weeks. Luckily for me, I was able to find a paid internship that included room and board as well as a stipend. But that's pretty rare. I still lost money after having to pay tuition to my school.

I know a lot of people in a lot of fields who travel all over for internships. Many of them do not get a stipend.. don't you just love free labor?

 

[DPTgrad]

Oh yes, I am of the understanding that most schools' affiliations are nearby, but there are also affiliations across the country. With our program there is a lottery and your order becomes flip flopped your second time around choosing for clinicals so everyone has a chance at being close to the top of the list.

The other dimension which I am not sure is the same everywhere is that out of four 8 week rotations, you must do an acute, an outpatient, a rehab and the fourth is your choice. If you need acute for example, and your class mates have taken all the acute affils where you wanted to be, sorry about your luck, you have to go somewhere else if you want to meet all the requirements for graduation.

Again, that is my school, and you will have to do your research at your choices. Ask how it works, how do you choose, how do they choose who gets a rotation if someone else wants it, where are they, what are the requirements, etc. Asking is the only way to know for sure because they are all different.

 

[callmecrazy]

edit... just read this on Chatham's website, so I'm not crazy 😉

"Affiliations with approximately 500 clinical facilities provide the students with a variety of selections. A large portion of the affiliations are concentrated in the Western Pennsylvania area, but many are located throughout the United States. Some students have also had the opportunity to go abroad for a clinical experience. "

You may want to double check this with Chatham. Things may have changed since, but when I applied there they were requiring that you did a 7 week full-time clinical out of the area. They had even suggested starting to talk to family/friends out of state so you could pick a location where you could stay with someone for free/cheap. I never actually saw this requirement printed anywhere, but I talked to numerous faculty about it. Like I said though, maybe things have changed in the last few years.

 

[markelmarcel]

You may want to double check this with Chatham. Things may have changed since, but when I applied there they were requiring that you did a 7 week full-time clinical out of the area. They had even suggested starting to talk to family/friends out of state so you could pick a location where you could stay with someone for free/cheap. I never actually saw this requirement printed anywhere, but I talked to numerous faculty about it. Like I said though, maybe things have changed in the last few years.

Nope, didn't mention anything being "required" -- they only mentioned to me that they had sent someone to do a rotation where I did some of my shadowing with a family friend (about an hour outside of Pittsburgh no where near being "out of state"), and about a kid from Ohio that went to Ohio for a summer rotation, but they didn't say anything about it being required.

I'll have to find out for sure, but I mean, if I have to, I have to, ya know? Plus, I have a good friend in Texas I could always "vacation" to 😉

 

[KinesStudent]

Man, PT school just keeps getting more and more expensive. I'm looking at USA-San Marcos, so luckily there is a lot of opportunity in the area, but if I'm forced to go out of state for 7 weeks...man, that's going to be an expense.

Fly there? No rental car unless you shell out tons of money. Not to mention a lot of students are under 25 so that raises a car rental issue.

Hotel @ a modest $60 a night x 7 weeks x 7 days = Around 3k
Can you cook in the hotel if not gotta eat out.. = 1k (if you eat crap)
Flight there and back - 500 if your lucky...

Probably come out to an extra 5k per distance clinical...

Someone please tell me I am wrong.

 

[Eforma]

Fly there? No rental car unless you shell out tons of money. Not to mention a lot of students are under 25 so that raises a car rental issue.

Hotel @ a modest $60 a night x 7 weeks x 7 days = Around 3k
Can you cook in the hotel if not gotta eat out.. = 1k (if you eat crap)
Flight there and back - 500 if your lucky...

Probably come out to an extra 5k per distance clinical...

Someone please tell me I am wrong.

Well..you can easily cut that in half depending on where you go.

First - Don't stay in a hotel -- find a place you can sublet -- odds are you're looking at a range of $400-$700/mth (again, HIGHLY depends on where you end up, but I guarantee this will be a cheaper option than staying in a hotel).
So this puts "rent" costs at $800-1400 for the 7 weeks. At the same time, try to sublet YOUR place/room and you might just break even there! Or even come out on top if you are doing your affiliation in a city w/ lower costs of living.

Second - now that you are subletting a place, yay for at home cooking! Saves you money right there.

Third - I find the $500 flight for there/back definitely arguable, as I know it's possible to fly cross-country for $300 if you are willing to take the lame flight times and you hunt for those tickets. Now, $500+ is definitely a reasonable estimate for travel expenses if you also take into consideration cost of traveling between your place of residence and the clinic.

So let's call housing at $1400, food at $600, and transportation costs at $500 -- so there ya go -- $2500 for the affiliation.

For fun, lets say that you are able to sublet your place for $400/month -- giving you $800 to balance. So that makes the cost of a distant affiliation at $1700, and then let's subtract the $600 for food (hey, you'll be eating no matter where right?) and another $100 for transportation (still gotta get around at your own school) -- this puts you at a net cost of $1000 for the distant affiliation for 7 weeks.

To ppl reading -- these numbers are completely pulled out of the air, and simply used to make the point that a distant affiliation does not need to drastically add to your cost of tuition/attendance.

Hope that gives you another perspective!

 

[KinesStudent]

Well..you can easily cut that in half depending on where you go.

First - Don't stay in a hotel -- find a place you can sublet -- odds are you're looking at a range of $400-$700/mth (again, HIGHLY depends on where you end up, but I guarantee this will be a cheaper option than staying in a hotel).
So this puts "rent" costs at $800-1400 for the 7 weeks. At the same time, try to sublet YOUR place/room and you might just break even there! Or even come out on top if you are doing your affiliation in a city w/ lower costs of living.

Second - now that you are subletting a place, yay for at home cooking! Saves you money right there.

Third - I find the $500 flight for there/back definitely arguable, as I know it's possible to fly cross-country for $300 if you are willing to take the lame flight times and you hunt for those tickets. Now, $500+ is definitely a reasonable estimate for travel expenses if you also take into consideration cost of traveling between your place of residence and the clinic.

Hope that gives you another perspective!

Thanks Eforma, you're legit!

 

[NoleGirl4DPT]

This is the way I've been thinking about it:

-Look for affils close to home....stay with your parents again...would suck, but no rent and home-cooked food!

-Look for affils near your undergrad. Then possibly stay with a friend who was a year behind you/taking a year off/still there. Or possibly try and get clinicals where your friends have moved after undergrad. Could sleep on their couch and toss some $$ their way to help out

-Look for affils in places where you have other friends attending PT school. A friend and I have already decided we were 'trading places' and attempting to go to clinicals near each other's respective grad schools and staying with each other.

-Also, look for clinicals near your extended family. I personally know my grandmother would flip if I spent 7 weeks with her. I'd probably go crazy but if I'm working, I would only be there to eat and sleep essentially.

That's the way I've been going about it. Whether it's realistic or not is a whole other story.

 

[markelmarcel]

Ah, crap. Just read on the Chatham DPT manual that one clinical outside of Southwestern PA is required.

Dang... Well, I guess I have some time to think about it... In the grand scheme I guess 10-12 weeks wouldn't be bad... Hopefully I wouldn't have to have my last 16-week clinical far away...

 

[pt2014mu]

sounds like another good use of this site to hook up people with other students to swap houses