Becoming a Physical Therapist

My boyfriend is a physical therapy assistant (PTA) and I was planning on going into physical therapy before I got distracted by my current research area, so I have a bit of info on this. First: the process of becoming a physical therapist is more akin to becoming a nurse or doctor than a massage therapist or athletic trainer. It requires a professional degree from an accredited school and you'll need to be licensed by the state you're practicing in. Becoming a PTA generally requires going through a two-year program. The upside is there is no bachelor's degree requirement and many of these programs can be found at community colleges, so the cost is not as much. The downside is you do not get to design treatment plans and are pretty much subject to whichever DPT is supervising you (you cannot treat without a supervising DPT). So if you have a PT that swears by ultrasound despite the fact it's a load of bullcrap, you'll have to perform ultrasound. A PT has more control over treatment plans, but the academic requirements are more difficult. It's like Med School Lite in terms of competitiveness, cost, and length. Applicants are generally expected to have gotten a bachelor's and completed a list of pre-reqs. As a chem student you'll probably be good with most of the STEM pre-reqs but may need to take biology, psychology, and anatomy & physiology courses (exact courses will depend on school). Schools will expect you to have good grades (most entering PT students will have a GPA of ~3.5) and extracurriculars that reflect your interest in PT--for example internships or volunteering. You'll need to take the GREs. Most applications are done through the execrable PTCAS system. One you get in, programs are generally three years with some people taking an extra year or two to do research or internships, depending on their interests. Cost averages ~$20-$30K/year. You can get good information from the http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forums/pre-physical-therapy.821/ and http://www.apta.org/ProspectiveStudents/Admissions/PTProcess/ There is a lot of flexibility in both jobs, in as much as demand for PTs and PTAs is pretty high so you can count on there being openings in most areas of the country. You can make $40K coming straight out of PTA school, and $60K+ coming out of PT school. Even more if you join a traveling PT company. They send you off to places of your choosing for 13 weeks, pay for housing and moving costs, work you like a dog but pay significantly more than stationary PT positions. I would not count on being able to work with star athletes and the like though. A great deal of PT/PTA clients are coming from hospitals or retirement communities. Unless you get good connections you're more likely to be helping an older person get strong enough to move from a wheelchair to walker after a medical event than recuperating an NBA star's busted knee. From talking with my boyfriend, the biggest downside seems like the same thing it is in all medical professions: dealing with insurance companies. Unless you are a superstar PT who can afford to charge cash-only you're going to have to deal with insurance companies. If you work as an independent, you get more control over hours and treatment and amount of time spent on each patient, but you have to deal with all that administrative bullshit. And there's a lot. Even if you work for a larger rehab company, you'll still be seeing reams of paperwork, just less than if you're independent and have nobody to do that for you. Anyway it is a much bigger undertaking than you seem to be assuming.

You need a DPT to practice PT. A doctorate is not given in a boot camp setting. Maybe you should look into PTA, or athletic training courses instead.

As one reference point, I have a friend who's a PT and she spends much of her time driving around to patient's houses to do their therapy at home. Her main hassle is occasionally covering for other PTs who have to be out, which means extra driving, etc. We're in the US Sunbelt; most of her travel is out to small communities in rural areas. YMMV for PT work in a large urban center.

You will need a DPT to be a physical therapist. And to gain admittance you will need to take some pre-reqs. Since you already have the chemistry major, you're probably fine on math, chemistry, and physics, but you will probably need intro biology and psychology, a 2 semester A&P sequence, and maybe cell biology. http://www.bu.edu/sargent/academics/programs/physical-therapy/doctor-of-physical-therapy/admission-requirements/ just as an example.

Physical Therapy is very different in terms of schooling compared to massage therapy and personal trainers. Not to say it's not for you, but as noted above, it is a doctorate (so, its bootcamp, but for a few years). This means there is formal licensing (it will vary slightly by state) and, I suspect, working more with reimbursement through insurance as opposed to self-pay (someone in the profession could correct me). The PTs I know primarily work for clincs and hospitals, I don't know if that's because private practice is hard to open or if that's just been their preference. The recent graduates I know (within the past 2-3 years) worked very hard to get into PT school, as it is very competitive (at least until recently). I think some programs will have an open house style informational meeting that you could go to and likely get a better grasp on the profession as a whole and admission requirements if it still interests you.

Thanks for these answers. Are there any alternatives to the DPT? Also, what happens after you get a DPT? I'd still love to hear about hours, salary, types of patients, etc.