Questions for (and about) Physical Therapists/ Speech Language Pathologists

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m not sure what I want to do when I get out of college. I think I’m a patient and helpful person, and for that reason I’ve been thinking of going into either Speech Language Pathology or Physical Therapy. Both of these fields sound intriguing, especially the fact that I’d be helping stroke or cancer patients to improve their speech or physical functioning, and I think I’d be good at either of them. First, let me give you some background about me and my experience and education:

I’m a college student (third year) attending a city university in NYC and majoring in Biology. I have decent extracurriculars (I work as a peer tutor and, if I get admitted to the program, will also be working as a peer advisor.) I also have a decent GPA (3.5) and hope to pull a 3.6 or higher this semester. I’ve taken plenty of biology courses and plan to take a few anatomy courses before I graduate. I took a course of Org Chem pass/fail (and passed, thankfully :smiley: ) too, although I understand for many professional programs I’d have to go back and take a year of it for a grade.

So, here are my questions! They’re for any people with any experience working as a Speech Language Pathologist or a Physical Therapist, or for those who were treated by them, or anyone who has worked with them in any capacity, etc. Feel free to answer or ignore any of them.

  1. Do you enjoy the work? Do you feel as if you’ve helped patients in your care significantly?

  2. What kind of people do you work with – elderly, people of all ages? What kind of ailments do they suffer from?

  3. What do you like most about the job? What do you like least?

  4. Is the post-college program hard to get admitted to? Do you think I have a chance to be admitted to a program based on my above description?

  5. Are there jobs available in the above fields? In particular, are there job openings in NYC? I love the city and really don’t want to move.

  6. Do you think you earn enough to pay back your college loans and pay for insurance and other professional costs, and still not worry about money too much? Do you work for a hospital, your own business, a private clinic, etc?

  7. How many hours do you work a week? Are you chronically sleep-deprived? Do you get much vacation? (The reason I’m asking is because my dad’s a nurse, and they practically keep him tethered to the hospital building. They never even let him use his vacation days. He’s got plenty of “theoretical” vacation days accrued, but it seems like they never let him spend 'em.)

And before I get any responses at all, let me just say I’ve found the SDMB very helpful for topics like this and I’m grateful for any help that’s given. Thanks!

2

Whistlepig - I am not an SLP or PT, but I do review SLP and PT goals and their work with kids in my job capacity. So my answers are based on observation/discussion with SLP/PT. My replies are relevant to SLP/PT services delivered to public school students with disabilities.

  1. Do you enjoy the work? Do you feel as if you’ve helped patients in your care significantly?

Most that I know do enjoy their work. They work with kids in different schools. They do feel that they help kids and are able to see the results of the progress.

What they dislike is the paperwork (Individualized Education Plans) and Medicaid paperwork. PT/SLP are trained under medical model, which doesn’t always translate well to describing what they are doing with kids (jargon vs. explanations parents can understand).

  1. What kind of people do you work with – elderly, people of all ages? What kind of ailments do they suffer from?

They work with students with disabilites, primarily pronunciation problems. PT;s work with kids with severe disabilites. For SLP, it’s a direct service 1:1 (generally). PT’s primarily serve as consultants and train direct care staff who do the therapy with the kids on a daily basis.

  1. Are there jobs available in the above fields? In particular, are there job openings in NYC? I love the city and really don’t want to move.

Oh yeah. I don’t know about NYC (I could really help you if you wanted to move to the mountain west) but as the population ages and more kids are identified with disabilites, you will be able to find work. A big problem for schools in finding SLP/PT is that medical practice pays much higher than working with kids. I know a school district that has been unable to find a local SLP and has to pay someone to drive 700 miles roundtrip to provide speech services.

  1. Do you think you earn enough to pay back your college loans and pay for insurance and other professional costs, and still not worry about money too much?

This should not be much of a problem.

  1. How many hours do you work a week? Are you chronically sleep-deprived? Do you get much vacation?

If you work with public schools, you will typically be on a 10 month contract. You will make about 60-80% of what you would make in a medical setting, but you have a lot more job freedom and have July and August off.

Just based on my knowledge of how services are provided to public school kids in Montana and Wyoming,

Whistlepig

3

Thanks for the info. I know what you mean about the paperwork; sometimes it seems as if my dad (a nurse) has more homework than I do, thanks to various insurance companies (and many silly regulations where absolutely every tiny teeny little thing done must also be recorded in triplicate :stuck_out_tongue: )

Working with kids with disabilities definitly seems like something I’d find rewarding, although I wonder if there are many job opportunites in NYC for PT/SLP in schools. Hopefully the NY public schools provide such services for their students!

4

My husband’s a physical therapist, so I can answer a couple of your questions, but not all.

  1. Do you enjoy the work? Do you feel as if you’ve helped patients in your care significantly?

He really enjoys his work and loves the patients. I think this is related to the type of work he does (see #2)…when he’s worked in hospital settings, he’s been miserable.

  1. What kind of people do you work with – elderly, people of all ages? What kind of ailments do they suffer from?

My husband does outpatient PT in a stand-alone clinic. He works with people who have had some sort of orthopaedic surgery, strokes, or injuries. He has people of all ages, except for young kids. He also runs a golf program for people who have had strokes, debilitating injuries, amputations, or are in wheelchairs.

  1. What do you like most about the job? What do you like least?

From what he says, he likes “fixing people” the best…being able to see definite results. This is why he doesn’t like hospital settings - I think there, he was seeing people who weren’t going to get any better and it depressed him.
Right now, he probably likes paperwork the least, although I don’t think it’s a huge deal. At a previous job, though, he was managing several clinics for a very large company and he disliked the human resources aspect of that, plus all the corporate politics.

  1. Is the post-college program hard to get admitted to? Do you think I have a chance to be admitted to a program based on my above description?

Can’t answer this one - he did not go to school in the U.S. I will say, though, that my husband has undergraduate degrees in Biology and Anatomy.

  1. Are there jobs available in the above fields? In particular, are there job openings in NYC? I love the city and really don’t want to move.

Don’t know about NYC, but my husband’s clinic is looking for a couple people right now!

  1. Do you think you earn enough to pay back your college loans and pay for insurance and other professional costs, and still not worry about money too much? Do you work for a hospital, your own business, a private clinic, etc?

Again, can’t answer that because he did not have a loan, although he has hired people who come out with $80k+ in loans. Working for a private clinic, he makes a decent salary that is enough to let me stay at home with our son and be fairly comfortable. He would be able to make considerably more if we owned a clinic, and that is a goal of ours within the next five years.

  1. How many hours do you work a week? Are you chronically sleep-deprived? Do you get much vacation?

My husband works max 48 hours a week, no weekends. The woman who owns the clinic he works at is fantastic and very supportive of family & vacations. When he walks out of the clinic, he feels like he can leave it all behind and enjoy his life.
When he worked for the large company, he was working at least 60 hours a week and was stressed beyond belief (the main reason he left that company).

If you have other questions, I’ll be glad to relay them on to him…he’s not home right now, so I winged this reply!

5

NYC schools is required to provide the same level of services for student’s with disabilities as all other states. I’d look in the education section of Sunday’s classifiedst to get an idea of jobs available. I’d also suggest that you call the city/state professional organizations for PT’s and OT’s. They can give you information on job demands, demand for jobs, etc.

They don’t need a lot of info about your background, just call them, tell them you’re interested in a PT/SLP career and ask them if they can give you the name of a couple of professional contacts in your area. What you want is to talk to PT/SLP in educational and non-educational settings in your area.
Good luck and I hope you pursue one of these careers.
Whistlepig