Experience Before Travel PT vs. New Grad Travel PT

new grad traveling therapy

James of HoboHealth worked in private practice before going into traveling PT and believes gaining professional experience is the right move to make before traveling.  April of The Vagabonding DPT has had professional success and happiness through becoming a traveler immediately as a new grad. These two traveling Doctors of Physical Therapy from different personal and professional backgrounds have connected to provide you diverse perspectives on travel PT.  This is their first blog post together of a series of topics.

What are the advantages of being a New Grad PT vs. being an Experienced PT then going into Travel PT?

 

headshot-square-finalHoboHealth:
Professional Experience – I only worked for six months between graduation and starting as a traveling PT. The brief time I worked in private practice before traveling did a lot to shape who I am as a clinician today. Getting just a little bit of experience as a clinician allowed me to become grounded in a healthy work environment before setting out into the less predictable and less stable world of traveling.

Personal Marketability – I believe the little bit of experience I had in private practice prior to traveling gave me a leg-up on other candidates looking at the same jobs. My first traveling job was (primarily) outpatient in a community hospital outside of Boston with other therapists around to help continue my mentorship and growth. Without a little experience, I don’t believe they would have taken on the risk of hiring a near-new grad. Six months in private practice, followed by 10 months at my first travel assignment with strong mentorship set me up for 10 years of positive traveling assignments. Bottomline, if you get a little experience before travel, better employment opportunities are available to you as a traveler.

Vagabonding DPT:april-fajardo-headshot
My life was as compact as possible.  I already had sold all my furniture and everything I owned fit into my Honda Civic. I was as mobile as I ever would be.  If there was any opportunity to travel and explore, now was my moment. I had just spent my 3rd year completing my clinical rotations in Oklahoma City, OK; Salt Lake City, UT; Springfield, MO; and Dallas, TX. I was moving about every couple of months.  In essence, my clinical internships provided me the opportunity to live the life of a travel DPT as a student.  I was used to learning at a rapid rate and had to learn to adjust to a new city and clinic every few months. Because of this, It was quite an easy transition to go from a DPT student on clinical rotations to a DPT on the road for work.

You have “less” responsibility. As one begins to settle into their career and life (in general), the natural progression is to get settled into a specific location, get married, buy a house, have children or furry kids, and/or take care of ill, elderly parents.  Although I think it is absolutely possible to travel with all the aforementioned circumstances, these factors require far more extensive benefit/cost analysis. For myself, I wasn’t married, I didn’t have a house, nor did I have children.  So I made the personal decision to take the plunge straight into travel PT for further domestic exploration and adventures!

Money
Although I believe that this shouldn’t be your primary reason for going into traveling therapy.  It definitely doesn’t hurt. Students are coming out with a tremendous amount of debt and this is definitely a great way to pay down those student loans.

What are the disadvantages of being a New Grad PT vs. being an Experienced PT then going into Travel PT?

 

HoboHealth:
When I first thought about this question, my gut reaction was, “There’s no disadvantage! What could be wrong with having more experience going into a job?” …but then I thought of the hardest day of my PT career – the day I had to quit my first job. The day I told my mentor and friend that I wouldn’t be able to work for him anymore was a really stressful day. Quitting a job, especially one that you like, is hard. I can see how someone with the intention to travel could go get a steady job and never end up leaving it. While I do believe strongly in getting experience before traveling, I can see how you risk getting “stuck” in a permanent job. I remember the phrase one of my professors told me to make quitting professional and simple, “It’s an opportunity I can’t pass up.” Remember that phrase, it’s a good one.

Also, the traveling lifestyle is only available to those in the right life situations to have the flexibility to take short-term contracts. Sometimes you have to strike while the iron is hot – waiting to take a permanent job, get several months of experience, and then quitting can shift you into a phase of life where the idea of travel isn’t as easy as it once was. New family obligations, meeting a significant other, and simple logistics like year-long rental leases can obstruct your path to the open road.

