Borientation

Travelers. We are trained and practiced in hitting the ground running under any circumstances. After a few assignments, every traveler realizes that all documentation systems are bad, but not equally bad, some are far worse than the others. Aside from a few operational issues, the job is the pretty much the same where ever you go, and it’s not too hard to blend into most teams quickly.

After a traveling on a few assignments, I realized a long orientation can be torturous. Given the choice of a HIPAA presentation, a JCAHO powerpoint, or walking on hot coals, I would take the hot coals in a hot second… besides, I’ve always wanted to try that.


 
Thanks for that, Adam Sandler

For a few assignments, I tried telling supervisors that I didn’t need much of an orientation. “Show me where equipment is, give me a quick run through the paperwork, and I’ll figure out the rest.” This tactic went well for a few assignments, and probably gave me a leg up during a couple interviews. But, it finally backfired last summer. I showed up to a private practice gig up in AK and had seven initial evals on the second day of work. Whoops, that’s too much work for the beginning of any assignment, I definitely over-played my hand.

So, now I’ve toned it down a bit – I have been accepting whatever orientation is bestowed upon me. There’s one phrase that I hear over and over again when I have a light caseload for the first week or two, “Enjoy it while you can.” I guess that’s the lesson I have learned. Orientation isn’t that bad. Easy work, easy money. If I’m allotted an hour for a test on JCAHO regulations, I can hammer it out in fifteen minutes and the extra 45 minutes will break even on a really busy day later in the assignment. Time for a fun side story: I once had four JCAHO audits in one year. Every one of my three facilities that year got audited while I was there, and, also, one of the staffing agencies I worked for was audited. I did an interview with the JCAHO auditor for the staffing agency. At the end of my interview, I got a chance to ask her a few questions. She said that there are over 300 staffing agencies accredited by JCAHO… that’s a lot and really amazes me.

Anyways, the strategy to just take whatever orientation is given to me has totally run-a-muck. I am currently in week 8 of a 12 week contract and finished my last orientation class just a week ago. To give my boss some credit, I am very well prepared. On the other hand, I have been completing online modules until today. I am officially done with orientation and will have only 5 weeks of work without any orientation.

There has to be some middle-point where in the future I can effectively express that I need some orientation, but also that I am seasoned and will be good to go early in the assignment. I haven’t found the happy-medium yet, but I’ll keep on trying.

Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job! (Part 2 of 2)

This is part 2 of a 2 part blog on the job market and job finding in traveling physical therapy. Find part 1 here.

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For the last seven years, I have been working as a travel PT. What a job! Every few months, I tell my recruiter where I want to go, what practice setting I would like to work in, and a few weeks later I have a job that fits my criteria.  …Or at least that’s how it worked until the past 6 months.

Key West, "Home of the Sunset." Also, by car, it is about half way between Colorado and Maine.

Key West, “Home of the Sunset.” Also, by car, it is about half way between Colorado and Maine.

My wife and I have been trying to find jobs in Southern Maine. We took our first shot at Southern Maine for the first half of the summer, but struck out. We were searching during a drive back to New England from Colorado, via Key West… a side-trip I recommend on any roadtrip. After we left Florida and were heading north through Connecticut, two possible job locations started to come together. Two jobs in Northern Maine and two jobs back in a sweet mountain town in Colorado. While turning around to head straight back to Colorado sounded like the most convoluted roadtrip ever taken, the chance to spend the summer playing in the mountains was pretty enticing. In the end, the Colorado jobs had one major flaw, Kate and I would be working opposite schedules and likely only have one day off together each week. What’s the point of travel PT if you don’t have the days off to enjoy your “home” town. To be honest, we weren’t psyched about heading to Northern Maine, but we recognized that it was the smart job to take – There were two jobs, they started on the day we hoped to start working, the location was relatively close to where we really wanted to be, and we were totally striking out on Southern Maine.

A couple blogs back, I wrote about our time in Northern Maine. The assignment turned out great. Goods jobs, good people, good times, but just a really, really far drive from everything. We had a few things working against us in looking for a job at the beginning of the summer. 1. We needed two jobs, not just one; 2. We only had active licenses in three states: Alaska, Maine, and Colorado; 3. We, as always, were pretty picky about our jobs. 

There were a couple things we could have done differently to address our above weaknesses: 1. Nothing can really be done about us needing two jobs instead of one, it’s the only downside about traveling with a companion. 2. We could have kept more licenses active to expand the potential search area. We previously had Massachusetts licenses, but had let them lapse. If we had applied for New Hampshire licenses, we could have lived in Southern Maine and commuted across the border to New Hampshire; 3. We could have been more flexible about what jobs we would work. We turned down SNF jobs based on setting alone, if we were more willing to work in a greater variety of settings, we would have found work more easily.

