Damn Am I Glad I Did A Lot of Shadowing

[Chevy Chase Fan]

Going into things, I was certain PT was perfect for me. And had I only shadowed for 40-60 hours, I think I would have gone onto PT school and realized it wasn't a good fit during my clinicals. With only 60 or so hours things are still somewhat exciting and fresh. Its when I started to get 3 or 4 times that much that I started to see its a job like anything else (albeit one with a very noble purpose) and not as great a fit for me as I had previously thought.

My point is that you should take the shadowing part of your application seriously. Don't just go through the motions and do the bare minimum. If I had had really strong grades in undergrad that's probably how I would've approached it (do as little as necessary b/c my grades will get me in anyway). Fortunately I didn't have the greatest grades so figured I'd make up for it with experience. Damn am I glad I got that experience. Otherwise I'd be headed down the seriously wrong road.

Not being critical of PT at all btw. Great profession for the right person. Just wanted to share my experience.

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[jess818]

i completely agree-although i had the exact opposite experience hah. i was really doubting myself but i was very very fortunate to be offered a job as a rehab tech so i get to see and do a lot first hand. it has really reinforced my love of the field

in my program, all that matters are the grades. they do not interview and they do not care if you have volunteer/work experience. a lot of kids with 4.0s who don't know what they want to do decide to apply and beat out other potential candidates who do not have such stellar grades. not surprisingly, many drop out/get kicked out and if they do make it through, they often hate what they're doing.

point is, volunteering/observing is hard to make yourself do butit is sooooooo important so that you can really make sure PT is for you. not everyone will be able to work in an outpatient sports facility and you have to be able to at least tolerate all of the other areas (if not love them all...well maybe not all ........)

 

[Chevy Chase Fan]

in my program, all that matters are the grades. they do not interview and they do not care if you have volunteer/work experience. a lot of kids with 4.0s who don't know what they want to do decide to apply and beat out other potential candidates who do not have such stellar grades. not surprisingly, many drop out/get kicked out and if they do make it through, they often hate what they're doing.

Man, that is a recipe for disaster. You're completely right, a lot of people that come to the end of undergrad with good grades end up just picking something without giving it a lot of thought. They should be forced to learn about it before even getting their app looked at. The fact is, in my experience, book smarts have very little to do with being a good PT. Being a good motivator, having patience, enjoying talking to people...I think these are the attributes of a good PT. I'm not a terribly effective motivator, and to be perfectly honest, I simply don't have the energy to spend so much time talking to people. My personality just isn't wired that way. I'm so relieved I realized this now.

 

[johncronejr]

So what are you going to do now Chevy?

 

[Chevy Chase Fan]

not sure man. I spent all summer taking AP I and II and am taking chem and physics right now. I'm getting good grades, so I think I might keep taking classes and apply a different health science program. i got some time to figure it out I guess.

 

[johncronejr]

depending on how far along you are, Pharmacy takes about 6 years. @ years of prereqs and 4 years of pharm school. I talked to a professor the other day who is the pre-pharm club sponsor and he was telling me that some new pharm grads he talked to were starting out at approx. $110,000 a year.

Sounds like a pretty good deal if you don't mind being behind a counter all day. I wish you luck.

 

[Chevy Chase Fan]

Yeah, the money is tempting, although I just don't find the idea of pharmacy all that interesting. Then again, I don't have any experience with pharmacy, so that's a little unfair.

 

[jesspt]

Being a good motivator, having patience, enjoying talking to people...I think these are the attributes of a good PT. I'm not a terribly effective motivator, and to be perfectly honest, I simply don't have the energy to spend so much time talking to people. My personality just isn't wired that way. I'm so relieved I realized this now.

