Physical therapists provide services that help restore function, improve mobility, relieve pain, and prevent or limit permanent physical disabilities of patients suffering from injuries or disease. They restore, maintain, and promote overall fitness and health. Their patients include accident victims and individuals with disabling conditions such as low-back pain, arthritis, heart disease, fractures, head injuries, and cerebral palsy.
Description
Doctors of Physical Therapy:
- Examine patients’ medical histories
- Test and measure the patients’ strength, range of motion, balance and coordination, posture, muscle performance, respiration, and motor function
- Determine patients’ ability to be independent and reintegrate into the community or workplace after injury or illness
- Develop plans describing a treatment strategy, its purpose, and its anticipated outcome
- Administer treatment often including exercise; electrical stimulation; hot packs or cold compresses, and ultrasound to relieve pain and reduce swelling; traction or deep-tissue massage to relieve pain
- Teach patients to use assistive and adaptive devices, such as crutches, prostheses, and wheelchairs
- Show patients exercises to do at home to expedite their recovery
- Document patient progress
Licensing
All States require physical therapists to pass a licensure exam before they can practice, after graduating from an accredited physical therapist educational program.
Personal qualifications
- A desire to serve patients
- Strong interpersonal skills in order to be able to educate patients about their physical therapy treatments
- Be compassionate
- Self-motivated
- A good bedside manner
- Emotional stability
- Strength and manual dexterity
- A willingness to continue studying throughout their career
Employment opportunities
- Excellent, ranking among the fastest growing occupations according to the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Employment of doctors of physical therapy is expected to grow much faster than average (Increase 27 percent or more) through the year 2014
- Job opportunities should be particularly good in acute hospital, rehabilitation, and orthopedic settings
Salary
Median annual earnings of physicians in internal medicine with less than two years of experience: $ $60,180 (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, May 2004)
Progression
Physical therapists are expected to continue their professional development by participating in continuing education courses and workshops.
Getting there: Your degree program at MCPHS
- Doctor of Physical Therapy
Students earn a Bachelor of Science degree from MCPHS and a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree (DPT) from Simmons College in Boston. This six-year program includes three years of study at MCPHS and three years at Simmons. The U.S. News & World Report has ranked the professional physical therapy program at Simmons among the top 25 in the country.