Should I Diversify My Hours?

[kato3]

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Hello everyone! I've been lurking around this forum for almost 2 years now, and I finally will be applying this application cycle! I'm starting my inpatient observation at a hospital near UIC, and I should have a decent amount of hours before the PTCAS opens this July. My cGPA and pre-reqGPA are at around a 3.7, more or less. I just have a few questions I would like to ask for those who have been through the process:

1. Besides the inpatient hours I will be starting this week, I also have a total of around 80-90 hours of outpatient orthopedics observation in 2 different locations, one in a hopsital, and the other in a faculty practice ran by some of the faculty of UIC's DPT program. With those outpatient and inpatient hours, do you think that I should try to observe more settings before I apply? (neuro, cardiopulmonary, etc.)

2. I looked at the PTCAS site (http://www.ptcas.org/PTHours/), and under the PT setting, it only gives generalized categories for outpatient and inpatient. Are those the only identifications used when you're submitting your hours, or does the clinic have to clarify the outpatient settings? (Ex: identifying as neuro, orthopedics, etc.)

3. Is it possible to add more hours once you submit your PTCAS? I will possibly keep on volunteering/shadowing into the beginning of this upcoming semester.

Thank you!

 

[DesertPT]

what setting will be inpatient hours you are planning on doing as of now be in? I think having some hours in acute-care and some in a rehab setting is very beneficial. as for ptcas, i'm not sure why you think you have to only pick between inpatient and outpatient. If you follow the link that you posted you will see that when you enter your hours it will ask you to pick from a number of settings. The application also asks you what types of patient populations are you observed in that setting, so you can provide a pretty good amount of detail. And yes, it is possible to continue to add hours once you have submitted your application. The PTCAS instruction manual describes most of this pretty well, if you haven't read it yet I would advise you to do so.


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[kato3]

The inpatient hospital I will be shadowing will be acute-care for the most part. I did not notice that we are ones that need to type in the patient population we observed, so thanks for the heads up. I was debating whether I should arrange with a PT I met to observe cardiopulmonary and other settings, and whether I have the time or money (taking public transportation to the city 2 times a week isn't cheap haha), but I think it's best to have as diverse hours as I can before the application opens, right? I saw a sentence saying that some school may or may not consider updated hours if the applications are submitted already.

 

[Daniel M. Pitta]

Hello everyone! I've been lurking around this forum for almost 2 years now, and I finally will be applying this application cycle! I'm starting my inpatient observation at a hospital near UIC, and I should have a decent amount of hours before the PTCAS opens this July. My cGPA and pre-reqGPA are at around a 3.7, more or less. I just have a few questions I would like to ask for those who have been through the process:

1. Besides the inpatient hours I will be starting this week, I also have a total of around 80-90 hours of outpatient orthopedics observation in 2 different locations, one in a hopsital, and the other in a faculty practice ran by some of the faculty of UIC's DPT program. With those outpatient and inpatient hours, do you think that I should try to observe more settings before I apply? (neuro, cardiopulmonary, etc.)

2. I looked at the PTCAS site (http://www.ptcas.org/PTHours/), and under the PT setting, it only gives generalized categories for outpatient and inpatient. Are those the only identifications used when you're submitting your hours, or does the clinic have to clarify the outpatient settings? (Ex: identifying as neuro, orthopedics, etc.)

3. Is it possible to add more hours once you submit your PTCAS? I will possibly keep on volunteering/shadowing into the beginning of this upcoming semester.

Thank you!

You should be fine...a 3.7 GPA is strong and considered above-average for most programs (depending on state)...you should be good with the observational hours...you already have outpatient hours and you're getting acute-care inpatient hours which are probably the most important hours to get. How many inpatient hours are you planning to observe? If anything, I would look into getting some hours at a skilled nursing facility/nursing home, that should cover all of your bases. It depends on how willing you are to "work" for free. For some people, myself included, it's difficult to put aside several hours during the week where you're not making any money, because they have bills to pay. So your budget/income should be a deciding factor on how many hours you allocate to volunteering per week.

 

[DesertPT]

The inpatient hospital I will be shadowing will be acute-care for the most part. I did not notice that we are ones that need to type in the patient population we observed, so thanks for the heads up. I was debating whether I should arrange with a PT I met to observe cardiopulmonary and other settings, and whether I have the time or money (taking public transportation to the city 2 times a week isn't cheap haha), but I think it's best to have as diverse hours as I can before the application opens, right? I saw a sentence saying that some school may or may not consider updated hours if the applications are submitted already.

More diverse hours are always recommended, but be reasonable with what you are able to do without killing yourself. I think having met or (slightly) exceeded the school's required number of hours with those hours divided between 3-4 different specialties/settings is a good benchmark to hit. If you have just outpatient ortho and acute care I think that might be a little on the skimpy side of diversity but it may very well fly at your schools. As for updating hours after submitting PTCAS, you'll want to contact each of your school's admissions offices directly after you do so to make sure they actually see the update. Schools may have different policies in this regard as far as what counts too, so it's always good to check in. And my impression when I applied was that when I added more hours after e-submitting the schools did not automatically get updated about it. They made it sound like it was my responsibility to let them know and then they had to go in and manually pull the new version of my application. Not sure how accurate that is, but it was my experience. So it never hurts to call and check in with each school.

 

[kato3]

Thanks for your knowledge! I asked a PT today, and he said that the people I have been observing were either for outpatient neuro or inpatient acute care, which is great news! I was thinking that all the patients I have been observing were all from acute care haha. So if I were to submit my hours to PTCAS under the hospital I'm currently shadowing at, I would state that I observed both outpatient neuro and inpatient acute care, correct?

 

[DesertPT]

Thanks for your knowledge! I asked a PT today, and he said that the people I have been observing were either for outpatient neuro or inpatient acute care, which is great news! I was thinking that all the patients I have been observing were all from acute care haha. So if I were to submit my hours to PTCAS under the hospital I'm currently shadowing at, I would state that I observed both outpatient neuro and inpatient acute care, correct?

So are you saying you weren't aware that you were seeing both inpatients and outpatients? Hopefully you know the difference at this point.

You will definitely want your application to say you observed inpatient and outpatient. However, you will have to separate those hours out as you can only pick one setting for each experience. The PTCAS instruction manual explains all this.

 

[kato3]

So are you saying you weren't aware that you were seeing both inpatients and outpatients? Hopefully you know the difference at this point.

You will definitely want your application to say you observed inpatient and outpatient. However, you will have to separate those hours out as you can only pick one setting for each experience. The PTCAS instruction manual explains all this.

I am aware of the differences. I have only volunteered at the hospital 3 times so far, and I travel between the basement, where all the equipment is, and the top floor of the hospital, where all the acute care patients reside. Most of the acute care patients I saw the past 3 opportunities did their treatments in the basement, so I just assumed that all the patients I saw came from the top floor, but today I mainly saw outpatient neuro patients who previously had strokes or had their leg(s) amputated and did exercises with the prosthetics. I don't know if I'm allowed to shadow the other settings, but in the basement, there's are rooms reserved for wound care and pediatrics, so hopefully I can get the approval to observe even for a hour or two.