By mid-July, we were back on the job search, hoping to start-up down in Southern Maine the Monday following our Friday wind-down up North. Got it?

Northern Maine sure is beautiful, it's just really far from everywhere.

Northern Maine sure is beautiful, it’s just really far from everywhere.

After a few weeks of searching for jobs, it wasn’t looking good, again. Friday came and went, we moved out of our rustic one room cabin in Northern Maine and headed down to our condo in Old Orchard Beach (OOB). We had hoped to spend the next several months living in the condo in OOB, but after 4-5 months of keeping an eye towards the Southern Maine travel PT market, it seemed like a job, nevermind two jobs, was going to be really hard to come by. It was time to pull out the stops. Along with our recruiters searching for jobs for us, we were conducting our own search for clinics that might not be willing to work with a staffing agency but that would entertain hiring an independent contractor. I’ve written in the past about finding independent contracts, but it wasn’t meant to be this time. A couple phone conversations with office managers and clinic owners yielded nothing. It seemed that just as a job would start to look promising, someone who was willing to sign on permanently would swoop in and take the position.

I try to stick with 2-3 companies that I trust to find me the assignments I want. But, in a situation like I was finding in Southern Maine, it was time to start calling around to the agencies further down the list. “Phishing” was something I rediscovered through calling recruiters further down my list. Phishing is when you see a posting online for a job, but when you call the company advertising the job, the job doesn’t exist. They say something like, “Oh, someone just took that job. Let me see what else I have in that area for you.” Bottom line, the job doesn’t exist, it never did exist, and they’ll post the same imaginary job online next week. They just want to get information on you and see if the can talk you into taking a different job. It’s dishonest and dirty.

Luckily, one lesson had been learned from the search through Southern Maine several months earlier. We might need to expand the search beyond Maine’s borders if jobs continued to be elusive. We had considered New Hampshire licenses, but New Hampshire has a longer process for licensure, and it didn’t seem like having our NH licenses would make all that many more jobs available to us anyways. We each had an expired Massachusetts license and a number of friends living around the Boston area. We had started the process of re-activating our Massachusetts licenses, but had several states to get verifications from before the licenses would be ready. While we waited for the licenses to come through, we shifted gears to focus on Boston instead of Maine. Quickly, we had some options popping up. On Kate’s first phone interview in Boston, difficulties continued. The interview started backwards. Kate was to call the facility, rather than the facility calling her – the way it usually works. After several minutes of trying to make the receptionist understand that she was calling in for a scheduled interview, Kate was asked to call back later. So, she did call back a few minutes later. This time, she was connected to the person she was scheduled to interview with, except he connected her to a supervisor who told her that they were not interested in hiring a traveler at this time. By far the strangest interview either of us has ever not had.

Within the following week, two jobs had been offered in the Boston area, but as always happens, opportunities in Maine were popping up at the same time. In the end, a decision had to be made and 1 bird in your hand is worth 2 birds that are not in your hand (or something like that), so we accepted the Boston jobs. It left us with a couple weeks off, but it was far better to know the job searching was done. So a couple weeks were spent doing a lot of work around our apartment, doing a lot of couch-surfing at friends’ places, and sneaking in some beach time. One last speed bump and work would start on Monday…

Thursday before we started work, a scare – Our Massachusetts PT licenses would not be ready until Tuesday and our new boss was threatening to cut off the assignment if the licenses weren’t in hand when we were scheduled to start work. A series of frantic phone messages to the MA licensing board, an email, and maybe even a fax somehow produced our licenses on time.

Our view of Boston from our new abode. I'll be enjoying this view daily over the next 12 weeks.... guess we're down to 9 weeks already.

Our view of Boston from our new abode. I’ll be enjoying this view daily over the next 12 weeks…. guess we’re down to 9 weeks already.

…and that’s how we ended up working for the next 12 weeks in Boston. Our housing is another story for another day that also ends well, but the couch-surfing, or more accurately, futon-surfing, continued into the first week of work.

This post has dragged on much longer than I like, so it pains me to keep writing, but I believe this topic of the current job market is a very important one, and there are points to be made. I would like to discuss some highlights from the above story about how my wife and I finally got two jobs nearby where we wanted to be in what , locally, was a very difficult market. 1. We recognized a tough market locally and expanded our search methods through looking independently and using additional recruiters; 2. We were able to improve our possible job options by getting an additional state license and expanding our search area; 3. Even though the jobs we got didn’t start right away, we accepted them because we were willing to be flexible.

