Your Pre-PT Guide and Coach
Rachael
Hello and welcome to Pathway to DPT!
My name is Rachael and I will be your pre-PT guide and coach to help you become a competitive applicant for physical therapy school and to help you find your true passion for PT through the process.
But first, let me tell you a little about myself.
I knew that I wanted to be a physical therapist during the last semester of high school after I shadowed an outpatient PT for over 250 hours for a school internship. From that experience, I saw just a glimpse of what physical therapists can do and how many conditions can be improved by various modalities of physical therapy. At the clinic, I saw how physical therapists use water through aquatic therapy for patients who are less mobile on land, and how athletes of all levels can use physical therapy to increase sports performance as well as rehab after an injury. I also observed how therapists can become certified to be specialists for treating patients with neurological conditions, pelvic health complaints, and vestibular abnormalities.
Most importantly, I learned through my observation and research project how PTs can treat patients with chronic conditions and improve their quality of life when physicians can only treat the pain with medications. Physical therapists can assist everyone at some point in their life by applying a non-pharmacological approach to medicine that evaluates the underlying problem rather than covers up the problem with medications.
After this outpatient internship experience, I shifted to acute care to learn more about what PTs can do in the hospital setting! For over 2 years, I have been working as a therapy services aide assisting the physical, occupation, and speech therapists at two hospitals working with patients in all the units (ICU, neuro, trauma, ED, telemetry, medical/surgery, orthopedics, pediatrics, and bariatrics).
From my outpatient and inpatient experiences, I saw the impact PTs can perform for someone at their lowest condition to improving sports performance in professional athletes. What made me most excited about this field of medicine was that PTs can give their patients hope again. For example, patients with Marfan Syndrome, a rare genetic connective tissue disorder, were able to live without their daily aches and pains for the first time in their life because physical therapists provided them instructions for proper corrective movements. To me, that’s truly inspiring!
Now that you know about my why for PT, let me tell you how my passion for PT guided my success with my PT applications.
In the 2018-2019 application cycle, I applied to 6 physical therapy schools (all within the top 40 of 2016 US News and World Report) and got interviews at all of them as well as multiple acceptances (even at the University of Southern California which is a No. 1 ranked program with no interview). Fall 2019, I will be attending my first choice Doctor of Physical Therapy Program and will be one big step closer on my Pathway to DPT!
