Has anyone done school-based PT? Aside from overgeneralized descriptions, what exactly do PTs are doing there during the day? And how much is it paid compared to inpatient and outpatient clinics?
school based PT
- Thread starter ya1
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Haven’t done it but there are a few pretty solid offers on indeed for it right now in the Seattle Tacoma metro (45-55$ an hour)
I did it for one of my rotations. You clock in at 8 or 8:15 am and leave around 3. It can be pretty chill or pretty crappy depending on who you have to report to - as with all settings I guess.
We rotated around 6-7 schools hitting one school per week, but stayed in one special education school a couple of days as well. With the special education school, we mainly worked around teacher's schedules in order to find the best time to treat kids. Then we worked with educators to improve the function and mobility of the child assigned to us in their classroom setting. You work A LOT with equipment - wheelchairs, prosthesis, walkers, etc. We also collaborated with manufacturers to get appropriate equipment that fit the needs of the child. There were a lot of meetings with other healthcare professionals and parents in order to maximize the child's function at school as well as home, too.
Other schools we attended once a week, it was mostly a consultation with teachers. We sometimes took the child outside of the classroom and helped them with mobility such as stair navigation and how to interact with the playground safely.
Creativity is essential in this setting since there is no textbook approach, which became very apparent after a few weeks on the rotation.
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I shadowed school-based PT for a whole 2 days lol back when I was doing my observation hours to get into PT school, so I am hardly an expert.
The PTs just went to each classroom to pull the child from class for their PT. No idea what the system was in terms of deciding what class the child would miss for PT, or if the child had to make up the missed work, but the PTs treated patients all day, I forget the session length times. They had a large room that served as the clinic full of toys and soft mats and they shared it with speech and OT. Lots of autism, so lots of sensory adaptation treatments. Some were learning coordination with ambulation, and they'd set up obstacle courses with toys and games at each station. At the end of the day when the students go home the PTs would do their documentation. Really, if I liked children, it looked like an incredibly fun and rewarding job. Since I was just shadowing and for only 2 days I did not see any of the other things things that go into overall care and treatment.
I had zero desire to go into peds, just wanted the experience, and now work in OP ortho, but it was interesting to see how they practice.
I've looked at salaries from Ben Fung and it looks like peds usually doesn't pay well, but I don't remember if it was broken out into school and OP or just peds in general. But if you look his info up he has salaries broken out across PT, it was really helpful for salary negotiations after I graduated.
