Should I go to PT School?

Going to school PT allows you to work at the same time. It’s a great way to get an education.

No, by PT I mean Physical Therapy.

- get your job and knock out the pre reqs as a part time student

- contact some local pts, see if you can volunteer some hours with them. Make sure you like the job and secure a good reference. Some pts are linked to a gym/fitness club. Consider getting personal trainer cert. Ex: insurance covers only 8 sessions of pt, but patient tacks on 12 more sessions of personal training paid from pocket for better healing.

- pt is now a 3 yr doctorate, only take debt for this

Hey man,

PT here for 10 yrs. You’re going to get a lot of different responses to this. If you have to get your volunteer hours, you will encounter many bitter older PTs who will discourage you. The ones that entered the field when it was a bachelors degree and have remained a staff therapist their entire career. They will all tell you to go to PA school instead as it’s faster and you make more money. Then you’ll meet the enthusiastic new grads who think they can cure everyone and they are happy making fair money with huge loans. I’m in the middle. I absolutely still love the challenge of patient care, be it an adolescent, an athlete or an 80 yr old. Outpatient Orthopaedics is very challenging but rewarding. Inpatient PT is not so challenging mentally, as you’re just trying to get patients out of bed . But salaries in places like CA are very good, and your quality of life will be good if you get with a large hospital that does outpatient PT. 8-10 patients per day. The glaring problem I see in our field is that the APTA pushed us to get doctorates so that we’d get direct access. Well, now we have 8 years of schooling and STILL need MD orders to see patients, unless you’re a military PT. Reimbursement gets worse every year I practice, so to make up for that, private clinics in CA have become “mills” where you see 2-4 patients per hr ( 20-30 per day) and that’s a recipe for burnout. Home health PTs do ok but if you hate driving and live in a place like LA you’re bringing documentation home with you and that sucks. Many hours working off the clock. Travel PTs sign 12 -24 week contracts and make amazing money, and you can go to any state once you obtain that particular state’s license. A lot of these travel companies pay for housing too. My point is that there’s a high burnout rate in our field, and hence you will meet many clinicians who seem to hate the field. . I’ve worked with many who decided to have kids and just left the field altogether. Opening your own practice is always an option, but it becomes your life as all it takes is one angry Karen to write a bad review on Yelp and that hurts. You will make six figures in CA and other high cost of living areas, and you can do it on 40 hr work weeks if you find a good setup like a large hospital run outpatient center. Older PTs that either get burnout or physically just get broken down, they become directors or just work in skilled nursing facilities where caseloads are pretty low compared to outpatient ortho. Go for it, pick a state school, and you’ll always have a job. I’m sure the national park ranger is easier but the satisfaction of becoming a movement specialist is rewarding in itself as far as helping others, but it also helps your own physical longevity as well as you will have more awareness of your own body( especially with running). As for the loans, I took out way too many($50,000) but paid it off in a few years. Take out loans but try to avoid the private schools as it doesn’t matter where you graduate PT school from. It’s just to get enough knowledge to pass the Board exams. Nobody hiring looks where you went to school. I say go for it and be ready for lots of people in the field who try to discourage you. It’s a good profession and you can do it anywhere in the country. 🙏

Go the PT route if you really enjoy working with people. It's a fun career and is rewarding if your heart is in it. I will say that reimbursement has gotten crazy lately, especially with more people opting for supplemental plans such as Humana and United Healthcare.

I started out making a base salary of around $75k, but quickly saw that rise to $100k after practicing for a few years. There are a ton of different settings you can work in, so you have a lot of options.

Call around and do so observation in different settings, if Covid hasn't ruined that too. Make sure it is something you can see yourself doing before you sink time and money into the schooling.

Thanks for the good replies you all. I'll mull things over in the next few weeks. I appreciate it.

Ever consider local government (zoning officer, code enforcement officer, floodplain manager, etc.)? Combine what you have with an MPA (Master of Public Administration) or a master's degree in urban planning.

Hey OP.

I was a personal trainer for 5 years post bachelors. I decided to apply to PT school in 2020 (primarily because my gym was closed and schools waved the observation requirement). I am almost finished with my first year.

I gotta say, I love it. Great cohort, great faculty, awesome subjects. Some of the classes/information they have to teach because it's on the NPTE, and honestly it's ~20 years behind on the current research. Ignoring that, it's a great time.

