Timing of Clinical Experiences

[obikins]

---

Members don't see this ad.

As I am researching schools, I have noticed that the timing and length of clinical experiences varies greatly across campuses. For you students who are currently in DPT programs, how do you feel about the spacing of your clinical experience? Were short-term, early experiences within the first year helpful? Is it more beneficial to attend a school where clinical experiences are held off until the end?

If you could list when your clinical experiences were and how they went, that would be really helpful. I'm currently trying my second time to apply to schools and I am really scrutinizing the schools I'm looking at right now...thank you in advance for all your help and your advice.

 

[goyo1010]

I think how TWU set up their clinical experiences for students went very well. We had short, half-day clinicals our Semester 2 of PT school, which exposed us to various hospital and clinic settings. Then, in Semester 4 (Fall) we had our first full-time (6-week) acute care rotation. Semester 6 (Summer) was orthopedic or neuro and Semester 7 was whatever we didn't do Semester 7 (neuro if we did ortho semester 6, or vice versa). Finally, our 12-week internship during Semester 8 (Spring) was in anything we were interested in.

• Acute care: Ben Taub General Hospital, went very well and learned a lot here. Spent 5 weeks in acute care and 1 week in inpatient/outpatient wound care.
• Ortho: Quentin Mease Community Hospital, also went very well. Outpatient. Learned a lot of manual techniques here, and therex. Lots of pain science integrated. Lots of chronic pain patients as well as underserved population. Some sports. 7 weeks
• Neuro: Nexus Touchstone Neurorecovery Center, went superbly (my favorite). Mostly post-acute brain injury (stroke, TBI, anoxic BI, etc, but some SCI, as well). No NDT, all MC/ML framework.
• Internship: Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital, went well. Full-time research intern under Dr. Judith Burnfield.

 

[jchen707]

I go to Emory and our clinicals are in the middle of the curriculum and the final two semesters (fall and spring of 3rd year) are electives and research. We have 3 2-week clinicals and 3 10-week clinicals. we start in the summer, and by semester 3 (spring) we do a 2 week at the end of the semester in acute care. Semester 4 (summer, 2nd year) we do a 2-week clinical at the end of the semester in ortho, and semester 5 (fall) we do a 2 week clinical in peds or neuro/rehab. In semester 5, early, we also pick our 10 week rotations. These will last semester 6-7 (jan - august 2nd/3rd year). they are 10 weeks in length and are back to back. we get 1 week off in between each one for travel (and we've had classmates go from atlanta to as far as hawai'i this year). It's nice to have them in the middle i think, since our clinicals are all over the country, and this makes planning for travel and housing easier because we know we don't need to come back to school in those 8 months so we can try to pick our rotations around that.

My 10 week rotations are:

Champion PT - Cumming, Ga: ortho/sports rotation. it was a great work environment, awesome place to work, and learned a lot of manual and about dry needling.
AnMed health rehab (healthsouth comp) - Anderson, SC: not a great work environment, and not a great professional atmosphere (if you're interested in this site, you can PM me for details, and it wasn't for lack of effort on my part.... did very well grade wise).... but i did learn a lot of NDT facilitation which was nice.
Tufts Medical - Boston, Ma: Acute care, about to start tomorrow. so if you want details, PM me and i can answer as my rotation goes along.

I did an acute 2 week in Oconee medical, SC, ortho 2 week at Concentra Marietta, Ga, and a neuro 2 week at North Fulton Regional, Roswell, Ga.

Hope this helps