I'm not sure why you think that being a "motivator" is the primary and most essentially quality that a good therapist posseses. I have been practicing for 12 years adn certainlyh wouldn't qualify myself primarily as a motivator. A clinician-scientist, educator and patient advocate, definately. But I don't spend all day giving my patients pep-talks. Patients improve when they become empowered, and that doens't happen by convincing them that they can help themselves. It happens by educating the patient, showing them how they can reduced their own symptoms, and providing the occasional "boost" to their own efforts with appropriately applied manual therapy.

Chevy, if you have primarily observed therapists who seem to primarly trying to "motivate" rather than treat their patients, I'd recommend you do some more observation. It doesn't sound to me like you've actually seen physical therapy.

I have posted this other places, but will post it here again. It is a site that will let you search for board certified clinical specialsts for a number of clinical areas. These therapist are among the best clinicians our profession has to offer and you are far more likely to get an idea of what good physical therapy can be observing one of these PTs.

http://www.apta.org/AM/Template.cfm.../aptaapps/speccertdirectory/selectccsform.cfm

 

[markelmarcel]

Patients improve when they become empowered, and that doens't happen by convincing them that they can help themselves. It happens by educating the patient, showing them how they can reduced their own symptoms, and providing the occasional "boost" to their own efforts with appropriately applied manual therapy.

What you explained to me is motivation. Motivation can be intrinsic or extrinsic. I believe that great PTs educate their patient and can instill that "empowerment" that you talk about instrincially. The patient then does not rely on "pep talks" from a PT, but due to what the PT has shown them and how it was presented they are self-motivated to improve... Just because you are not being a cheerleader with pom poms, doesn't mean you aren't being a motivator!

 

[jesspt]

True, but the vibe I got from the original poster was that he felt that PTs were primarily "motivator" in the traditional sense. My goal was to highlight that patients are empowered a great deal by education, and not by "you can do it" and "great job", etc.

 

[markelmarcel]

True, but the vibe I got from the original poster was that he felt that PTs were primarily "motivator" in the traditional sense. My goal was to highlight that patients are empowered a great deal by education, and not by "you can do it" and "great job", etc.

Most definitely!! I agree!

OP- it's true- motivation comes in many forms other than cheerleading.

 

[jbizzle]

OP- you figured out what your going to do yet?

I had a little bit of this when I was volunteering at outpatient. I only volunteerd for 23 hours at an orthopedic & sports PT clinic and I was starting to get bored just by watching the same treatments over and over (ROM then Estim, see you tomorrow and repeat). Granted all I was allowed to do was observe, clean the equipment, doing the laundry, getting ice packs. They did have aquatic therapy, but I wasn't allowed to observe that, idk why, company policy I guess.

Then I went to in-patient acute rehab and it turned around for me then. The first day volunteering, the first day, I was hooked. I had about 70 hrs of volunteer work in acute and I still liked it. From pediatrics to elderly patients with dementia that are scared of falling. Even the ocassional wound care therapy (which btw is the most interesting to me), and the neuro patients.

How many hours were you talking about OP/ Were you doing like 40 hrs a week?

 

[Chevy Chase Fan]

Jess, whether or not you think I've "actually seen physical therapy", the fact remains that people should do a lot of shadowing before they commit themselves to PT. That was the point of the thread.

Jbizzle, I probably have 150ish hours. That's been spread over a six month period of a few hours a week.

 

[jbizzle]

This is the reason why there are observation hour requirements.

 

[jesspt]

Maybe you have "seen physical therapy." I took a bit of an exception to the "Being a good motivator, having patience, enjoying talking to people..." portion of your second post, since I think these qualities are not the primary attributes of a good therapist. Our/my profession is too full of PTs who consider themselves primarily as cheerleaders rather than health care professionals. However, if you feel you have observed high quality physical therapy in a variety of settings, then you have made the correct decision in pursuing another career.

And of course, potential students, and the profession as a whole ,are better served when students are certain they are committed to the upcoming academic rigor and the pursuit of lifelong learning that comes after it.

 

[Chevy Chase Fan]

This is the reason why there are observation hour requirements.

yes, and some schools have very modest requirements. For students with top grades, it seems to matter even less.