I can't speak for all programs, but if I wanted to, I *could* work at a gym or a coffee shop and make some money. I've got ~30k in savings from working, so I'm doing fine.

I think the answer to this depends on your reason for wanting to go into the profession. If you genuinely like working with people and enjoy helping them regain function, I can't think of anything better than being a physical therapist. If you are looking at it from a purely monetary ROI standpoint, than PT school/profession is a pretty bad deal. Not only is reimbursement constantly decreasing, schools have become increasingly greedy by increasing class size and by the sheer number of new programs to start up. There is no larger group governing the supply and demand of physical therapists, which would help keep salaries more stable and sustainable as reimbursements decrease.

I am not saying to avoid this career path, but you better like it, because it doesn't translate very well into other pivots. Also important to note that a lot of PT's, myself included, take a lot of work home with them. I like to spend undivided time with patients and thus end up being bogged down with notes, progress notes, etc. I believe someone may have mentioned the high burnout rate, which is very true.

On a more positive note, If you are an entrepreneur and enjoy building businesses up, it can be be very rewarding establishing relationships with physicians and other referral sources to keep clincs flowing.

I sort of took a chance on this profession. I have had a couple of rough years mixed in, but overall like it. FWIW, almost all the PT's I went to school with and know try to steer potential students away from going into PT. It has become way too corporatized in the last 5 years through consolidation and insurance oversight. I have 11 years experience and caught the very tail end of the glory days. New grad PT's probably don't know any different and are blissfully ignorant.

Good luck.

I was in your shoes and took a gap year. Worked min wage for a PT clinic and I was miserable. It’s a grind working for a chain. Lots of old people, only numbers matter for the PTs. Lots of evals and doubling up. You do your billable 15 min hands on then the tech/aids does the rest. Very little variation. Lots of complaints and difficult to work with people. I also hate PT as a whole. If you’re a good PT and help someone out in 2 sessions, that is NOT good as that does not generate money for the practice. Frequently saw PTs prescribing 6-8 weeks for a high schooler rolled ankle it felt wrong.

Working private places or for sports is what everyone wants and don’t expect to be able to do this without a couple years experience or knowing someone. I also think the pay is bad for 3 years of school.

Like others said go for PA (less school more pay and flexibility). PT sounds cool until you do it.

source: former PT/pre med student now in a completely separate career

I'm currently in my third year of a five-year masters in PT. Some good answers here--all I can add is this:

I used to be a (quite successful) journalist, and watched on glumly as the entire career dived directly down the drain. It was a great option when I started my degree. The internet only really started to make its presence felt a few years into my career.

Reskilling as a PT made sense to me for many reasons; happily, most of them relate directly to a love of anatomy and biomechanics.

But a very compelling reason is that, as a career, it's about a future-proofed as it's possible to forsee. Admittedly, this doesn't mean it's very future-proofed but I can think of about 30 industries, right off the top of my head, which look a lot more bleak.

Of course, there will be great efforts put into cramming PT into an online setting. I just can't see them working especially well--at least, not well enough to tank the industry. In the end, PT needs a person, in a room, with another person. There seems to me a fundamental need to be sharing a physical space. Barriers to entry are high, so it seems safe from outsourcing.

Sure, putting my life into a career like the media, only to have it crumble as it has, left me kind of spooked but so far as I can see, PT will be one of the lucky industries that quite simply cannot be delivered, with any kind of quality, online.

It also seems safe from automation--sure, they might design a droid to give therapeutic massage haha... (and I work in sports training as a side gig and see a lot of those massage gun things), but again, I think human dexterity is a tough thing to beat and I can say from my job in sports training that a keen sense of touch is pretty much critical.

Also, people use those massage guns for a while and I'm not sure if they burn out or what, but they always end up back on my bench.

There are lots of GIS (analyst) jobs that don't involve coding.

