Digi-sign Professional Physical Therapy Made Easy

Digi sign professional physical therapy

my name is Megan I'm a physical therapist I own a clinic in brown City and I spend my day seeing patients I've always liked exercise sports movement and wasn't really sure what I wanted to do and I knew I didn't really want to be a nurse I didn't really like the hospital setting so I found this career and I've I liked it my day includes a lot of different things I work with people most the day but the other big part of my job is paperwork so in order to get paid for services there's a lot of paperwork that goes along with it writing what you do with people and sending things to insurance companies or organizing things that way so half of it with people on the other half with office type work favorite fire is being up and moving working with people doing exercise type stuff or movement definitely least favorite part is the paper some days when I have a lot of new people I spend a lot more time doing paperwork but on an average day when you're just seeing people after they've been evaluated I see a lot of patience so I spend maybe three quarters seen patients and a quarter doing paperwork a good thing about it it's a variety type job so you could be on your feet for a little bit you could sit for a little bit you could be at your desk for a little bit you're working with your hands you're moving so I feel like the variety of things make it so it's a tolerable job I'm not doing the same repetitive motion all day long and you see a lot of variety of people so you know one minute I might be showing somebody exercise for my arm but the next thing I might be showing exercises for the leg and I feel like that helps balance out the day so I don't I mean I don't go home hurting or anything physical therapy I feel like can be described a lot of different ways but three things that I think of when I think of therapy are like movement function and pain so we primarily see people for because they're having trouble doing something so if I have a hard time walking whether it's because I have pain or weakness or stiffness there's a lot of reasons why someone can't do something so we can see people for a lot of different reasons but we're usually see them because they're having a hard time doing something whether it's participating in sport or reaching in a cupboard or rolling over in bed so we see people usually for a movement dysfunctions or things that affect their normal activity because of that like there's a wide range of patients that can be seen so like you can receive like if babies have developmental delay or different reasons why they're not moving or doing things like they're supposed to be all the way up until 100 year old people who want to be able to walk still so there's a wide range of people and there's a wide variety of type of things you would see anywhere from like people who've had maybe amputations or people have had surgery or just because you have pain or lots of different things which makes it fun that's the cool thing about physical therapy you see a wide variety of people one of the things about therapy now that they have as you can get specialized in certain things so my specialty is orthopedics so in general things that would come into an outpatient orthopedic clinic are like orthopedic type things whether it's sports related or a knee joint or a back or shoulder joint something like that but that doesn't mean that I'm not skilled in seeing somebody who's had a stroke or kids like kids can pediatrics so you can specialize in something but you also can see a wide variety of people in a rural setting like Brown City you get a lot of different things which makes it fun that it mixes things up so that's the other good thing about the profession is there's a lot of different places that you can work so outpatient clinic is one so being at a facility out like in an office building the other place is like home care so you can travel to people's houses to see people people who can't get out to see you you go see them you can work in the hospital so you can work in like all different places too you can work in the intensive care you can work on a regular orthopedic floor or cardiac floor any different floor of the hospital you'll see physical therapists you can work in rehab centers nursing homes schools schools especially big schools they'll have their own physical therapist on staff but for like brown city there's physical therapists that work for different counties that go from different schools to help kids that need help so you could do a lot of different things with this job there are physical therapists that work for professional sports teams college sports teams you definitely could get a job in just the sports setting so that's the thing about it - if you work in a general setting you can see a lot of different things but if you have a passion for kids or if you have a passion for sports you can get into a very specialized job working just just with that specific people group I guess there's a lot of different ways you can help somebody so some of the things we do are hands-on so whether it's stretching someone shoulder and stretching them through motions or touching them mobilizing their joint so doing joint low blows type stuff some of the things we do our exercise so if we're working on stretching or strengthening obviously having the patient go through stuff and show them different movements that's helpful we have modalities which is like alternative things that can help ease people's pain like a hot pack or a cold pack or electrical stimulation to get a muscle working so those are considered modalities patient education is considered something that we do so teach people like well why do we hurt and how can we help that how can we move better movement quality safety so there's a whole bunch of things on how to help prevent Falls so teaching people stuff there's a lot of different ways that could look I guess I used to work in the hospital on weekends and there are some patients that are need a lot more help and it wouldn't you know I'm not physically able to lift a ton of weight but it's not impossible because there's other people you don't necessarily go by yourself you you grab a nurse aide or you grab another physical therapist or an assistant so you're working in teams and if the patient is you know having a really hard time there's mechanical lifts and all different kinds of things to help people move so it's definitely not impossible to regardless of your size when it comes to like personality I'm an introvert I don't necessarily love huge crowds of people or getting up in front of a room full of people always but I feel like regardless of your personality it's good suit people because because I'm an introvert like I work with people one-on-one I'm not like standing up in front of a bunch of people you know so working with people all day is and isn't a huge deal and where we're at it's super laid-back people are usually fun physical therapists are usually funny fun people relaxed they usually like sports type stuff you don't have to but typically we're not like I don't know it's not like a competitive I mean it as a