Best Part about Outpatient

A big part of PT school is the clinical rotations. I have 4 of them - 1) outpatient 2) subacute rehabilitation 3) acute care 4) elective. First, it gives you the necessary experience you need in order to come out of grad school and practice as an entry-level clinician. Secondly, it is supposed to give you an idea of the type of environment that you might like to or absolutely would never want to work in once you graduate. I personally think this should be a part of undergrad.

I had a real tough time in a Outpatient setting for a number of reasons that I will list:

1) I am not as fit as some of the athletes that walk through at door and at this point in my education, I can't say that I am more knowledgeable than my patients on their problems. So you can say I felt a little inadequate to treat.

2) I have terrible balance. Nothing was worse than demonstrating a Single-Leg Stance and Reach exercise and stumbling over after the second rep. I am glad that my patients had a sense of humor.

3) Even with 8 hours of sleep, healthy eating and copious amounts of caffeine, I just looked exhausted by 4PM, sometimes earlier. New patients, new conversations, new treatments every 1/2-1 hr was hard for me to keep up the energy level. On top of it, my clinical instructor went easy on me and I didn't have to complete all the paperwork for all the patients.

4) I have never used 75% of the exercise machines that the PTs used for treatment in my life! I had to learn correct form and how to adjust when my patients looked like he/she was worming away in the seat or tossing the weight around.

I'm sure there are more reasons why I suck but I wrote this entry to make one contrary point.

The BEST part about the outpatient setting is the great conversation!

Everyone that comes in during outpatient - generally walked into your clinic (and is generally healthy), is usually of sound mental status and is motivated to get better (otherwise he/she would not seek the help of a PT). I loved, loved, loved some of my patients - we talked about anything from Comic-con, Frank Lloyd Wright, marriage, relationships, kids, getting into college, respective hometowns, religion, buying a home, Broadway shows, movies, heritage, Rochester, yoga, why he/she came to NYC, celtic music and the list goes on. I may have been tired all the time but everyday was just so interesting beyond the scope of PT! Just for this reason, I can imagine why graduates choose the outpatient setting.

Picture from Commonwealth Orthopedics.