Vagabonding DPT:
Mentorship:
Off the bat, one’s initial thought may be the lack of mentorship.  There are some travel companies that may market mentorship opportunities.  I challenge you to ask them what exactly this looks like.  Just being in the same clinic as other physical therapists does not constitute as mentorship.  This can be countered by building an army of mentors while being a student.  Based on my interests, I’ve inadvertently built an army of specialists from Neurologic PT to Global Health to Nonprofit Leadership.

Mentorship does not have to be limited to our profession. There is something to learn from everyone.  Quite frankly, our patients become our first mentors.  If you learn to listen intently, they will lead you to the answer.  In addition, a firm understanding of other disciplines such as occupational therapy and speech & language pathology can help us maximize our role with a focus on patient-centered rehabilitative care.

Lack of Experience:
James touched upon this and it is true.  There will be some jobs that will require that you have more experience than what you have had. However, I secured my second job assignment by highlighting my strengths and experiences in that setting.  I applied for a position in inpatient rehabilitation that required 5 years of experience.  So during my phone interview, I discussed my experience.  I worked for two years as a PT aide in outpatient PT, then did an additional two years as a rehab aide prior to even applying for physical therapy. I also completed two clinical rotations in inpatient rehabilitation. I felt I was more than qualified for the position at hand.   I’m glad that the rehabilitation manager was pleased with my response as well because she essentially hired me for the position. I’ve extended my contract since then.

Being a traveler can isolate you from the typical learning and professional development paths that may be available in more traditional PT careers. What have you done or do you plan to do to continue your professional development?

 

HoboHealth:
Board Specialty
Shortly after completing my transitional-DPT, I soon felt ready to pursue my Orthopaedic Clinical Specialty (OCS). I spent more than a year reading every piece of ortho research I could get my hands on and reading a couple comprehensive ortho books cover-to-cover. The constant studying kept me focused on a fixed goal for quite some time. Specialties through ABPTS are available in variety of practice areas. A couple supervisors on travel assignments have told me they hired me specifically because of my board specialist certification. In total, my tDPT and OCS combined filled the first  4 years of my professional life with a structured, focused learning path.

Some universities are offering post-doctoral learning paths that culminate in sitting for (and hopefully passing) the specialist exams. My alma mater, Northeastern University, offers a Certificate of Advanced Study in Orthopedics. Essentially, you take 5 online classes focused on advanced orthopedic practice, earn college credits, and become more prepared for the OCS exam. Programs like this can help you keep a structured learning schedule that can otherwise so easily fall out of priority while working as a travel PT.

Certifications
Generally, I am skeptical of programs focused on one clinical belief system and the alphabet soup that comes along with them. Courses that all come from a single guru will help you dive deeply into a treatment strategy, but are typically lacking in variety outside of that one strategy. However, as a way to provide a structure for learning towards a final goal, they can be very useful. I currently am about to set out on earning my certification in Dry Needling. Over the next year, I have my learning laid out for me and a fixed goal to be certified in Dry Needling and Cupping by the end of 2017. There are some other great programs available that offer several courses on different topics culminating in a single certification – do be discerning, not all certs are created equal.

Vagabonding DPT:
With the constant change, rapid rate of learning, and high productive expectations expected as a Travel PT, you can get burnt out and/or apathetic as a PT.  It is pivotal that you “Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.”  Since graduation, I have done exactly that through social media, leadership positions, national PT conferences, and continuing education courses.

Social Media
I didn’t understand Twitter.  I didn’t get the point.  However, a few years ago, I ran for the position of APTA Student Assembly Director of Communications and thought that I should get one in the event I got elected and had to manage one. I’ll be honest.  I had no idea what I was doing.  With the Twitter mentorship of Matt Debole, PT, DPT, OCS and Stephanie Weyrauch, PT, DPT, they opened up a world of passionate students and clinicians from all over the country and the world.  I started utilizing pound signs…I mean hashtags and twitter handles in my tweets.  A few years later, I had the pleasure of engaging with these professionals virtually and in person.

