Observation

[afoz90]

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I currently am a PT aide in an outpatient clinic, I work almost full time while going to school full time. I have beyond 200 hours through this. I have very few SNF, Acute etc...it's nearly impossible to get and it's soo frustrating!! I know that for my application to be more competitive I need various settings rather than a lot of hours in just one...any suggestions on how to successfully get my foot in the door at other settings even for just 2 hours!! Haha feel like I've tried everything and just have no luck!

And would it decrease my chances if I have a lot in outpatient but say I only get 5 hours in other settings, will that hurt me?

Thanks!

 

[nicolej5]

it won't hurt you to only have 5 hours. That's because it's better than 0 lol. But it is hard to get acute hours and the only reason I was able too was that I started my sophomore year of college and got about 48. Schools prefer you to have acute, but they are aware how hard it is these days with schools being so competitive and everyone and their mother wants to observe there. Knock em dead with your letters, GRE, GPA and essays.

 

[greco13]

I currently am a PT aide in an outpatient clinic, I work almost full time while going to school full time. I have beyond 200 hours through this. I have very few SNF, Acute etc...it's nearly impossible to get and it's soo frustrating!! I know that for my application to be more competitive I need various settings rather than a lot of hours in just one...any suggestions on how to successfully get my foot in the door at other settings even for just 2 hours!! Haha feel like I've tried everything and just have no luck!

And would it decrease my chances if I have a lot in outpatient but say I only get 5 hours in other settings, will that hurt me?

Thanks!

I found it best to contact the PTs directly whenever possible. Try to avoid management / volunteer services initially. This way when you get the thumbs up from the PT you can copy them to the email to management / volunteer services and put some fire under their butt to let you in the door.

 

[markelmarcel]

I found it best to contact the PTs directly whenever possible. Try to avoid management / volunteer services initially. This way when you get the thumbs up from the PT you can copy them to the email to management / volunteer services and put some fire under their butt to let you in the door.

I agree. I don't remember how I got the PT's email, but I did and emailed her, she let me come in and then assigned me with a person I could follow around. I only had about 2 days worth of acute care, and only about 113 hours total and I got accepted at 2 schools and waitlisted at 1 (because my GRE was too low) and didn't get declined at any.

 

[djb051]

I currently am a PT aide in an outpatient clinic, I work almost full time while going to school full time. I have beyond 200 hours through this. I have very few SNF, Acute etc...it's nearly impossible to get and it's soo frustrating!! I know that for my application to be more competitive I need various settings rather than a lot of hours in just one...any suggestions on how to successfully get my foot in the door at other settings even for just 2 hours!! Haha feel like I've tried everything and just have no luck!

And would it decrease my chances if I have a lot in outpatient but say I only get 5 hours in other settings, will that hurt me?

Thanks!

You are not the only one having trouble with that. I know many many people who had trouble finding acute hours, and I also know a lot of people who had no acute hours at all when they applied. I am sure that schools are aware that it is much harder now to get acute hours. I was able to get 12 hours of acute, and I stopped there. The lady had told me that they have so many people wanting to observe that they can't give one person more than like 15 hours in acute. I won't do anymore acute, but I will have two other different settings for a total of 3 different settings to put on the application. My advice though is just to keep at it. If you do, you will be more likely to find something.

 

[LadyCard05]

I found it best to contact the PTs directly whenever possible. Try to avoid management / volunteer services initially. This way when you get the thumbs up from the PT you can copy them to the email to management / volunteer services and put some fire under their butt to let you in the door.

I absolutely agree with greco. I also called hospital volunteer departments until I was blue in the face and NEVER got a call back. In my experience, the best thing to do is ask your PT co-workers if they know any acute care PTs that you can contact directly. At least in Kentucky I know that the PT community is pretty close knit, so just use the resources/networks that are available to you to get what you need. Odds are if the PTs you work with don't know of any specific acute care PTs, they can put you in touch with someone who can. Best of luck! I also went into it having almost exclusively outpatient ortho experience. Acute care is an ENTIRELY different ball game!

 

[djb051]

I agree with ladycard05. I got into 2 of my 3 settings from connections, acute included. I had a few other people offer other settings as well, but I couldn't do the others because of time constraints. You may be surprised though how many people you know know someone that is a PT or that can put you in touch with someone that can help you out. I was surprised by a few of mine.