Now that I’m about a month into being a Physical Therapy Aide, I want to write an update about my job – I love it!
Besides washing towels and sweeping the floors, I’m getting so many opportunities to learn. Once I’ve gotten those “chores” out of the way, I can usually sit in on sessions with patients. And rather than just observing the treatments, I really get to learn a lot from them. The four PTs where I work are all very into helping me gain experience, so as they’re treating the patients, they’ll talk the whole time to explain to me what they’re doing.
They understand that I haven’t had anatomy yet, so they make sure to carefully explain how the body parts they’re working on work, in addition to what the injury is and how they’re treating it. They also go into extra details like explaining how a patient’s diet, weight, age, etc., affect their injuries and recoveries.
I know that when I finally take anatomy and start learning PT that this will make everything easier, because you learn in psychology that learning things repeatedly makes them easier to remember. I’m also getting lots of tips for once I actually become a PT (in four years, hopefully!).
And besides talking to me during the treatments, the PTs will usually go into further detail afterwards, using diagrams and articles to complete my understanding. I can’t believe how valuable this experience is, and I am really understanding why so many DPT programs require it.
As an added bonus, I’m also really enjoying getting to talk to the patients who come in for treatment. Many of them come in weekly so I’m starting to get to know a few, and it’s so interesting to listen to them and hear their stories, and of course observe how they heal. It’s pretty much allowing me to take the best parts of journalism and psychology, and use those skills to help people.
What more can I ask for?