If you don’t have a twitter account, get one.  The best way is to just dive in and follow a few hashtags such as #ChoosePT, #DPTstudent, #SolvePT, #FreshPT, #PTFam and/or #TravelPT, just to name a few.

Still don’t get it? Start one, follow me, then tag me @AprilFajardoPT in your first tweet! Be part of the conversation.

PT Conferences
National Conferences: Have you ever been to National Student Conclave, Combined Sections Meeting (CSM), or NEXT?  It’s how the kids say, “lit?”  Yesss, LIT!!!! Everyone comes to this conference to learn, but one of the most important aspects of these conferences is the opportunity to formulate connections.  If you’ve been active on social media, meet some of those you follow on Twitter at one of these conferences.  You get to attend a multitude of receptions based on your interests and involvement from Alumni events to Section events.  The exhibit hall is equipped with the latest physical therapy gadgets and with recruiters from every corner of the US.  The

International PT Conference: This coming year, I plan on attending the World Congress of Physical Therapy on July 2nd-4th in Capetown, South Africa.  I look forward to the opportunity to learn from and engage with physiotherapists around the world.  Sounds enticing, doesn’t it?  Well, the early registration deadline is November 30th.  Join me and check out their website at http://www.wcpt.org/congress.

Professional Leadership
I’ve been on the go as a traveler; however, I’ve stayed engaged through the pursuit of my passions in professional development, engagement, APTA membership, global health, and service.  I currently serve as The Academy of Neurologic PT’s membership and public relations committee member, an Early Career Team committee member, and the PT Day of Service’s Global Affairs Chair.  My role in all these leadership positions has been location independent.  If I can do it, you can too!  Not sure where to start?  Fill out the APTA Volunteer Interest Pool at http://www.apta.org/VolunteerGroups/ or email the APTA Executive Director of the Section you want to get involved in at http://www.apta.org/Sections/.

Continuing Education Courses
Every state has a different set of requirements for continuing education courses.  However, I’ve found that the most helpful courses have been those developed by a specific section of the APTA.  I’ve taken a continuing education course on Parkinson’s Disease developed by the Academy of the Neurologic PT.  Terry Ellis, PhD, PT, NCS of Boston University  and Lee Dibble, PhD, PT of University of Utah taught the course through the integration of the evidence and its clinical application.  So if there’s a specific topic you want to learn about, check out what courses are provided by the appropriate APTA section.

The New Grad Dilemma

new grad therapist travelNote: I have included a lot of links in this piece and there is a ton of information beyond this article through those links. If you are a new grad therapist looking into travel, take the time to explore these links. Some are other pieces about new grads traveling, some are about professional development, and some are conversations on the discussion board that are pertinent. Note 2: I’m going to write this post using “Physical Therapist” language, but I believe this topic applies to speech and occupational therapists as well. I feel passionately about this particular post and found myself getting bogged down in language trying to be more inclusive of all therapists – so, forgive me, I really mean all therapists, but as a PT, I just write more gooder when I can write in the terms most familiar to me.

In the last couple months, I have written and spoken with quite a few new grad physical therapists who are going straight to traveling after graduation. With several of these new grads, I have had the opportunity to give my typical schpeel:

I do not believe you should travel as an immediate new grad therapist. I believe you need at least a brief experience as a PT with your own patients and own license alongside other experienced therapists to get to know yourself as a clinician and what life as a professional in a good clinical setting is like. That way, when you run into employment, management, or ethical red flags on assignment, you can recognize them and react appropriately. As a student PT, you have gained great knowledge that is more up to date and in depth than many currently practicing clinicians. You have also likely managed your own patient case load and treated a wide variety of cases. But, you have never done this without a safety net – with everyone expecting you to be the person with the answers. Do you need to be an expert clinician to be a successful traveler? Absolutely not, but I recommend you have some sort of professional experience, because there is frequently less support around you as a traveler than there would be in a more stable environment. I do not think you should travel right out of school, but if you are determined to, I would like to help you down the path to a better traveling experience.

