Why Shadowing is More Important than Being a Patient

I never wear new clothes without washing them first.

This habit started after a summer job working at the mall. Among other things, I was responsible for organizing clothes in one of the big-name stores that blares loud music while employees spritz a dizzying amount of cologne throughout the building. One of my biggest takeaways was how nasty the clothes got before people bought them. We dropped them on the dirty floor while taking them out of the boxes they were shipped in, and hastily refolded them after sweaty people finished trying them on in the dressing rooms, only to throw them on the floor again. By the time someone purchased a trendy t-shirt or pair of jeans, they were dirty, even if the buyer couldn’t see it.

Even if you went into the store thousands of times as a shopper, you might never realize this. Just as restaurant goers never discover how unclean the kitchen is, or vacationers never find out how filthy their hotel room is.

You can do something dozens of times, but until you get a behind the scenes tour, you’re often missing out on the bigger picture.

It’s the same with PT. When you attend as a patient or with a family member, you often miss out on what goes on behind closed doors. These things may never be fully revealed until you’re working in the place, but shadowing at least offers you a taste of what you miss out on as a client.

In a PT setting this can mean patients who don’t get better, insurance companies that hinder access to care, doctors who don’t communicate, and coworkers who politic. It can also mean healthcare worker burnout, student loan burdens, paperwork, and other things physical therapists battle on a daily basis.

Even spending hundreds of hours as a patient shouldn’t expose you to these things.

And this is the point of the observation hour requirement: to make sure you fully understand the career you’re about to spend three’ish years of your life and hundreds of thousands of dollars on. Furthermore, this is why schools don’t count time spent in PT as part of this pre-req. If they did, nearly everyone would already have enough hours!

This is also why it’s important to get as much PT experience as possible, in more than one setting. But it’s also why I recommend trying to get more than the minimum number of hours in a setting and prioritizing gaining more hours in one setting rather than a handful of hours in a dozen different clinics. Yes, more hours will look good on your PT school application, but more importantly they should tell you if this career is really right for you.

This is also why I suggest mentioning your shadowing hours in your PTCAS essay. Schools want to know that you truly understand the field and this is better demonstrated by work or observation experience, rather than time spent as a patient.

Interested in purchasing my PTCAS-compliant observation hour log? Email me and submit payment to buy yours today for just $5!

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