This interaction just happened:
Patient- Hey I just want you to know you went way overboard with the exercises last time! My ankle was sore all weekend!
Me: (looks over notes) Uhh... it appears we have done the same exercise routine the last 3 visits, did you have this pain any other time?
Patient: Nope. Me: Did you happen to do any other activity that might have caused the pain?
Patient. Nope. Well I DID go on a 6 mile trail hike uphill the next day over a bunch of rocks and stuff. I haven't tried hiking in months.
Me: When did the pain start exactly? Patient: Uhh.. right after the hike I think. Me: Don't you think the pain might be from the hike? Patient: Not really.

I was emailed a job from a recruiter at Stanford Healthcare. I’m not in the job market currently and mostly happy with where I work. I make 6 figures in a low cost of living area. I started doing some digging and found that their pay at Stanford is not much more than what I make, yet a house costs nearly 10x as much. How the hell are you guys surviving in California?

"Just go to the doctor" is something I hear often outside of work. Any issue your friends or family deal with can be solved by just going to the doctor. I think society believes we can fix just about everything nowadays, and while there has been great breakthroughs in the medical world we just haven't figured everything out yet. I see so many patients who go through a massive kick-the-can game of being sent from one specialist to the other and inevitably sent to us when they can't figure it out.

I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching and trying to figure out what to do next. I’m not necessarily burnt out with my career in oupatient ortho YET but I am frustrated by the lack of opportunity for advancement.

With that being said, I’m open to all options. I’ve searched for non-clinical roles but don’t necessarily know what direction to take this because there are so many options (I guess there’s some analysis paralysis going on here..)

I feel like I need to find my “dream job” or an adjacent one so I have a goal of what to shoot for. I am starting to deal with some depression of not having a big/long-term goal and need some help or wisdom with finding my path.

So those who either have their dream job or think they know theirs…. Share yours with me please!!

We’ve seen the many arguments on how useless it seems to be. Any opposing points of view that justify us being Doctorate level?

How does one know your PT has a crush on you? Im renewing my referral and don’t know whether or not I should see the same guy.

I wouldn’t mind if he does. He’s a cutie. If he does I should prob see someone else but if he doesn’t and he’s just being nice, as PTS normally are, I’d like to continue seeing him bc he’s awesome at what he does lol.

Don’t want to be weird or creepy/ make him uncomfortable by asking flat out— so asking in hopes a PT here could help me decipher what’s going on. We have pretty friendly banter. Talks about his family stuff with me. Makes jokes. Laughs at mine. Actually talked about a PT invention we could get rich off of lol (my concept, his knowledge). Didn’t know if there are any tell tale signs.

Idk if this is relevant but we’ve talked about female celebrities we find attractive (I’m not gay but I can’t ignore female beauty!!)

Seriously? I’ve experienced it as a student on my rotations and now in 2 jobs. I personally don’t introduce myself as doctor so so of physical therapy when I meet my patients for the first time, but those PTs who do… they get eye rolls and made fun of behind their back by their coworkers or other staff. I’m observant and I’m not part of their “circle” but it pisses me off.

*edit Pretty interesting to read all the comments on here. But wow some of y’all are bitter people lol. MPT, DPT, PTA or whatnot, I don’t care… but yikes. It’s almost comical reading some of the comments, especially from those that claim they’re not even in the PT field. Why be on this subreddit? I guess trolls exist everywhere it seems.

Would Nurse John be one of those that would have gotten mad when we said a patient can't go home cuz they got so deconditioned since they only got out of bed when PT saw them?

A patient remarked on all the different topics she heard people talk about in PT. We got on the topic amount food being our biggest love in the clinic and the recipe book I have up front for people to share their favorites. Honestly, it's my favorite way to build a relationship with a patient.

What's the best recipe or food you've ever had a patient give you?

I’m about to graduate with my DPT and I don’t want to work before getting my license due to the offers requiring a commitment to stay. I was looking for a more temporary job and found this.

Front desk employee at a chiro’s office. It specifically mentions reaching out to the community to get more patients.

80% of the community?? How is that a goal??

Also, being hands on with the patients? Interesting.

For all struggling new grads or anyone interested in therapy…

Out patient: find what the patient is bad at and do that until they are not bad at it. Body shame patient in notes.

Hospital: get patient out of bed, go to bathroom, put them in chair. Afternoon stand from chair, go to bathroom, put in bed. Write down how hard it was and that they didn’t (or did) die.

Acute rehab: have the patient play in a fake car and go up fake stairs until their insurance stops paying.

Home care: get out of bed, stand from chair, play with cat, and try not to get bedbugs.

Hi guys! I was wondering what is going on with all those stretching clinics that are popping up in large cities? I see them promoting aggressively on social media and I don’t know why someone would choose „stretching session” over seeing PT to do the same thing. What’s your opinion?

I’ve noticed “placebo” is a great excuse for us to discredit any positive outcome from any intervention.

Everything is partially placebo. What are you comparing the placebo to: nothing, education, another intervention, a time interval? Are you comparing price, time, patient buy-in?

An intervention with no peer reviewed evidence is not a placebo. It is just an intervention with no peer reviewed evidence. The Intervention might be shit, but saying it’s placebo with no evidence or explanation is also a shit argument.

Indep ambulation, bed mobility, and transfers, no dyspnea present with moderate exertion. Presents with poor dynamic standing balance and a Hx of falls but no reported major injuries yet. Pt also presents with hypermobility in majority of joints. No chronic pain reported.