So, in summary: Don’t travel immediately out of school, but if you do, I’d like to help you along the way.

What has my experience with giving this advice been? Failure. Despite my advice, just about every new grad physical therapist I talked to this summer is already working in a travel job or currently traveling to their first assignment. I have lost them to the awesome, kick-ass world of traveling therapy. Can I really blame them? No, being a traveling PT has a lot of benefits and upside, but I hope I can still save a few of you who haven’t signed travel contracts yet. I plead with you, just get a brief stretch of experience as a therapist before you travel.

I’ve written a lot on this topic in years past. I’ll try not to be redundant and instead, as mentioned above, link out to the things I have written in the past. If you are a new grad considering travel PT, earnestly consider whether traveling therapy is the best thing for you right now. Maybe it is, life changes fast and your window to travel may be closing soon, but if you can delay travel for 6 to 12 months, it will improve your experience. What follows is a mixture of “why you shouldn’t” and “if you do” advice.

With the new grad therapists I have been talking to, the most prevalent challenge I have been finding is predatory recruiters who don’t care who you are and who you want to be as a professional. These recruiters are only motivated by the fact that they get paid if they place you in a job. I’m generalizing, but the more predatory recruiters tend to be in the really big recruiting agencies that are staffing-factories. Finding a recruiter as your “employer” is the same as if you were looking for a permanent employer. You would want a clinical employer that allows you to spend solid one-on-one time with each of your patients. Likewise, you want to find a recruiter who has the time to get to know you and give you some personal attention. When working with a recruiter (and I recommend you work with 2 or 3), ask yourself these questions:

1. Does this recruiter know or remember anything about me personally or professionally?
2. Does this recruiter care if I get placed in a good job?
3. Am I steering the conversation of where I am going to work? (or is the recruiter?)

If the answer to any 1 of these 3 questions is “No,” find another recruiter. Don’t worry, there are over 300 Joint Commission accredited recruiting agencies, you’ll find another recruiter. Your recruiter should be WORKING FOR YOU to put you in a situation that best fits your needs and sets you up to grow as a professional. The predictable next-step with any predatory recruiter is a low-ball offer to work at a facility with no other PTs but likely an ungodly number of support staff for you to supervise. In this conversation going on at the discussion board (which I highly recommend you read), one new grad mentions a job offer where he would be the only PT at the facility with 3 PTAs. Which brings another three questions to my mind:

1. If the facility needs a traveler, who is supervising the PTAs now?
2. Does a therapist supervising 3 assistants actually get to treat any patients of their own?
3. How unbelievably bad is this facility that they are willing to hire a new grad they have never met in person to be their only therapist?

Forgive me, I’m just a worried big-brother-PT trying to keep his siblings out of trouble. I know you guys are all (mostly) super-intelligent people and see the red lights flashing on this job offer, but I want to assure you that you have choices and should never-ever under any circumstances work for a recruiter who offers you a job like the one described above – pass on it, this job can be somebody else’s nightmare. I got really lucky with my first assignment, but took time looking for a recruiter that was willing to hold my hand throughout the process. Because I was working at a permanent job, I had the luxury of taking my time to research staffing agencies and search for a job. When I found the recruiter I would eventually take my first assignment with, we searched together for a job that would allow me to work in outpatient and would have other PTs around for my mentoring and growth. It took a few weeks of patience, but that assignment eventually came up. I interviewed and accepted the job, and I extended my contract there twice to ultimately stay 10 months because it was such a great fit for me and satisfied my need for growth as a new therapist – this, ideally, is what your experience should be as a new grad exploring travel therapy. Your recruiter should be some sort of a cross between a teacher and companion who can appreciate what you need in a job and what strengths you have to offer a potential employer. Here’s an older discussion board thread discussing travel as a new grad and selecting your first job.