competitive program but we're always very physical therapists I feel like are helpful people so it's just pretty low-key and pretty fun even other clinics that I've worked at I've always had a great time and I still am friends with my past coworkers the one of the reasons I got into this actually was I went and did a job shadow so when I was in college when my classes required me and I didn't even think of this before but it was super help well they had me going Job Shadow and I'm like well that sounds like a interesting job so I went to a therapy clinic and that's where you got to kind of see like you're in it I would just recommend going to different settings because one job doesn't necessarily look the same as another so like if what if whatever job if you're interested in engineering what does that even look like well obviously there's a whole bunch of different kinds of Engineers and all their jobs could look different so when you get out there and see people are usually really helpful with students just ask sixth stop in and observe that's usually welcomed and I feel like it gives you a better idea of whether or not you think that you would be a good fit for it to be a physical therapist you it's a doctorate degree so it can take you seven to eight years of schooling and to be a physical therapist assistant its associate's degree so depending on the program that you're in they're usually like two to three years you do have to get higher grades though to be in a healthcare field in general so whether you're going for a nurse or a doctor or a physical therapist or a dentist there tend to be competitive programs which means you have to stay on top of your stuff because there's a lot of people that apply so there's like a whole application process so you have to want to do it I feel like to do it but it doesn't mean anybody can so the great thing about school is sometimes people feel intimidated but there are tutors and counselors and teachers that are great professors that are willing to work with you to if you want to do it you can the beginning is a lot of book work you have to memorize like all your muscles all your bones all your nerves those are ways you can prepare if you like the health field those are kind of things you can start looking at and practicing flashcards there's a ton of anatomy apps so the first part you have to understand what's in the body how it works and then after that you can start with application stuff with just a lot of hands-on labs movements it's fun school is expensive in general there's a lot of better ways I feel like you can go about College whether it's scholarships or having a job during college or you know to try to not take out that there's ways to be smart about financially about this job but obviously depending on how long you go to school for so an assistant isn't as long isn't as costly as a physical therapist but to be a physical therapist it's a long-term investment you have to have a license to be an assistant or a therapist and so when you're done with the program and you pass not only the book portion but the clinical portion which is like the on the site like an internship I guess when you pass both of those parts you I have to take a test that's by per state so each state has certain rules and you take that that state exam and they give you your license you have to be able to pass that so if you don't they won't give you a license but again there's a lot of ways that they work with you to get you prepared for that in the healthcare field you have to continue to learn so I have to take so many courses every year to keep up my license this can be done online in person but you have to keep learning to keep up to date and it is requirement if you're gonna be a physical therapist and you want to commit seven seven years of schooling for that or eight years making sure that that's what you like going out and getting exposed to stuff I feel like that's helpful if you aren't sure but you actually like the profession if you're not sure if you can do it I would encourage you to go for it I just feel like there's a lot of help out there that sometimes we don't realize and knowing that we can ask for help it's great and like if you're interested in even just checking out the field stop in we can show you around or be willing to go to a hospital there's a lot of places that you can go that people are willing to help you even if you're just looking to observe I felt like in high school they made it seem really intimidating to go to college and I that's what I keep saying that there are a lot of resources to help people and I don't want it to be an intimidating process because I felt like that my freshman year my parents didn't go to college and I was like one of the first in our family to go besides my brother and I just didn't really know that process and it was really confusing to me and I was shy and that council I just felt like I didn't know what was happening so I would just tell people reach out because there's a ton of resources and I don't think it has to be as intimidating as you might think to get into a program whether you want to be an assistant or a physical therapist you have to observe in different settings for so many hours so if you're interested in getting in the field like look into the requirements that it takes because even when you're taking like your beginner classes or college classes like you could be taking ones that both fulfill the requirement to get into a program and are your basic college classes so like looking at see what the college requires which you can just call up or look at their website to see you have to like to learn so this job is always changing medical field in general your learning new stuff learning better ways to help people so if you're not interested in keeping up-to-date unstuff and keep learning like and you just enjoy learning I feel like I wouldn't go into a health care type field so in a job where you see sadness or people having a hard time with things like you have to be okay with that and being able to be bright and helpful regardless so I just know sometimes it brings people down when they see other people hurting so maybe that would be not a great thing if your logical and you like problem-solving physical therapy is a good job because a lot of times you do that especially in an outpatient setting but there's many parts of this job that you care for people in being compassionate and being willing to help people even though every day you're seeing people you know that are having trouble you can still go in the next day and have a open heart and like care about these people I feel like that's important a scale of 0 to 10 how much do you regret being a PT weight zero as I regret or as I don't regret I'll give it a one in on either scale nothing I regret it but I don't know you can't give some on dirt I don't know coffee coffee why not milk chocolate outside I don't I don't really like to sit still that long aquatic therapy do you know how to swim you don't see a bull in your dad would you rather be chased by a bear that can fly or a shark that can run here that can fly or sharks that can run bear only because I like fuzzy animals better