What’s So Great About a Physical Therapist?
Being in the medical field has always been something my parents and family strived to convince me to pursue. I was never really considering the thought until I decided to take an anatomy and physiology class my junior year in high school. I found the study of the human body and bone structure interesting and unlike all my other subjects it came easy to me. It wasn’t until then I decided to start doing research on jobs related to the bones. When researching I narrowed it down to two different careers: physical therapist and orthopaedic surgeon. After comparing and contrasting the differences and similarities of the two careers I decided that my decision was to become a physical therapist. I wasn’t considering becoming a physical therapist just because it came easy to me. I looked at other things that may or may not interest me about that job.
On a typical day of a physical therapist they see roughly around thirty patients a day; I thought, personally, that was great because I like meeting a variety of people. The main job of a physical therapist is to treat ill or injured people back to a healthy life. They typically design treatment plans describing a treatment strategy, its purpose, and its anticipated outcome. Physical therapists also test and measure the patients’ strength, range of motion, balance and coordination, posture, muscle performance, respiration, and motor function. The job of a physical therapist isn’t completely on the floor, a less physical duty of a physical therapist is to review the medical histories of the patients. The level at which the patient is at regarding what the patient is capable of doing can also be determined by the patients physical therapist.
The usual schedule of a physical therapist would roughly be around eight to ten hours a day. When being a physical therapist, you’d have to adapt your schedule to your patients schedule. It’s most common for physical therapists to work until the evenings and on weekends. Most therapists work in hospitals or self employed clinics, nursing homes, schools, athletic departments, community health centers, research centers, and rehab centers.
In today’s world, work is hard to find for a lot of people. A benefit from
becoming a physical therapist would be that you’d never be out of the job. Jobs in the medical field are always in high demand. This job in particular has a starting annual pay of $74,990. For more experienced physical therapists, the annual pay would be somewhere around $86,070 to $97,310. The benefits offered from any job in the medical field are usually health insurance, paid vacation, and sick leave. In order to pursue this career, you’d need to gain more of an education other than just high school. The educational requirements for this job are to have a high school diploma or GED, have a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree or higher in physical therapy, complete an internship, and have a license. Some high school classes that would help prepare for this career would be anatomy and physiology, computer applications, health education, introduction to health care, nursing, and keyboarding. Recommended majors in college would be physical therapy or kinesiology. Some colleges that offer physical therapy and kinesiology as a major would be Azusa Pacific University, Biola University, Cal State University Fullerton, Cal State University Long Beach, University of the Pacific, and USC. It’s best to start talking to any counselors or teachers about helping further your process of becoming a physical therapist.