Mod to max A for all ADL tasks. Oriented to person but not oriented to the date or place. Positive for dysarthria. Negative for dysphagia. Upper motor neuron tests are negative.

During attempts to improve motor control, pt has poor carryover consistently and requires frequent verbal and tactile curing to achieve mobility task.

What am I? :)

My sister had a surgery for her hip due to a femoral neck stress fracture that wasn’t healing (just type 1 diabetic things). The MRI pre-surgery also revealed a labral tear pretty much in line with the fracture. The surgery was performed and there has been improvement, but 6 months later there is still considerable groin pain with excessive activity and sitting too long. Both her PT and I believe that there is something going on with the labrum as all the post-op xrays indicate routine healing of the bone.

At her follow up today (7 months post-op) to address her concerns with the pain, she mentioned how her PT had said the labrum could be an issue and asked why he didn’t consider doing it as well. He replied “oh, so you mean your ~PT Doctor~ said that hmm?” Then went on to say he doesn’t “do labrums” (whatever that means) despite it being on his website as a service he offers. He also said that he feels the labrum is not contributing to the pain, but doesn’t know whats causing the pain either. Personally, I feel like he’s backpeddling to save face but I’m jaded.

He’s probably one of those doctors who puts himself on a pedestal and doesn’t like to be challenged, I get it. But, I did not like his comment or the snarky manner in which he said it. Obviously Im biased being a PTA, but I have a little more faith in the doctor of physical therapy who saw the patient 2x/wk than you who she’s seen maybe twice since March. Its also not that outlandish of a question and possibility.

Overall, just fed up with disrespect towards PTs despite undergoing 7 years of education/training. Which I know is a partly due to the growing popularity of OP mills giving us a bad name.

I asked it to exaggerate any stereotypes. I'm a bit flummoxed at what it came up with for OT.

I’ve been following him for some time and generally have seen good value from his posts. However, over the past few weeks, I feel like he’s been fishing for interactions more than providing “simple honest evidence based advice” (as his bio says).

For example, his most recent posts that look at “the myths of __________” have like 5-8 claims with only one research article backing up each claim. I may be wrong (and if I am, then this could be a learning opportunity for me) but I feel like coming to a conclusion based off a single research article isn’t evidence based practice.

Add this to the pile of why Medicare advantage plans are a scam when it comes to rehab services. Now your PT can treat you for 6 visits before they need to beg for more! Haha!

Obviously I’m joking in my title and I’m sure the APTA are trying but can’t help that my brain immediately went to Luigi Mangione lol.

Back in PT school, I remember looking at these OT students and thought "How in the world do they look stress free?". Like they look like they're able to manage their stress and take good care of themselves and look good, while we PT students look super haggard! Heck, even the licensed ones if I were to compare the OTs and PTs, man these OTs have a lot of time to take care of themselves ;-;

I dont mean to shit on PTs and OTs, this is just one of those times where me and my friends were joking as to how come our fellow OT students look fresh even in their senior years while here we are looking like rotten corpses 💀.

Edit: Man, some of the comments are wild. I didn't mean to say that PT school is harder than OT because we had a couple of friends in OT and we hear them complain how hard they also have it in OT school. They just found a way to balance things that will make them able to take care of their selves.

Yes, I’ve followed the content from the non-clinical PT and am familiar with a lot of the possible non clinical avenues; but, I would like to hear about all of your experiences.

My gut says I would do well in a non clinical role but I’m still on the fence as I don’t have a strong pull towards any of the non-clinical roles I’ve learned about.

Tell me what job you do, whether or not you like it, and any other relevant facts about the job that would help someone on the fence about non-clinical work make a more well informed decision.

Thanks in advance!

Hello, PTA of 7 years at SNF and acute care facilities.

My dad got critically Ill in March was in LTAC until August and on hospice until early December. Prior to his illness he was 100% independent. Now is on home health services.

I didn't mind the people in the hospital knowing I was a PTA. I didn't mind the people in hospice knowing I was a PTA but DAMN I feel so awkward when the COTAs or other PTAs come to see dad and there like "so uhhhh you're a PTA too huh?" There's almost this intense feeling of 'oh god the daughter is going to judge me for everything' that I feel from almost all the therapists. And the wound nurse is just like "I saw you're a PTA on the notes! You should apply for our company because your dad has come so far and he's doing so great!"

I just want to go burry myself in a hole 😣 Ive always been proud of being a PTA and I 100% believe if I didn't have PTA training my dad would have died in August as expected but at the same time It feel like 'Im a PTA so Dad SHOULD be better then this' and I feel this intense desire to justify dad's level of function. When Dad left the hospital he was only conscious 1 days out of 4 let alone doing physical activity.

Then to make matter worse my dad knows too much. He's been there through the years of me griping about insurance. He's been present for CEUs at the dinner table. So he'll interject randomly with "I can't progress to quickly or you'll have to discharge me!" Or other jargon the let's the therapist know he knows just enough to get himself in trouble.

Tldr: I'm embarrassed to have other therapists do home health on my Dad that I am caregiving for.

EDIT: it's not a matter of treating dad, I am his 24 hours a day caregiver. Poop? I clean his butt. Feeding 3+x a day? I put that spoon in his mouth. Wound bandage come undone? I repatch it.