I read an article earlier today about women choosing jobs with flexibility over jobs that make more money. While I won’t go into that issue, I thought it was interesting that Physical Therapy was listed as a field with lots of flexibility. It is true that often when I tell someone I want to be a PT, they reply with something about how flexible the job is.
On the one hand, it is very easy to work part time as a PT and many PT’s do work for themselves. However, the hours can be nontraditional compared to other fields. For example, at the private practice where I work, the PT’s see their first patients at 7:30am and the last around 7pm (although they usually take a long break in the afternoon). Also, many PT’s work weekends since not all patients are willing or able to take time off from work to be treated. Furthermore, I know it is hard for the PT’s to take time off because they like each patient to only be seen by one therapist, and it’s hard to suspend several patients’ treatments for a week. So while I agree that PT can be a flexible field, I know that there is some rigidity to it.
Flexibility wasn’t really on my mind when I was deciding to become a PT, but it definitely is a nice benefit to know that flexible hours are a possibility.