Let’s talk about why a facility needs to hire a traveler, because I think it is central to why some travel assignments are better than others and why you should have some experience before you travel. A facility hires travelers because they are understaffed. A facility can be understaffed for a number of very benign reasons – an employee is out temporarily for illness or maternity leave, the geographic location is difficult to attract highly educated professionals to, the business has recently expanded or gone through a structural change and is spread thin on staffing, or the area doesn’t have any PT programs nearby so there is a chronic shortage. If you’re discerning, patient, and lucky enough, these are the jobs you will take consistently as a traveler. These facilities generally care about their patients, and, because they care, they will be expecting you to bring a certain established skill-set with you to hit the floor running and start treating patients confidently soon after you start. If you approach the job selection process with little care of where you work and no experience to demonstrate any specific skill set, you’re more likely to find yourself in the facilities that have staffing issues for the other, more sinister reasons – these places are willing to hire any warm body with a license. Facilities can have staffing issues because management is awful, productivity expectations are too high, or the business is unethical. The therapists that put themselves in the situation of working for the clinics with the worse kind of staffing issues are not going to have a good professional life. They will experience stress and burnout, and these are the people you will meet who are cynical about therapy and healthcare business in general. With a little bit of effort and patience, you can dodge lousy assignments – when the red flags go up, pay attention to your gut. If it sounds like a lousy situation, it is. If you can get yourself a year or even just a few months of experience before traveling, your marketability improves dramatically and the quality of jobs available to you will grow.

The reason I feel the need to warn you all about the dark side of traveling as a new grad is because I care greatly about our profession. We are uniquely situated to do great things in healthcare. We are primed to heal patients conservatively without medication or surgery, to heal and promote health in many different venues, and to prevent pain and disease in the first place. All of these things save patients and insurance companies a great deal of money versus other treatment options and will ultimately be our golden ticket as everyone continues to age. In order for our profession to best seize these opportunities, we need to cultivate the best clinicians, and I don’t think starting out as a traveler with zero professional experience will make you the best clinician and ambassador of our profession that you have the potential to be. Just a little time before you travel will get you grounded and set a baseline for your future experiences. There are great advantages professionally and clinically to being a traveler – if you travel for multiple years, you will eventually work in more settings than you ever dreamed of. You will treat patients of more different backgrounds and cultures than you could never imagine, and you will be one of the most well-rounded clinicians with more diverse clinical and world experiences than any of your non-traveler colleagues. Without experience in the setting you would ultimately like to work in, you are more likely to aimless drift from lousy assignment to lousy assignment without gaining a good foothold on who you are as a clinician when you are at your best. As a traveler, professional growth is a solitary experience, you really need to be on the right path when you start. Please, I beg you, travel, it is a fantastic experience, but get just a tiny bit of professional experience first – in the long run, you will be more successful in your travels and you will be a better representative of our profession to your patients and co-workers.

Your First Travel Gig

first traveling PT assignmentAfter being a traveling PT for 8 years, I sometimes forget that what now seems like a pretty routine process was very intimidating and complicated at first. This post describes what you can expect in the process of getting your first traveling therapy job. I have another page that you can link to under the “Getting Started” tab. There’s some similar information there, but with a slightly different focus. Here I have tried to focus on the details of your interaction with your recruiters and the order of how this should all happen to get your first job in traveling therapy. Here we go!

Get a License

Do this first. Start working on a license for the state you want to go to as soon as you decide you want to travel. You can start this process after you start looking for jobs if you are still trying to figure out if you want to be a traveler (trust me, you do). But, if you wait too long, waiting on a license can delay the start of a job or prevent you from getting a particular job all together.

Contact a Couple Recruiters

This section was the impetus for this whole blog. I have heard more and more from people that their recruiters are telling them, “If I’m not your only recruiter, then I can’t give you my full effort.” If a recruiter ever says something like this to you, my suggestion is to hang-up and never talk to that recruiter ever again. Of course the recruiter wants you to work solely with them! It takes any competition or reason to hustle for you out of the picture. A good recruiter will understand that you are working with some other recruiters and will work harder to be the one to get you the assignment you want. Recruiters usually work on commission and get their pay from getting you a job. YOU, the therapist, are the commodity, without YOU, nobody gets paid. Seriously, if a recruiter says you have to work with them exclusively, they are playing you – ditch ’em!

