Hours- PT

[jeremyishere]

I am a newbie. Can someone tell me a bit about observation hours? How do I go about getting them around LA? Also, how do I record the hours for purposes of applying for schools?

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[futureDPT1203]

What I did was I looked up local PT clinics around my area. I would call them and tell them that I am a pre-PT student and would like to know if they had any opportunities to observe physical therapists. You could also go to the clinic in person. In terms of inpatient, look up skilled nursing facilities and/or rehabilitation hospitals. A lot of them won't call back and/or already have someone, but if you're persistent, you will find somewhere! There's also hospital programs like the Clinical Care Extender program. I completed a majority of my hours through the CCE program in West Covina. You can do inpatient and outpatient hours there.

If you're looking for a job, you can try to find a PT Aide job. These count as PT observation hours and you get paid as well, so that's an added bonus.

Regarding recording hours, the places I went to had a paper that I signed in and out of. You could also get a copy for your reference at the end of your volunteering. When it was time to apply, I emailed the PT that was in charge, and asked them to verify my hours on PTCAS. PTCAS sends them an email and they verify that you completed that many hours.

 

[DesertPT]

I just typed this in response to a different thread like 10 minutes ago, so I'll just copy and past it here for your convenience:

There are lots of threads that discuss this topic, but basically outpatient hours are relatively easily obtained by simply calling clinics and asking to be an observer. If any PTs who treated you in the past would remember you (or even if they wouldn't) that would be a good place to start (assuming you are still in the area). Try to split those outpatient hours up among more than one place (eg. do 30 or 40 at a peds clinic and/or another 30 or 40 at a standard outpatient ortho clinic and/or another 30 or 40 at a hand therapy clinic that has a PT (not an OT!), rather than like 100 hours in one clinic). Inpatient hours are much more difficult to setup in general. Inpatient hours in SNF's and some rehab facilities can be a bit easier to get into, in some cases, but can still take several weeks to successfully get started. Acute care hospital hours are the most involved to get into and generally allow the smallest number of hours, but having acute care hours is a huge boon to your application as PT adcoms really like to see them. Start working on getting inpatient hours early (like 6 months or more before you plan to apply). I waited til a couple of months before application submission time to start trying to set up acute care hours, and while it ended up working out, it was very stressful waiting for people who never reply to emails and jumping through hoops for two months before I could even start. Ultimately, if you could do something like 30 or 40 hours in a rehab facility or SNF and 20 hours in the acute care hospital setting that would be ideal. Having hundreds of hours can be good, but is only worth doing if you are working as a PT tech anyway and getting paid for it. Maximizing the variety of your observation experiences is much more important than increasing your total number of hours. Breadth is valued much, much, much more than depth in the admissions process. And GPA and GRE scores will always be the two biggest criteria, so remember not to let your grades slip in the name of doing lots of observation hours. How many hours you do a week or how you get the hours done chronologically is irrelevant, the number of hours you ultimately have when you apply and the number of different settings you have seen is what matters, not your weekly time commitment.

 

[DesertPT]

Also, if you go to the advanced search feature, specify that you want to search in the PT forums, and type "observation hours" in the search field, you will get dozens of threads that have already answered this question. Just FYI.

 

[jeremyishere]

What I did was I looked up local PT clinics around my area. I would call them and tell them that I am a pre-PT student and would like to know if they had any opportunities to observe physical therapists. You could also go to the clinic in person. In terms of inpatient, look up skilled nursing facilities and/or rehabilitation hospitals. A lot of them won't call back and/or already have someone, but if you're persistent, you will find somewhere! There's also hospital programs like the Clinical Care Extender program. I completed a majority of my hours through the CCE program in West Covina. You can do inpatient and outpatient hours there.

If you're looking for a job, you can try to find a PT Aide job. These count as PT observation hours and you get paid as well, so that's an added bonus.

Regarding recording hours, the places I went to had a paper that I signed in and out of. You could also get a copy for your reference at the end of your volunteering. When it was time to apply, I emailed the PT that was in charge, and asked them to verify my hours on PTCAS. PTCAS sends them an email and they verify that you completed that many hours.

Thanks for sharing that info much appreciated. What's clinical Care Extender? How many hours did you have before applying to PT School?

 

[jeremyishere]

I just typed this in response to a different thread like 10 minutes ago, so I'll just copy and past it here for your convenience:

There are lots of threads that discuss this topic, but basically outpatient hours are relatively easily obtained by simply calling clinics and asking to be an observer. If any PTs who treated you in the past would remember you (or even if they wouldn't) that would be a good place to start (assuming you are still in the area). Try to split those outpatient hours up among more than one place (eg. do 30 or 40 at a peds clinic and/or another 30 or 40 at a standard outpatient ortho clinic and/or another 30 or 40 at a hand therapy clinic that has a PT (not an OT!), rather than like 100 hours in one clinic). Inpatient hours are much more difficult to setup in general. Inpatient hours in SNF's and some rehab facilities can be a bit easier to get into, in some cases, but can still take several weeks to successfully get started. Acute care hospital hours are the most involved to get into and generally allow the smallest number of hours, but having acute care hours is a huge boon to your application as PT adcoms really like to see them. Start working on getting inpatient hours early (like 6 months or more before you plan to apply). I waited til a couple of months before application submission time to start trying to set up acute care hours, and while it ended up working out, it was very stressful waiting for people who never reply to emails and jumping through hoops for two months before I could even start. Ultimately, if you could do something like 30 or 40 hours in a rehab facility or SNF and 20 hours in the acute care hospital setting that would be ideal. Having hundreds of hours can be good, but is only worth doing if you are working as a PT tech anyway and getting paid for it. Maximizing the variety of your observation experiences is much more important than increasing your total number of hours. Breadth is valued much, much, much more than depth in the admissions process. And GPA and GRE scores will always be the two biggest criteria, so remember not to let your grades slip in the name of doing lots of observation hours. How many hours you do a week or how you get the hours done chronologically is irrelevant, the number of hours you ultimately have when you apply and the number of different settings you have seen is what matters, not your weekly time commitment.

Thanks for the detailed response. Did you learn a lot during the observation hours? Also, what other things would you have done differently in regards to your whole experience before applying to school?

 

[jeremyishere]

Also, if you go to the advanced search feature, specify that you want to search in the PT forums, and type "observation hours" in the search field, you will get dozens of threads that have already answered this question. Just FYI.

Thanks

 

[DesertPT]

Thanks for the detailed response. Did you learn a lot during the observation hours? Also, what other things would you have done differently in regards to your whole experience before applying to school?

Hmm I guess if I had it to do over again I would have mentioned the possibility of doing a LOR to the PT at the beginning of the shadowing experience so they might have more things to say about me in mind by the end of it. And like I said, start working on setting up those acute care hours early cuz they can be a pain. And study hard for the GRE and get straight A's.

 

[BAKE84]

I didn't have any inpatient observation hours and applied to many schools; hasn't seem to hurt my chances as far as interview invites and acceptances but I definitely tried to get a variety! I have seen outpatient, home health and horse therapy but didn't luck out with any inpatient. I agree that you should make it a priority early to do so because I waited rather late to initiate it; some schools require a certain amount of inpatient hours so make sure to check out the observation hour requirements at any school you intend to apply to! @jeremyishere, @knj27 makes a great point; maintain a good GPA towards the end of your college experience and study up for that GRE (you don't want to take it too many times to meet minimum requirements!) I have learned a lot shadowing, and even became a PT tech at an outpatient clinic I observed at.. so there are many opportunities for advancement and learning!