Ridin' Along

I set up my first job shadowing experience over semester break last year. I called the physical therapy place in my local town, and they were more than willing to show me the ropes. I was definitely nervous, but excited in the days leading up to it. I wasn't sure at all what to expect which is where most of my nerves came from. I'm not really a huge fan of the unknown.

Well, the day had come. I wasn't super excited about spending my entire Christmas break waking up at six in the morning to make it to the PT place by seven, but I felt a little bit better knowing that I was going to be able to finally get some real experience in the field since my only real experience with physical therapy was internet research and a paper I wrote in my business writing class.

I really liked the facility. It was just a small place above the doctor's office, but it seemed to be a place I would like to work at. I've never really been a fan of big, impersonal places, so the small setting really attracted me to this place. The PTs and PT aides there were phenomenal. They were great with their patients and really seemed to make the patients feel cared for. That was one of my favorite things about the place. They new all of their patients names and a lot of their life story. One of the cool things about PT is you kind of just get to chill with the people while you're doing work on them. If they have to spend 10 minutes on the bike, then that is ten minutes you get to talk with them.

Some of those people had some pretty amazing stories. There was a 93 year old women that came in with a new hip she needed to get used to. She called it a "minor blip" in her life. She told me the story of her and her husband who had been married for 70-some years and how they met. That was really awesome to hear. She seriously did not look her age, but to see her so happy and full of life really made me stop and think. Experiences like this happened several times throughout the week. We had some cranky people come through (and there are always going to be cranky people in life), but the good definitely outweighed the bad that week I was there.

One thing I didn't like about my experience there, was the fact that I just had to stand there, literally. I wasn't really allowed to do anything (not that I expected to be), but it got a little boring just standing there sometimes. I was talking to a patient once, and he told me that he thought i was a security guard at first. It got better as the week progressed and the PTs and their aides got to know me more, but that was really my only peeve about the experience (well, aside from the early mornings).

Overall, this was a really positive experience for me. At first it seemed a little strange that I was required to shadow a PT before I even applied for school, but it makes sense now. They want to make sure this is what you want. PT is not a glorious career. It's not something you pursue for the money, but something you have to truly want. This shadowing experience definitely pushed me forward in my career and got me even more excited about the idea of being a physical therapist some day soon.