Looks like you've been given some very good advice here. Doesn't always happen on LetsRun. Your original post was sent to me by a friend of mine and suggested I chime in on this. It seems that you have some options for work, and you've gotten some nice feedback, and I was wanting to provide you some more clarity, if possible. I have been a PT for over 30 years. Graduated PT school in 1994. Spent a majority of my time as a clinical guy in the military. Great experience, worked with great people, and had tremendous freedom of practice. So my perspective on some of the clinical areas, working in civilian practice, dealing with insurance, and reimbursements won't be helpful to you. However, I now work in academia, and work at well established program on faculty for the past 7 years. As a person who annually looks at applications for physical therapy school, this might help you.

1. There are A LOT of schools out there. I would argue there are too many. Many of them are expensive. My first suggestion is to look at state schools, not private, and start researching what tuition costs. There will be a wide variety of costs, and other fees/dues that you will be expected to pay. The school I work for is EXPENSIVE. You do not need to go to the most expensive school to get a solid foundation. I have encouraged more than one student on interview day, when I've discovered that they've gotten into other programs, closer to home, and more reasonably priced, to strongly consider that school. Do not take the debt lightly; I graduated with nearly 95K in student loans. I paid them off in just about 14-15 years.

2. Any school you are interested in, find out when it was accredited (so it's recognized by the national chapter for physical therapy). This will tell you how long the program has been established. This should easily be found on their main website/organizational chart. This will also demonstrate the stability in the program, the stability of the faculty, and that it's not been off/on probation a number of times.

3. What are your interests. Often times, the sexy and glamorous positions when it comes to PT, "sports medicine" and "movement specialist" are what attract people. I would encourage you to be aware that those positions are hard to get into. This is just my opinion, as an experienced PT, as well as an academic. Think about where the majority of our population is now, with regards to age. There are going to be LOTS of jobs in the geriatric population, and there is typically HIGH demand (which means more money) for this area, but people are not often drawn to them.

4. PT, like many fields, also allows the individual to chart their own path. There are many different areas of our field that draw people to it. There are disciplines in pediatrics, oncology, spinal cord injured, amputee care.....you name it. Many people are hooked on branding themselves, but I would encourage you, if you do attend school, to get the basic fundamental skills DOWN, and then go off and do great things.

5. You mentioned 5 years to complete your degree. With the exception of going back and completing any necessary pre-requisites, you're looking at 2.5-3.0 years of school. Again, do your research. The more you're on campus, or enrolled, the cost will climb.

6. There are other options to consider for school and pay; the US Public Health Service and the military offer programs to help pay, or will cover school. The U.S. Army/Baylor DPT Program, in San Antonio, Texas, will commission you in the US Army, Navy or Air Force, you'll attend school, and then be stationed at a variety of locations in the US or overseas. Of course, there is a military obligation to this, but you will be getting paid while in school, there are great training opportunities, and the freedom of practice in any of these settings is great. Main issue is this school is small, taking only 20-30 students a cycle. It's very competitive. Most programs in the country will take upwards of 50-70 students in a cohort. Our applicant pool at my school is very large. We will typically interview 300-350 students to fill 70 seats. Doesn't seem like a lot, but we review a lot more applications. We've had people with a variety of backgrounds in our program: previous careers (law, acting, dance), English majors, biomedical engineers, hard science......

Sorry this was so long......just giving you things to consider on the PT side of things. Good luck.

Wow, thank you everyone. These are some great responses.

I'm just so split. My desire is to work to live, not the other way around. I realize everything has its tradeoffs. I've also be investigating urban planning/landscape architecture.

Ideally, I'd like a job I can do anywhere in the country - ideally near the mountains. It would be nice to have an ultimate earning potential above 100k. I like variation in work - being inside and outside, standing and sitting. Working with people is fine but I can do with or without that aspect. One of my favorite jobs was delivering bread for a bakery, another was working as a rock climbing guide.

I got really into alpine climbing and ski mountaineering and was working toward becoming a mountain guide. But as I pursued that course I realized that I don't want to turn it into a job. I'd rather do my own stuff. Guiding requires too much risk for too little money and if I'm injured I still have to rally to make money.

As far as education goes, I have a wilderness medical certification, a couple certifications through the American Mountain Guides Association, avalanche training, some GIS training, a tiny bit of remote sensing experience (geospatial certificate) and classes in business and geography.

Perhaps something on the social science / geographic end such as urban planning may be a better fit given my career goals and previous experience. I've also considered forestry. I'm an Idaho resident so I'd like to keep any further schooling in-state and U of I has a good forestry program, so I hear.