Physical Therapy Career Search?

hint: home health care!

Physical Therapy

the big picture.

With so many different niches WITHIN the field of physical therapy, home health care has got to be the best! OK, I'm sure I'm a bit biased but, after 15 years of home health care physical therapy, you benefit from my experience!

Why home health care? Why not? Well, that's not fair...yet. You've done some research, haven't you? Whether you have or not, the big picture deserves recognition.

What's cool about the big picture is that you can tuck it away for the next 40 years and pull it out when you need to switch career specialty's.

How Do I Know?

does 16 years in the field count?

This will likely change over the years as you learn and experience physical therapy, but for now it will provide you with focus. And focus can tell you what career niche in physical therapy is best for you right now.

Home Health physical therapy is not for everyone...

I spend most of my days driving, sometimes walking across the assisted living facility hallway, sometimes an hour and a half between patients. I live an hour away from my office so that ads more drive time. If you like to be by yourself, listening to music or books on CD, day in and day out, home health physical therapy may be for you!

I need my social time but I do enjoy time alone to think and dream, plan and such. I love learning too, so if I'm not listening to a book on CD or my iPod, I'm deep in thought about my next invention. I manage to sneak my social time in when I stop by the office to finish up paper work. But, for me, it's still not enough time with co-workers!

Despite some of the drawbacks, this niche has turned out to be the best career niche I've found with PT! Nice thing is that I'm not stuck here. I could change job focus tomorrow without having to go back to school for career change learning. Why should I? I've found the best career. I can hop from specialty to specialty if I get bored or burned out.

Home health care allows you to start out with the basic things you've learned in school, but you find out real quick that innovation is the key. Besides a few pieces of theraband, theratube, ankle weights, maybe a therapy ball if it fits in your car, you don't have much at all! You've got, well, you and the patient... BUT, you've got a ton of options in every home, you just need to learn how to spot them. My secret? Every patient weighs something! That weight is my weight stack! By using their body weight as resistance, you can turn many exercises into progressive resistive ones AND make them functional! That's all I need!

OK, some motivation would help! A huge frustration of mine is a generation or perhaps a socio-economic status of people who are happy to become one with their couch. This is why I have deviated from the typical home care that I used to implement.

Regardless of your PT choice, you can't go including PT in your career search with so many physical therapy career options.

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If you are a mother or already working full time or even a student going back to school, home health care PT offers you the flexibility and the pay that you may be looking for to keep up the bills, pick up the kids, attend classes, etc!

Keep dancing! You are one of millions looking to fulfill a niche, need and passion in your life. PT is a great option for your career search - home care PT is even better!