Observation Hours

[jasonc]

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Just a few questions on observation hours.

1. From what I read, diversifying settings is a lot better than gaining a lot of hours at a location. However, how many hours do you all recommended in each setting?

2. Does it matter if different settings are under the same company/hospital? I work as a physical therapy aide for a hospital. I mainly do outpatient (1000 hours) but do acute care (50 hours) and subacute care (50 hours) here and there when needed.

3. Does it matter how many different locations you visit for a setting or will all the hours just be lumped into each setting? Like observing 3 different outpatient locations.

4. For specialty areas, is it required that the facility only see a certain population (pediatrics, geriatrics)? In our patient facility, a therapist mainly focuses on pediatrics. Will my hours working with that therapist count as specialty areas or just outpatient?

 

[Azimuthal]

Just a few questions on observation hours.

1. From what I read, diversifying settings is a lot better than gaining a lot of hours at a location. However, how many hours do you all recommended in each setting?

2. Does it matter if different settings are under the same company/hospital? I work as a physical therapy aide for a hospital. I mainly do outpatient (1000 hours) but do acute care (50 hours) and subacute care (50 hours) here and there when needed.

3. Does it matter how many different locations you visit for a setting or will all the hours just be lumped into each setting? Like observing 3 different outpatient locations.

4. For specialty areas, is it required that the facility only see a certain population (pediatrics, geriatrics)? In our patient facility, a therapist mainly focuses on pediatrics. Will my hours working with that therapist count as specialty areas or just outpatient?

1. Yes. Recommend 50+/ each. Different schools may have minimums for certain settings.
2. No. Do keep track of how many hours in each setting.
3. Three different outpatient settings would be logged separately, with three different therapists verifying your hours at each location.
4. If that is the case, technically you should be logging how many hours of peds/ ortho/ whatever. You will need this information to add into PTCAS. Or do what I suspect others have been doing and "guesstimate".

 

[nicolej5]

Just a few questions on observation hours.

1. From what I read, diversifying settings is a lot better than gaining a lot of hours at a location. However, how many hours do you all recommended in each setting?

2. Does it matter if different settings are under the same company/hospital? I work as a physical therapy aide for a hospital. I mainly do outpatient (1000 hours) but do acute care (50 hours) and subacute care (50 hours) here and there when needed.

3. Does it matter how many different locations you visit for a setting or will all the hours just be lumped into each setting? Like observing 3 different outpatient locations.

4. For specialty areas, is it required that the facility only see a certain population (pediatrics, geriatrics)? In our patient facility, a therapist mainly focuses on pediatrics. Will my hours working with that therapist count as specialty areas or just outpatient?

1. at least 50 imo
2. i would say that's fine but definitely try to branch out to different facilities if possible
3. yes 3 different outpatients will all still be classified as outpatient. they will just be listed separately on your observation hour listings on your ptcas application
4. you can really divide it how you want as long as the therapist that signs off agrees. For example, if the therapist spends 3 hours a day with kids, then you can count that as pediatrics. It would be outpatient pediatrics.

 

[Azimuthal]

Beat you by like 2 seconds Nicole, muahahahahaha...

 

[nicolej5]

Beat you by like 2 seconds Nicole, muahahahahaha...

Damn you!

 

[jasonc]

Thank you Azimuthal and nicolej5! Always extremely helpful in this forum.