I've been getting this question a lot lately since I'm 4 months away from graduating. Ugh! The thought of it leaves a knot in my throat. In previous years, I would say that I have 3 more affiliations to go… 2 more affiliations to go ...I'll probably figure out what I want to do, closer to graduation. Nope.
I am 2.5 weeks away from completing my 3rd affiliation of 4. And I still don't know where I want to go. I came into the PT school with the desire to work in geriatrics or pediatrics. That still stands. My mentor reminded me about my path after undergrad. I had a dead-set plan to work for a certain company after college and I never got the offer. She said its better to find out from my professors which setting the majority of the graduates from my program move on to. Sadly, I got a lot of round-about answers which means they don't have any statistics either. So I looked online for about 20 minutes and found stats on Bureau of Labor Statistics. I interpret that 33% of PTs work in outpatient/private practice (they are much more vague and say offices of physical, occupational, speech therapists and audiologist).
From my previous affiliations, I know that like pediatrics and geriatrics. My school faculty advises that students should work in a hospital to get exposure to treating a myriad of diagnoses. But one person that I met at a PT networking event said that acute rehab is the way to go because you get a full hour/5 days a week to really "do PT" and make a difference in someone's rehabilitation. Statistically, I will most likely work in an outpatient clinic.
So when people ask me what I want to do/where I will work. My answer is… "I guess I will go where there are jobs available. I'll let you know when I graduate and get a job."
Picture from CrazyTownBlog.
Note: The link connects to a nice post about a different view on graduation. Read it if you have a minute.
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