What To Expect From A Physical Therapy Education Program

You can't just decide one morning that you want to be a physical therapist and then go ahead and get the job done. Like any profession, physical therapy requires the right kind of education, and there is a specific system in place that will take you from a school program to examination and then licensure before you can land your first real job. Find out what to expect from physical therapy education here.

Before your actual educational process begins, you should know what the entire progression will be. As already mentioned, your physical therapy program is a requirement of, and will prepare you for, the national licensure examination. Once licensure is obtained, you can then practice as a full member of the field.

The choice of educational program is very important, as you will need to graduate from a CAPTE school in order to take the licensure examination. CAPTE stands for Commission on Accreditation for Physical Therapy Education, and they are the official body of the field in that regard. As of today, there are 212 programs which offer this accreditation, giving you a lot of options.

Of those 212 programs, 203 of them offer a DPT degree, which is a Doctor of Physical Therapy. Only the remaining 9 offer an MPT or MSPT, which is a Masters of Physical Therapy. Further, by the end of 2015, all CAPTE programs will be mandated to offer the DPT, so that's the highly favored option and will continue to be so.

Your schooling for physical therapy will certainly help arm you with the knowledge you need to pass the licensure examination, but more importantly, the program will give you all of the skills, insight and information you need to be a practicing professional. You'll need to learn a lot about the human body, its parts, different conditions, and how to treat them, and you'll also likely take some courses on patient communication and interaction, and office or administrative skills.

While enrolled in your program, some students are surprised to learn that only 20% of the work will be firsthand clinical experience. The remaining 80% is learning everything, studying, doing classroom work, and so forth. Only after that full mastery is gained can you really practice the clinical side effectively.

As a physical therapy, you'll be completing many tasks on a day-to-day level, but there are several main components to your career. The first is examining a patient and giving them an appropriate battery of tests. Next is diagnosing that patient, and from there you will develop a treatment and management plan. Finally, there is the implication of that treatment plan, education, and continued reevaluation of the patient.

Keep in mind that physical therapists in different settings end up performing different tasks, with different goals. In acute care in a hospital, you will be focused on getting patients healthy enough to leave as soon as they can, while in a long term rehabilitation facility, you'll be taking on a much different kind of treatment.

Hopefully by now you have a better idea of what physical therapy education is all about, and what you should expect from your component. You'll be doing a lot of classroom learning in addition to clinical work, and you'll need to graduate from a CAPTE program and then pass the national examination to gain your licensure.