This whole post is about being flexible and opening yourself up to more opportunities. Carry extra state licenses, look with a couple recruiting companies, consider varied practice settings, and be willing to be patient for a couple weeks. Traveling physical therapy is a job that has a lot of upsides to it. We may be in a small dip in our employment options, but the market will recover quickly and there are currently numerous opportunities out there for anyone willing to be a little flexible. I hope that you can take some of these strategies, apply them to your own situation, and continue living the dream as a traveling PT.

I personally plan on reinstating more of my expired licenses to expand the possible jobs options. There’s a good job out there in a great location, open up your possibilities and allow yourself to find it.

 

Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job! (Part 1 of 2)

I have had one heck of an experience finding a job this last time around. I wanted to share the experience, but felt that there was some hard fact searching and job market research that needed to happen before we got into the more entertaining stuff. So this post is really all about prepping for my next blog (to be posted next week).

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A semi-pertinent music video:

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A lot of the trouble I had finding a job this time around mostly had to do with very local/isolated trends, but I know friends in other areas having difficulty getting assignments too. I have begun to wonder if finding a job in travel PT is as simple and lucrative as it was several years ago. I’m not going to make you wait until the end of this post for my conclusion – the outlook is bright and sunshiny with increasing job numbers, increasing wages, and an overall prediction of continuing to live-the-dream! Onward we go with the discussion of why it’s not that bad and why it will soon be so good…

When I was looking at colleges as a high school junior back in 1998/1999, I remember the sage advice of my biology, genetics, and home room teacher Mrs. Sheffield, “Don’t go into physical therapy, there’s no jobs! You should go into computers.” Thanks for that. Wasn’t she supposed to be encouraging my young, vulnerable mind to head towards the sciences!?

The late 90s was a particularly bad time to be going into healthcare. The Balanced Budget Act had recently been passed , and everybody was in a panic cutting staff and freezing hiring in the medical sector. Somewhere in my search for college programs and a potential career, I (or more likely my parents) came across a chart showing trends in employment in PT. Historically, there was a cycle where employment would increase for 6-7 years and then dip downward for 6-7 years. Looking at this chart in the late 90s, I concluded that 1999 and 2000 should be the bottom of the market and that by the time I graduated in 2006, employment in PT should be back near the top! So, I proudly defied Mrs. Sheffield a pursued an education in the jobless field of physical therapy.

I don’t know why employment in PT follows this cycle, and I have tried relentlessly to find another chart that shows what I saw in 1999, but I haven’t been able to find a chart that graphs PT employment over decades. What I do know is that when I graduated from PT school in 2006 the market was great, classmates were turning down jobs that didn’t pay enough, and Mrs. Sheffield was dead wrong. Now, here we are 7 years later, and while I remain gainfully and happily employed, I am finding it harder to get the travel assignments I want than it was just a couple years ago.

I propose that we are maintaining this 6-7 year cycle and we now are at the bottom of that cycle. With the implementation of healthcare reform, similarly like following the Balanced Budget Act in the late 90s, we are in a period where hospitals are tightening their belts because of uncertainty. Soon, the full reform will be rolled out, employers will adjust to the changes in the payment system, and our job market will triumphantly march upward for another 6-7 years. Here’s the kicker! If this really is the bottom of the market for us, we are sitting pretty. Unemployment in PT remains ridiculously low, and there are still plenty of locations out there with a drought of PTs.

Below, I have included several links that I think help paint a good picture of what we are seeing happen in our job market currently and what we can expect to see over the next few years. I encourage you to take a few minutes and check them out, particularly if you are currently or will soon be searching for a job in physical therapy.

The writer in this first reference equates what he is seeing now in the PT job market with what happened after the Balanced Budget Act: Looking to the Future For The Rehab Professions. I wish the writer had gone into more detail about the parallels he sees between the BBA and now, but he describes, in more details than I ever could, the various forces that will influence our employment opportunities in the years to come. A good read for sure.

Some more of the details about what was happening following the Balanced Budget Act can be found in this 2000 article by CNN.

I’m sticking to my guns. If you want to be a travel PT or PTA, do it. It is a very rewarding choice and there are plenty of jobs out there. If you, like me, are in an area that doesn’t have a whole lot of travel jobs, consider working in other areas. Here’s two more links that demonstrate two facts: 1. The current market and outlook for PT employment is VERY good, and 2. there are areas where you can look for a job where it’s ridiculously easier to get hired… Fairbanks anyone?

