Before you go down the path of spending money to go to school to become a physical therapist, it is essential that you understand what is required of a physical therapist. If you already are a physical therapist, it is always good to remind your self of what your duty is each day. Once you see an intriguing physical therapist job description, you must know how to put together the right physical therapy resume to land the job. There are ways and things that you can do to make sure your physical therapy resume stands out amongst the pack.
Understanding The Physical Therapist Job Description
Sometimes people at work will profess “that is not my job!” when referring to work that they refused to do because it is the job of someone else. Little do they know that it is your job. It is essential to grasp the physical therapist job description fully because you must serve people who are spending a lot of money to return to normal health.
Consultation and Listening is Most Important Aspect of Physical Therapy Job Description
One of the most underrated things you need to do as a physical therapist listens and consult. For any healthcare provider to give an effective diagnosis, a healthcare provider must first listen to the patient. You need to understand what they are going through and also show some empathy for their situation.
It has been proven that patients don’t care about your degree, or even a correct diagnosis as much as they care about your ability to listen. Degrees just show you are smart, but listening shows that you care.
When it comes to the physical therapist job description, this is the one part that people forget the most. It can be easy to think you know what is going on and jump right to the diagnosis and game plan stage. The problem is that the patient will only buy in if they feel they are heard.
Developing a Treatment and Recovery Gameplan
Putting together a game plan to return to health is what most people think of when they think of physical therapy. Here is where you think through the best strategy to help your patient through the reason they even came to see you.
The number of treatments, modalities, and therapies you can prove here depend on your certifications, background and continuing education courses that you have taken.
Education Skills
The one reason 9INE POINT Health allowed healthcare providers to create and share content is that there is not enough educating going on from healthcare providers. The best way to improve the perceptions of physical therapy and the grow the industry as a whole is to educate the public better. People need to understand what exactly a physical therapist can do. When people do not understand it leaves room for myths to sneak in. A big reason people think that only chiropractors can help back pain is that of a lack of understanding.
As a healthcare provider, you must educate others. You may have the best game plan in the world for getting people healthy, but if you can’t educate others on what you are doing and why you will fall short. If you can’t educate people on their bodies and why they should do their exercises when they go home, you will fall short.
Hands-On Therapy and Evaluations
There is something powerful about human touch. There are a lot of treatment plans you can put in action that does not require having actually to touch a patient. A lot of people don’t know it but they need the touch of another human. It is important that you are always working on improving that touch. The better that touch is and the more effective you are with your hands, the better off you will be. A physical therapy job description may not mention this but none the less it is important.
Maintain Patient Records and Help Monitor Goals and Progress
The not so fun part of being a Physical Therapist is keeping excellent notes for each patient you see. Keeping good notes also means staying in line with health privacy laws. The better of a job you do with keeping notes, the more effective you will be when people come in for multiple treatments.
Set Up Self-Treatment if Needed
There may be cases where someone can only come in once a week, but they need to be doing exercises on a daily basis. When that is the case, it is your job to give that person enough motivation to go home and do it. Again you can have the best recovery gameplan in the world but if that person does not buy in you will get nowhere.
The key is doing everything in your power to set that client up for success when they get home. If you know that they will not do something on their own, give them something they will do. Your job is not to prove that they don’t want to be better, but to put them in the best possible position to succeed.
Marketing
You need to market yourself as a healthcare provider. The goal is to build your brand but also to build the brand of the profession. Working on both of the areas will bring you more business. The issue with marketing is that it is often not in job descriptions, but it is one the most important things you can do.
For example, build your 9INE POINT Number will help you in the long run, no matter where you work or where you live. The 9INE POINT Number consists of:
- Your ratings and reviews
- Engagement within 9INE POINT Health
- Insurances accepted
The 9INE POINT Number makes it easy for everyday people who don’t know a lot about health care to know who they should engage with to get the help they need. Spending time on this is a long-term investment.
Working on building your social media following on Facebook, Instagram or whatever social network you choose also counts. There are a lot of ways that you can do this, but what matters is realizing that it is the part of the physical therapist job description that no one talks about.
Different Physical Therapy Job Description Settings
Private Practice
- Getting hired by a business that is owned privately
- Work with clients on a regular basis until the condition is better
Hospitals
- Patients will have much worse conditions
- Usually, patients can’t even leave the hospital without seeing a PT
Home Healthcare
- Travel to patients home to help them with the condition
- Allows for different setting daily
Nursing and Residential
- Slowest pace of all jobs
- The goal is to improve conditioning and overall body function
Athletics
- Working with athletic departments or teams to help athletes recover from athletic injuries
- The most fast-paced environment for a PT
Building an Excellent Physical Therapy Resume for The Physical Therapist Job Description
Think Carefully About The Physical Therapy Resume Objective
- The goal of the objective is to show how you are a great candidate
- To hit the mark with it, you must truly understand the job and what they are looking for
- Make the objective unique for each job
- Put skills that you possess that the job wants but are not shown well in your resume
- Customization is the key here
Make Sure The Summary is Done Well
- A summary should be easy to skim
- Feature strongest skills and accomplishments
- Include things like:
- Formal Degrees
- Years of experience
- Areas of Specialty
Showcase Skills, Education and Work Experience – Most important aspect of Physical Therapy Resume
- Base al information on things that make you look good for the job you are applying for
- Types of patients you have worked with
- The total size of practice
- Continuing education courses
- Certifications gained
- Professional associations
- Volunteer work
- Degrees
- Licenses with the location of licenses
Proof Read Multiple Times
- Mistakes will have your resume put in the NO pile quickly
- Many people forget this step
- Use spellcheck
- Double check it with software Grammarly
- Get at least three people to read a resume for you
- A physical therapy resume can be ruined with one mistake
It is important that you understand the physical therapist job description and physical therapy resume needed to get that job. A lot of understanding physical therapy job descriptions is getting back to the basics of what it takes to be good at the job. There is no one thing you can do; it is the combination of doing many things well.
KHO Health was acquired by was acquire by 9INE POINT in the summer of 2019 and is now referred to as 9INE POINT Health.
