How/Where to find volunteer work?

[FineGentleman]

I am currently a senior in high school with a lot of free time. Help me out, please. I am pretty clueless.

Should I go into hospitals and ask to work under their physical therapist?
Or are there clinics made specifically for physical therapy?
Is there some kind of online application to fill out?
How can I get proof that I volunteered there so I can add that to my grad school app?

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[okramango]

I am currently a senior in high school with a lot of free time. Help me out, please. I am pretty clueless.

Should I go into hospitals and ask to work under their physical therapist?
Or are there clinics made specifically for physical therapy?
Is there some kind of online application to fill out?
How can I get proof that I volunteered there so I can add that to my grad school app?

Physical Therapists work in hospitals, usually in the "Rehab Department", and they also work in independent clinics devoted to physical therapy. Usually, it's easier and faster to find an observation position at an independent clinic. Just google "physical therapy clinic" for your area and find the ones that are closest to you. You can call them to let them know you are a student interested in going into physical therapy, and wanted to see if you could observe physical therapists in the clinic as well volunteer to help out. This would probably get you a position within a few calls. It's harder and usually takes longer to get a position in a hospital, but most PT schools require hospital observation (they call this "inpatient" experience). You can either try to contact the hospital's Volunteer Department to ask if you can observe PT and volunteer, or you can try to contact the hospital's Rehab Department directly, and ask if you can observe PT. I recommend trying to contact the department directly, as it seems to be a quicker way to get a position.

Once you find a position, make sure to keep track of your own hours, and keep in touch with the PTs that you work with. When it comes time to apply to PT school, your supervising PTs will be asked to verify your hours through an online application form.

Good luck!

 

[FineGentleman]

physical therapists work in hospitals, usually in the "rehab department", and they also work in independent clinics devoted to physical therapy. Usually, it's easier and faster to find an observation position at an independent clinic. Just google "physical therapy clinic" for your area and find the ones that are closest to you. You can call them to let them know you are a student interested in going into physical therapy, and wanted to see if you could observe physical therapists in the clinic as well volunteer to help out. This would probably get you a position within a few calls. It's harder and usually takes longer to get a position in a hospital, but most pt schools require hospital observation (they call this "inpatient" experience). You can either try to contact the hospital's volunteer department to ask if you can observe pt and volunteer, or you can try to contact the hospital's rehab department directly, and ask if you can observe pt. I recommend trying to contact the department directly, as it seems to be a quicker way to get a position.

Once you find a position, make sure to keep track of your own hours, and keep in touch with the pts that you work with. When it comes time to apply to pt school, your supervising pts will be asked to verify your hours through an online application form.

Good luck!

thank you!

 

[Lucky Duck]

Physical Therapists work in hospitals, usually in the "Rehab Department", and they also work in independent clinics devoted to physical therapy. Usually, it's easier and faster to find an observation position at an independent clinic. Just google "physical therapy clinic" for your area and find the ones that are closest to you. You can call them to let them know you are a student interested in going into physical therapy, and wanted to see if you could observe physical therapists in the clinic as well volunteer to help out. This would probably get you a position within a few calls. It's harder and usually takes longer to get a position in a hospital, but most PT schools require hospital observation (they call this "inpatient" experience). You can either try to contact the hospital's Volunteer Department to ask if you can observe PT and volunteer, or you can try to contact the hospital's Rehab Department directly, and ask if you can observe PT. I recommend trying to contact the department directly, as it seems to be a quicker way to get a position.

Once you find a position, make sure to keep track of your own hours, and keep in touch with the PTs that you work with. When it comes time to apply to PT school, your supervising PTs will be asked to verify your hours through an online application form.

Good luck!

Just to clarify a point so FineGentleman doesn't get confused. Hospitals can also have outpatient clinics. Also at rural hospitals it is not uncommon for therapists to work in outpatient and inpatient.

Where I'm from it seems like setting up observations at private clinics is more difficult than at hospitals. One guy that volunteered where I work said he called all over town asking to observe or volunteer and kept on being told that they "really didn't do that".

 

[schnell8]

Its good that your asking questions about this now while your just coming out of high school...Students don't find out about this stuff until there are into college a good year or two...

Don't forget to check out nursing homes! They have a physical therapy 'department' as well...You will want to get 100+ hours of observation time in...and you will want a diverse range of hours as well...For example, get at least 20 hours in at a hospital observing inpatient PT...then, get at least 20 hours in at a nursing home....then, outpatient....etc.. etc.. etc....PT schools will be looking for students with lots of hours from VARIOUS places....(various being the key word here!). It really is as simple as just walking in to a clinic/nursing home/hospital and just try to talk to whoever is in charge and they will tell you what to do to get you going with volunteering.

Also, I will tell you right now (here is where I am going to sound like a parent...haha), make sure you dominate in your studies!!! PT school is getting extremely competitive and if you want to have a choice in schools, your going to need at least a 3.5 GPA... I have probably an overall of a 3.3 (when you combine my community college with my university). I got verry lucky and got accepted to 2 out of 7 schools. So I know students come out of high school and usually want to party...thats fine, but just don't let it effect your studies if you really want to get into PT school...High school, you can get away with slacking off....Community College, you can get away with slacking off in half of your classes depending on the class.....University, you can get away with slacking in maybe a small handful of classes but the other 75% of classes, you better come prepared. lol Don't want to scare you but you need to really know how it is if you wanna get into PT school!! 🙂

If your undergrad has any kind of internship, try your hardest to get an internship at somewhere PT related...I was fortunate enough to get my senior internship at a hospital working for the PTs and OTs and I am a firm believer that that internship was a huge factor as to why I got into 2 schools...

Anyways, enough of the lecture...haha :-D Like I said, I don't want to scare you or anything but I just wanna give you a heads up because it is a tough road...It is definitely a reachable goal though but you just need to put in the hard work...if you want it bad enough, you will get it. 🙂 Good luck!!

 

[speedosrock1053]

I am currently a senior in high school with a lot of free time. Help me out, please. I am pretty clueless.

Should I go into hospitals and ask to work under their physical therapist?
Or are there clinics made specifically for physical therapy?
Is there some kind of online application to fill out?
How can I get proof that I volunteered there so I can add that to my grad school app?

Record the dates and hours that you observe. You can go to any clinic or hospital.Tell them that you're interested in the profession and that you'd like to get observational hours. Try to get at least 30 hours at each site.

You could get hired as a part time tech. Those hours count toward PT school.

Hope that helped, good luck!