Top 5 paying locations in the US for PTs

Upward and downwards trends in ease of filling positions in PT mapped nationally <-Really cool map

In my next blog (next week – part 2) I will tell the tale of my last job search that launched me into this look at the job market and offer what I think are some of the ways that each travel PT or PTA can do be more marketable and continue to take advantage of the wonderful opportunities that come through work in travel physical therapy.

Northern Exposure

Somewhere along the way, Northern Maine changed for me.

I’m not sure if this post is just a story about a surprisingly good assignment or if it’s something deeper about discovering new places. It’s probably not all that deep, but there is a new part of Northern Maine that is A-O-K in my book.

"Katahdin" is a Penobscot Indian term meaning "the greatest mountain." So, technically, to say Mount Katahdin is redundant and silly - "Mount The Greatest Mountain." Anyways, it's much much bigger than anything else around. A shot from our campsite Saturday night.

“Katahdin” is a Penobscot Indian term meaning “the greatest mountain.” So, technically, to say Mount Katahdin is redundant and silly – “Mount The Greatest Mountain.” Anyways, it’s much much bigger than anything else around. A shot from our campsite Saturday night.

The speed limit has recently been increased to 75 mph north of Bangor. As far as I can tell, this stretch of highway is totally unpatrolled, and everybody knows it. I haven’t driven over 90 so much since I was seventeen. Driving this stretch at 80 to 90+ you can get from Bangor to the town of Houlton in just under 2 hours, here the interstate takes a sharp right hand turn into Canada, but getting off onto route 1 will carry you north through the farming towns of Aroostook County, or as it is known around Maine, just “the county.” About 45 minutes up that stretch of Rt 1 is Presque Isle, where Kate and I spent the last 13 weeks on assignment. I don’t know what I really expected to find all the way up in Presque Isle, but it ended up being a good town with great people. Right at the end of July, as we got towards the end of our contract, there was one week that I thought had a little bit of everything from our experience up in the county.

The week started out with the opening of the Northern Maine Fair (nohthen-Maine-Fayah). Anyone who has been to a state or county fair knows what I have gotten myself into: farm animals galore, bigger-than-your-head vegetables, carnival rides, the pinnacle of people watching, and if it can be eaten – it’s gonna be better fried, then eaten. The Northern Maine Fair is something you hear about, but don’t actually know anyone that has gone. The collection of people was… eclectic.

A little different shot I got of Katahdin later Saturday night, again from our campground. Beautiful Northern Maine skies unaltered by lights or pollution.

A little different shot I got of Katahdin later Saturday night, again from our campground. Beautiful Northern Maine skies unaltered by lights or pollution.

My days in the woods continued on Monday when out for my evening run on roads in my neighborhood, I came upon a momma bear and 3 cubs. It really was not that spectacular of a meeting – I surprised her, she definitely surprised me, and we both wanted to get further away from each other. As I back pedaled to put some distance between us, she rounded up her cubs and headed into the woods in a hurry. One cub had gotten away to the wrong side of the road, so I had some fear of continuing on with my run knowing I would have to run between a black bear and her cub. Kate was able to come from town and pick me up after I ran a couple miles in the other direction. Disaster adverted.

On Tuesday, Kate and I celebrated our wedding anniversary by going out to the nicest restaurant in town, Café Sorpresso. I had the seared scallops with maple butternut squash ravioli. Wicked good! I was stuffed to the brim. On the way home we drove up to the high part of town up on a hill where the hospital we were working at is located. We parked by the side of the road to watch the fireworks set off from the fairgrounds before calling it a night and heading on home.

OK, some admissions about this picture. It isn't from this summer. It isn't even from Maine. This is a picture of Kate and I with a group of strangers we met rafting on our first assignment together in Colorado Springs. The guy at 6/7 o'clock in the photo is Adam, he's an actor. He was on NCIS once. He had speaking lines and everything, but by the time I got the show turned on, he was playing a dead guy. Sorry I missed it, Adam. Cool people, fun day.

OK, some admissions about this picture. It isn’t from this summer. It isn’t even from Maine. This is a picture of Kate and I with a group of strangers we met rafting on our first assignment together in Colorado Springs. The guy at 6/7 o’clock in the photo is Adam, he’s an actor. He was on NCIS once. He had speaking lines and everything, but by the time I got the show turned on, he was playing a dead guy. Sorry I missed it, Adam. Cool people, fun day.