Here are the reasons for working with multiple recruiters: First and foremost, talking with a few different recruiters should give you an idea of the going pay rate in a particular area which can vary wildly place-to-place. While different recruiters will have many of the same jobs available, there will be some jobs that are different between companies. Some companies have exclusive contracts with certain hospital systems – it all gets very complicated when you get into the details of how temporary jobs are posted and who they are posted with, but the bottom line is that having multiple recruiters working for you increases the number of potential jobs available to you. Also, when you do get ready to accept a job, having several irons in the fire will give you more leverage in negotiating better pay.

Get Submitted

When you are “submitted” for a travel assignment, it means that you have heard of a job from a recruiter, and you want your resume to be put in the applicant pool for the job. Some jobs will have dozens of applicants, while for others, you might be the only applicant. The number of applicants for an assignment has very little to do with the job itself and likely has more to do with the location of the job and how the facility chooses to post their available position with agencies.

Once submitted for a job, you cannot be submitted for the same job by a different agency – this is where having more than just a couple agencies working for you can trip you up. Early in our traveling, my wife, Kate, and I had 6 different companies we were working with, it got complicated. We had multiple agencies submitting us to the same jobs and arguing with the facility that that each had submitted us first. It was embarrassing – don’t let it happen to you.

Different agencies will vary in how they handle the process of submitting you. Some agencies will want all your information right away, I prefer not to give them my info (references, resume, etc.) until they have found me a job to be submitted for. So, if you can, delay giving a company all your details until it’s time to be submitted – but, some companies just won’t have it and want your info before they do anything for you. Some recruiters may ask if they can submit you for jobs without contacting you first – basically, they find a job that meets your criteria of location and setting, and they will submit you without hopping on the phone to notify you first. If you are working with just one recruiter that you trust, this is fine. Also, if you are searching in an area where there are many people looking, like Hawaii, and want to be one of the first people to apply, then this can be a good strategy. But other than those two situations, I have a hard time justifying giving my recruiter a “green light” to submit me for whatever, whenever. By having the recruiter check in with you, you are keeping control of what jobs you are applying to and where your resume is being pumped out to.

Interview

If a facility you have been submitted to is interested in you, your recruiter will arrange a phone interview for you with the facility. Simply remember that this is your chance to interview the facility as much as it is their chance to interview you. Ask questions, but come into the interview knowing some stuff about the place you are interviewing with. Usually, at the end of the interview, you and the interviewer will report back to the recruiter separately to let them know how the interview went.

The Job Offer

If the interview has gone well, you will receive a job offer. If your recruiter does this verbally, ask that it be sent by email also so that you have it in writing and can crunch some numbers. Swiftly move along to the next step.

Negotiate!

Therapists. We are really bad at this step. But, if the pay seems low compared to what you’ve been hearing through other recruiters, or if there is a benefit that you want that isn’t included in your package, ASK! It never hurts to ask. Don’t underestimate your ability to name a price and see if it can be matched. Remember, YOU are the commodity!

Accept

Don’t get so wrapped up in your negotiating and getting every little bit out of your contract that another therapist signs their contract first and takes the job. Sure, negotiate, but do it swiftly.

 

That’s probably more details than you really need, so I’ll stop here. I’ll again refer you to the “Getting Started” page that is somewhat redundant to this post, but offers some other details including a link to what benefits you should expect or ask for. Happy job searching, I’ll say something here that I don’t say nearly often enough: I love being a traveling PT. If you have the itch to get out there on the open road, you should do it now, because life is a funny thing, and you don’t know how long this opportunity to travel will last. Happy travels!

Email From Traveling Physical Therapists

Traveling Physical TherapistI’ve been getting the same type of question from new traveling Physical Therapists a lot lately…. so let’s hash it out in public. The question goes something like this: “I want to travel, I know where I want to go, but where do I start?”

