A common complaint I’ve heard from pre-PT students is the amount of pre-requisite courses that are required for admission. Although they vary slightly from school to school, they tend to include a year each of anatomy, chemistry and physics, as well as some humanities and writing classes. While the anatomy requirement seems obvious, some of the other classes are less so. As almost-second-year student, I think I have a better understanding of why these classes are needed.
Chemistry: PT students typically take at least one class in pharmacology. Although PT’s cannot prescribe medications, they need to understand which medications their patients are on, and what the side effects of those medications can include.
Physics: How much weight should a patient lift, and in which position should the patient hold the weight? What size weight should the patient lift? Which muscle is the exercise stimulating? All of these, and many more questions, can best be answered by understanding forces and torque and being able to create diagrams of these in your head. Additionally, PT’s must understand sound waves when applying modalities such as stim and ultrasound, and how heat travels when applying ice or heat.
Writing: As a longtime editor and reporter in college, I’ll say that it’s important for everyone to be able to write clearly. But it is especially important for PT’s since they must chart and document all of their treatments for insurance and liability reasons.
Are there any other pre-req’s you’ve had that you don’t understand? What were they?