We capped off that week the way we did most weeks, off enjoying the great outdoors. We hopped back on the interstate at breakneck speeds and headed south to Millinocket for hiking in Baxter State Park and the best rafting in the East. Baxter State Park is a huge chunk of Maine with Katahdin as its center piece. When hikers are nearing the end of 6 months on the Appalachian Trail, they spend 100 miles in the wilderness without any towns for supplies. They are eventually spit out at the base of a 5,000ft mountain with their finish at the top – that’s Katahdin. We had a nice hike in the area on Saturday, and headed to our tent site to prepare for rafting the Penobscot River the next day. A day on the Penobscot starts with rafting over a 14ft waterfall. The second half of the day contains the Cribworks, an infamous class V rapid. The only picture of our boat in the Cribworks is of the bottom of it. Somehow we all stayed in the boat, but I think a few people had switched seats on the way through the rapid. We were having such a great escape out to the woods, that we decided to put our 2 hour drive back to Presque Isle off until Monday morning before work. At 4 A.M. we packed up our tent and silently slipped out of the campground to head back to work.

I guess that’s it. One week lived in Northern Maine that was representative of the whole experience: A lot of outdoors fun, some country time, some more classy and cultural events, and good work with good people. Now we search on for our next jobs. Where we’re looking has been a pretty rough market, so I don’ know if we’ll be living right where we want, but we’ll find something… and we’ll make the best of it!

Recycled Emails

I’m always looking for content to put on the page and recently realized that the emails I receive are probably better travel information than the stories I try to tell. So, without further adieu, the second installment of our Q&A.

I like the question that this email asks, The new traveler asked about the finances of travel, and whether there’s really all that much to gain when the expense of travel, furnished apartments, and moving several times per year are all added up. You’ll see my response below, but I’m afraid I downplayed an important point. For me, the extra pay with traveling PT is just a bonus. I do traveling for the adventure, locations, change of pace, and fun of it. Just wanted to be clear. 🙂

Traveler:

Thanks for your last email. I wanted to ask, since you use more than one company for jobs, how do you handle benefits e.g. health insurance, time off etc. I wonder if the higher pay of travel just gets eaten up by not getting a paid vacation, health insurance etc.

Although I am interested in seeing other places, what I most want is to make money to pay off my student loans!

Thanks.

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Hobohealth:

I do carry my own health insurance. From a lot of companies I’m able to get another $1/hr for not needing their insurance. My wife got short-term insurance for a while. At esurance.com you can get insured 6 months at a time. The way to combat having to get your own insurance is to stick with one company – some of them are real sticklers about being back working for them within 14 days between contracts. If you are jumping around between companies like I do and you have a major health issue between assignments, I believe you can retroactively enact COBRA for up to 60 days, so there is that safety net.

You’re right that there are costs to travel – no PTO, moving expenses, etc. I think my wife and I break even compared to working a full-time perm job. But, on the other hand, we take a lot of time off each year. In the last two years I’ve probably taken 15 weeks off. If you are diligent about getting right into a new assignment following the assignment before, there’s a potential to get quite a ways ahead financially…. Another way you can maximize your pay is by actively seeking out the higher paying assignments which are typically in more rural areas and less desirable settings. If you’re a new PT, I’d probably skip seeking out these assignments at first, but later on they can be a great way to make some cash, see some different social/cultural situations, and expand your comfort level on a wider scope of practice.

Hope this helps!!!

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Note: I originally had responded in this email saying COBRA could be enacted 90 days after losing employer sponsored health coverage, the limit is actually 60 days as corrected above. Here is the department of labor’s website of FAQ’s on COBRA. If you jump from recruiter to recruiter without your own insurance, it’s probably really good information for you to know. http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq-consumer-cobra.html

Ask James

Hey everyone. It’s hit that time of year where April comes around and I realize I haven’t posted in 3 months. Don’t worry, I haven’t been working too hard, just skiing too much. 🙂

I thought one quick way to get back in the blog-habit is to post a recent email conversation I had with a new traveler. I think he was asking the right questions and made the right decisions in the end. Maybe our conversation can help someone else out there who is working on getting into travel PT.

Happy reading and happy travels! I’ll write again soon.

 

New Traveler: My wife and I have ventured out to begin traveling therapy. We left sunny SC and drove 2800 miles to cloudy OR last week. My wife had a for sure job but my opportunity fell through somewhere around Wyoming.

But now I have been contacted by a SNF and they want to offer me a contract directly.

They asked me to name a price and I asked to have time to think it over a while.

I have a little idea of what to say because I know what the travel company is paying my wife. But before I respond to them I am hoping to get some advice from y’all.

Here are my details: This will be my first job; I graduated in December. It’s going to be a 6 month contract. I have no experience in a SNF but I had 2 clinical rotations in outpatient (1 manual focused), 1 acute rotation, and 1 inpatient rotation.

