Why physical therapy?

Why do I want to be a physical therapist?
(I wrote this post awhile ago, but I'm removing it from my pages and posting it here. Every once in awhile I like to look back on my journey to become a PT and remember the reasons I chose this career path)

I could give lots of good reasons such as “I want to help people” and “I want to make a difference in people’s lives”. Both of these things are true, but there are lots of jobs where I could be helping people. I could be cynical and say I want a job where it will be relatively easy to find work and I want a job that pays well. It’s true that in this economy, where jobs are scarce, it’s a huge advantage to have a professional degree in such a selective field. I do want to have job security and a decent paycheck (especially after all these years of school!). All of these things have contributed to my decision to pursue a degree in physical therapy. But there’s more to the story.

To fully understand why I want to be a PT, I have to start at the beginning. Let’s go back to my senior year of high school. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do or what I wanted my major to be. I considered getting an education degree and becoming a teacher. I also considered English or Psychology. I find psychology fascinating and I liked every psych course I took in college. However, it was my mom’s advice that prevented me from getting a degree in any of these fields. She advised me to consider what job I would want to have and work backwards from there to decide what to major in; NOT to choose a subject I liked, only to get a degree in it and then not know what to do with it. It was good advice.

Although I like English/literature/books, I wouldn’t know what to do with an English degree. I didn’t want to be a journalist or an editor or an author (actually I hated writing papers period). Although I find psychology interesting, I would never want to be a psychologist or social worker or psychotherapist. (I only like to give people advice if they listen to it, otherwise I want to scream “Get over yourself and get a life!”) I still liked the idea of teaching, but my mom said that I could get any degree and still become a teacher later. So why not major in something else instead of education? Well, with those guidelines, I started to think about job options. I’ve always liked the medical field, but I knew I didn’t want to be a medical doctor. I don’t think I could handle the stress of making life and death decisions every day. (I already feel guilty over every little mistake I make- which is usually something like I forgot to turn off the stove- another reason I shouldn’t be an MD: I’m very absentminded sometimes!).

Anyway, to make a long story short, I finally decided to major in biology with the intention of going into forensics. I actually wanted to be a forensic pathologist and examine dead bodies. I figured it would be an interesting job with limited stress (I mean, the person’s already dead, what harm could I do?) It wasn’t until I got to my senior year of college that I started to reconsider. By then, I was in upper-level biochemistry classes, and I discovered that I HATED all the tedious lab work. All those tiny test tubes and formulas and gels were driving me crazy. Forensics involves running a lot of lab tests and I realized that I did not want to do that for the rest of my life. I decided I wanted a job where I’d get to interact with people more instead of spending my time running tests on machines. This is when I started to consider physical therapy. My sister was actually about to start school to be a physical therapy assistant and being a PT sounded like such a fun and interesting job. I liked the idea of helping people get BETTER. Not diagnosing them, not performing surgeries, not being there during the crisis, but AFTER the crisis, being there to help the patient recover.

I ended up changing my concentration to pre-med (still a biology major) and taking A&P and some other pre-requisite classes. I applied to PT schools that summer and figured out what I’d need to do to make it into the program. I had to spend an extra year in undergrad, but I had a new energy for my classes. I had been getting burnt out with school before, but having a definite goal in mind revitalized me! I NEVER wanted to be in school for this long, but here I am. I NEVER thought I had what it took to be a doctor and now I’m going to become a Doctor of Physical Therapy.

It may seem crazy, but I think physical therapy is the perfect job for me. I love the medical field. I love learning how the human body moves and works and how it can adapt. I like working with people and moving around all day rather than sitting in an office. One of the best things I like about physical therapy is the variety. No patient is the same and no injury is the same. As a PT, you can develop your own rehab plan and modify it for each patient. There’s no reason to ever be bored! And then there are so many options available to a PT! I could work in outpatient therapy, acute care, rehab, orthopedics, or an athletic facility. Finally, I like physical therapy because it’s a job where you can see results. You can witness people improving- walking again after surgery or developing a better range of motion, for instance. I like it that there can be such clear-cut results. I know that not all patients will heal ideally, and I bet that will get frustrating, but I hope that I will still feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, knowing that I’m helping these people on their road to recovery.

To sum it all up, the main reason I want to be a physical therapist is because it’s a job I think I’ll enjoy. I have to remember that through all the long labs, early classes, and difficult tests. I have to remind myself that it will all be worth it in the end!