One traveling company recruiter told me I should make 1400 dollars a week if they didn’t cover housing or insurance. I have both through my wife’s job.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

HoboHealth: Awesome to hear you guys are taking the plunge and hitting the road!!!

I have two thoughts. If the SNF job sounds like something you wouldn’t mind doing, then go for it. But if you’d rather be doing something else, then I think holding out another week or two may yield some good results if you’ve been seeing other opportunities in the area come and go. So, make that decision first… Is this really an assignment that’ll be ok for you? (Also, since you haven’t done SNF before, are there other PTs to help guide you? …the more the better.) Do you need another recruiter?

My 2nd thought is that $1400 sounds really low to me. I know therapists that made about $1500 wkly after taxes through an agency on their first assignment after only 6 months PT experience. Figure on top of that (or whatever your wife is making) that the agency is charging another $10-$20 an hour. That’s a lot of bargaining room for you. I would say as a new grad doing an independent contract $1600 is a very acceptable starting place for take home ($40/hr). I think you should aim higher $2000 ($50/hr)? I’ve heard of independent home health contracts going as high as $70/hr. Depends how ballsy you’re feeling…. Doesn’t hurt to ask. Also, just make sure you’re getting what perks and reimbursements you can.

Here’s some links in case you haven’t read them already (the second is some sample independent contracts):
The Job Search
Independent Contracts

New TravelerGonna give you a quick update. I went in for the interview on Friday and loved the facility as well as the other PTs and PTAs. I decided that it would be a great first job for me as a PT. The managers do a lot of the extra stuff like billing, etc so it will allow me to concentrate on solidifying my eval and treatment skills. As you know it’s quite different being an actual PT than a PT student. No one looking over your shoulder and checking behind you.

It is a unique situation. The clinic is considered an outpatient clinic because it is in a retirement village and serves an independent living community as well as a SNF so I will see a wide variety of patients.

The pay is good. It’s right around what we were discussing. I feel like it’s excellent for a new grad. $42 an hour initially and $48 after a month because I will decline the benefits. I am insured through my wife’s job.

Thanks for sharing the link as well. I used some of the pointers from your blog when negotiating the contract. The whole process went pretty smooth. My wife and I are planning to stay in Oregon for 6 months and then move on. We want to hit up Alaska in the next year. Maybe y’all will still be there and we can get a beer.

Thanks for the help. Hope to stay in touch.

HoboHealth: Thanks for the update. Sounds like a great gig and like you made some good decisions over the past few days!

Good luck and keep in touch when you start working towards AK!

PT International Travel – The Prep Work (part 2)

This is part 2 of a series on travel abroad as a working Physical Therapist. For previous posts, click “previous blogs” on the menu at the top of the page.

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Whether you are following a significant other somewhere or you are looking to relocate abroad on your own, there are a lot of things you want to consider before and during the transition process. Hopefully my story will help those of you thinking about travel abroad decide to take that leap out of the US and help you figure out how to do it. The process is never ending, but the better prepared you are, the less frustrated you will get!

Souq Waqif, a marketplace and one of the favorite tourist spots in Doha.

Souq Waqif, a marketplace and one of the favorite tourist spots in Doha.

 Like I mentioned in the first post, having a contact may be your greatest advantage in landing a job abroad. Think of a friend or family that lives abroad, a coworker that worked abroad or even someone that knows someone that worked or has contacts abroad. Six degrees of separation may work here! That is generally how most of us foreigners here in Qatar ended up where we are.

Since my husband was the one who took a job that was placing us overseas, I had to do a ton of research on the possible countries – Chile, Australia and Qatar – to see if any of them would be a place I could practice. Unlike many other professions, healthcare workers usually have either the burden of proving their proficiency through re-examination (who wants to take the boards again!) or through verification.

So, before you start packing your bags for some beautiful coastline, there’s a few things you will want to research, and then continue to research throughout the process. I’ll try to keep this as condensed as possible, but here’s some quick links if you don’t want to read all of it.

On the water looking back at Doha

On the water looking back at Doha

Given that we had 3 potential locations we could move to, I started by looking into the culture and the requirements for a PT in each country. A good place to start is the World Federation of Physical Therapy (http://www.wcpt.org). They have contact info for a ton of countries, including websites, emails, phone numbers and addresses. Awesome.

I started by emailing the contact for Chile. The biggest questions I was asking at first were 1. Do they accept a US licensure carte blanc, on a case by case basis, or do they require all international PT’s to take an examination? 2. Is Spanish (or Arabic for Qatar) a requirement or are there hospitals where the primary language among healthcare workers is English? I also checked out Chile’s physiotherapy webpage that I found on www.WCPT.org and googled hospitals in Santiago, Chile. Everything was in Spanish. The email I received from their PT association was in Spanish. Fluency seemed like a must at this point. So for Chile, I waited on proceeding until I had a better idea if we would end up there.

Next was Australia. I started by checking out http://www.physiotherapy.asn.au but also contacted a college professor as well, knowing that she practiced there. In Australia, they evaluate each candidate on a case by case basis, but chances are, an exam was likely. Now, being 6 years out of school, I would want to know that I would be here for at least a few years if I was going to study for another board. Again, further search was put on hold. But I couldn’t help to check out New Zealand, since I was looking in that part of the world. http://www.physioboard.org.nz/index.php?Registration-Overseas-QualifiedPhysiotherapists . Now this is the kind of information I was looking for! Direct information on how to apply as an international PT. Perfect. Now only if we were going there instead!

I saved Qatar for last. This is where we ended up and was probably the most complex process I have ever endured! I began with checking out background information on Qatar which is a moderately liberal/conservative Islamic country in the middle east. We have to be married to live together. I can drive, walk around, and do most things as I would in the US. It is respectful to have my shoulders and knees covered when in public. English is the common language given the hundreds of languages that are spoken here. So it seemed I should be able to transition here with moderate ease.

We then started by asking my husband’s company a ton of questions to find out if I should come over with my husband of if I needed to wait before I made my move. The big questions – sponsorship, benefits and education qualifications. I will get into these topics in the next blog and the details of what I specifically had to do to be eligible to work in Qatar.

PT International Travel – An Introduction (part 1)

People are ALWAYS asking me about travel abroad. Unfortunately, I have never traveled abroad to work and know very little about it. Recently, a friend, packed up her bags and headed for Qatar where she has now resumed work as a Physical Therapist. She has been kind enough to put some of her experiences to paper and share them with us.

Over the next month or so, we will post several blogs by Amy Sheridan about her experiences finding work abroad and the logistical and cultural obstacles that she has contended with.

Without further a-do, here is an introduction to Amy and we will soon follow-up with the next several pieces.

-James
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Doha, Qatar largest city. A population of about 1 million.

Doha, Qatar’s largest city. A population of about 1 million.

Ever think of working as a PT abroad? My husband and I had been throwing that idea around for a year or so before a great opportunity arose for him as an engineer in Qatar. We jumped, and I left my physical therapy job in the US and followed him there. Why Qatar? Why work abroad when you can work as a traveling PT in the US? Well, hopefully our tales will give you some background on not only work and play life abroad but also on the process that I had to go through to work in Qatar.

Prior to jumping ship, I worked as a Sports and Ortho PT in a private outpatient clinic in Boston. I had been working there since graduating from Northeastern University in 2006. Having a boss that traveled to the Middle East for 10 or so years to treat athletes actually prepared me to work abroad. I always thought it would be awesome to start traveling with him there. Instead, I ended up here myself.

Amy getting around Qatar via some local transportation.

Amy exploring Qatar via some local transportation.

The number one reason we ended up in Qatar, of all places to relocate to, was contacts. And patience. My husband must have posted his resume on 50 job websites for work all over the world without a single reasonable follow-up (very frustrating, I might add!) before a conversation with a subcontractor led him to a brilliant contact and a job. My job also came from a contact I made 3 years ago at a conference. If that’s not an ad for keeping old business cards, I don’t know what is!

Over the next few blogs, I’ll share the seemingly never ending production of preparing to relocate, the millions of questions we asked before and during the relocation process, securing visas and residency, idiosyncrasies of living in another country, culture shock, and finally what it is like to work in Qatar. I’m hoping that my experience will guide any of you looking into it or in the midst of the process.

-Amy

Alaska Wrap-Up!

We are again on the edge of an epic road trip. Kate and I are celebrating the first of 37 days off from work and really excited for the upcoming trip as we pack up and get ready to hit the road. This trip is going to be a really neat way to wrap up our time in Alaska. Before getting back to the lower 48, we will take a 10 day water ferry down the coast of Alaska seeing glaciers, sea life, and stopping in a few smaller Alaskan towns along the way.

Today, I really just wanted to share with you some of my favorite memories from the last 6 months. Alaska is a must-do for any experienced travel healthcare worker. As I’ve shared previously, getting set-up here was tougher than most assignments, but the adventure and experience was well worth it.

During our time here, “Champ,” the RV we bought for chump-change, became our access portal to weekend adventure and camping without fear of rain, cold, or bears. Champ drove us as far south from Anchorage as Homer, a small coastal town at the tip of the Kenai Penisula, “where the land ends and the sea begins.” Down in Homer we met up with a nurse friend, Anna, that I had met on assignment in Colorado. She has found her way out hereto the great north the way a lot of other nurses and PTs have, working for the Native Hospital Corporation… If you’re open to being in Alaska for a couple years and paying off some loans, look into it, but that’s a whole other commentary for a different time. We knew Anna had adventurous plans for the weekend, but the end result was the coolest weekend this summer. The weather was perfect, 70 degrees and flat seas. We hopped on a water taxi that took us across the bay to a marked trailhead on a rocky and secluded beach. Feeling like we were exploring untouched land with bear spray strapped on each of our hips, we hiked into a glacial lake with ice bergs floating in it that had recently broken off the glacier at the opposite end. Past the lake, we hiked out to another isolated trailhead on another beach where we had tied off kayaks to paddle a couple miles over to the town of Halibut Cove. On the way to Halibut Cove, we paddled our kayaks across the flat bay seeing sea otters at close range, halibut swimming right underneath us, and giant starfish latched onto the bottom in more shallow water. Before taking the water ferry back to Homer from Halibut Cove, we explore the isolated community of 37 people that I think is best described as a super-rugged artists’ commune. One girl managing an art gallery told us about how in the winter she takes her snow mobiles across the bay to play hockey on the glacial like we had come from. Now that’s Alaskan.

Champ also took us as far north as Denali National Park where we visited when my parents visited in July. In the park, we managed to not see a single bear, but did see a caribou up real close. One of the things I love most about our national parks system is how quickly you can be way, way away from all other people. There’s a fact out there that goes something like: only 10% of visitors to National Parks ever go more than 1 mile from paved roads… that’s not the exact fact, but in Denali National Park with 7,370 square miles and one main road, you get the point. On the trip back down from Denali, we spent the night in Talkeetna, a fun outdoorsy town, but more importantly we spent the night all together in Champ. And slept like rocks. Anyways, that was another great weekend away in Champ.

My other favorite adventures that were a little closer to home were climbing O’Malley Peak which is one of the most prominent peaks visible from Anchorage, seeing the Northern lights from our apartment several weeks ago, and several weekend trips down to Girdwood including when we skied at Alyeska our first weekend here.

But, it’s time to go. We get on a ferry on Wednesday and do the ghetto version of an inner passage cruise before an all-corners of the country trip visiting family and couch surfing with friends. Eventually in mid-December we’ll land back in Colorado and do the usual and extraordinary winter gig back there.

Also, in exciting HoboHealth news, Amy Sheridan, a friend who has recently started working as a PT in Doha, Qatar will be sharing her experiences on this blog. I know Amy has stories for us, and I can’t wait.

Stay tuned, many, many updates in the next few weeks!

(Click the photos below to enlarge!)

THE Housing

Finding an apartment here was TOUGH! …more on this in a minute.

There’s a lot of different ways to get your housing on travel assignment. By far the easiest way is having your staffing agency set up the housing for you. If you don’t know the area and really have no preference on location, the housing is typically pretty nice and turn-key ready. On the other hand, you could take the tax-free housing stipend and find housing on your own.

There is a financial advantage to figuring out the housing on your own and taking the cash. It keeps all the money in your reimbursement package and away from the resources it takes for a staffing agency to find and arrange your housing. In fifteen-or-so assignments, I’ve only had my recruiter get housing for me once. If you haven’t searched for your own housing on assignment, you’d be surprise at the amount of temporary and furnished housing that is available. Craigslist is how we almost always find our housing. If we can get to the assignment a few days ahead of time, that’s usually enough time to hit Craigslist hard and find good housing in a fun neighborhood before work starts.

It turns out Anchorage rental housing has a 98% occupancy rate. That’s REALLY high. We were lucky enough to have an open invitation with friends in Wasilla, whom we ended up crashing with for over 2 weeks. [whom?] There was so little availability in rentals around Anchorage that we really didn’t get a chance to see many apartments. Luckily, among the 3 apartments we looked at, was a nice two bedroom, utilities included, deck, washer/dryer, and parking.

The apartment is more than we like to pay for rent, but with a location convenient for work, plenty of room for visitors, and slim pickings for other options…. it’s worked out just fine. Which is a lovely segue to the larger message: With a little patience in finding housing and finding a job everything works out just fine. As a travel PT or PTA, you may go a week or two without a job or work for a week while living in an extended stay with all your junk in your car, but IT ALL WORKS OUT JUST FINE.

The Things We Look For In An Apartment:

-Furnished               -Short-term lease

-Washer/Dryer        -WiFi

-Parking                     -Utilities included