I have had a “getting started” page for a while now, but just tuned it up, it should be a good companion resource to this blog: https://hobohealth.com/wordpress/faq/

Below I have pasted an email conversation I had recently had (lightly edited for anonymity). I hope this helps some of you out there get your travel career going.

Email:

Hi James,

I am a PT, and I happened upon your blog after beginning to research travel therapy. My husband (also a PT) and I have been working for almost a year and are planning to become traveling Physical Therapists this summer. We have a couple of PT friends traveling now and have gotten some perspective from them, but their experience is still pretty limited.

Thought I would reach out to you for a bit more perspective. Here are a few things we’re curious about:

-best companies/recruiters to work with
-states requiring significant paperwork/time for obtaining license
-what comes first: obtaining a license or obtaining an assignment

Any other tips to get started travelling would be greatly appreciated!

Response:

Very glad you found the site!

My wife and I have been traveling Physical Therapists together for 7 years now… we originally thought we would travel for 2 years. We absolutely love it, and I hope you guys find some fun in it too! I started into travel after 6 months of working in private practice, and my wife started after a year of practice. I think you guys have done it right by getting a little steady experience before jumping into travel. I so often find myself trying to convince new grads to get just a few months of experience becoming a traveling Physical Therapist. So, good work, you’ve gone about it the right way!

We have worked with a bunch of different recruiters and companies at this point, and always search with 2-3 companies when looking for a job. I have heard of people sticking with one company for years, but I definitely don’t think that working with just one agency offers you the best selection of jobs available. I make sure to use recruiters that will have my back if something is not right about an assignment, and who won’t encourage me to continue working an assignment if it is toxic (i.e. ethical or scope of practice issues – rare).

California is notorious for licensure taking forever (4-6 months). I recently heard from someone that New Jersey is a pretty big process too. Otherwise, the process varies state-to-state, but shouldn’t take more than a month or two if you get all your ducks in a row with the paperwork. The more licenses you have, the more complex getting additional licenses becomes. So, I recommend that if there’s a few states you know you want to work in, get all of them now.

Start licensure ASAP, a lot of jobs won’t hire you until you have a license – but some will higher you conditionally with a projected start date if you’ve started the process. I would also get in touch with some recruiters soon. They can help inform you of how long licensure takes for particular states and help you start getting an idea of what kind of jobs may be available where you want to go – some agencies have resources to help you with licensure. New jobs pop up constantly and other jobs are filled quickly, so the sample of actual jobs will change, but the recruiter will be able to help you see what a particular geographic market is like.

OK! I’ve gone on too long. Here’s a simple page about starting travel PT if you haven’t seen it yet. https://hobohealth.com/wordpress/faq/ Let me know if you have other questions, and keep in touch about what happens with you guys!

James

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!

Traveling doesn’t have to mean professional sacrifice.

This is the first blog of many. Enough with the statement of intention, let’s get down to it. Choosing quality continuing education programs as a traveling therapist can be a challenge. Courses are often found on-the-go between assignments or among a selection of whatever is available locally.

My biggest fear when a new PT tells me they want to start traveling are the potential loss of mentorship and professional growth. I think in my 5th year of practice (4th year of traveling) I’m just finally getting my head around the things that are important in PT practice. To understand the important pieces of practice that are so necessary to progress to my current level, some mentorship and progression had to happen.

continuing-education-travel-pt-hobohealthI don’t mean to say that an immediate new grad can’t travel, it just takes the right person who is willing to self-motivate and work that extra bit to find the professional expansion they need. My first travel assignment was perfect. It was in a community hospital with a steady staff and a solid director. I had the infrastructure around me where I could ask questions and work towards answers with my co-workers’ help. Ultimately, I found the mentorship I needed to grow. Because of the mentorship and support, I extended my contract there several times, a total of 10 months on my first travel assignment (longer than the “permanent” job I worked before traveling).

Clearly, you’re not always going to be able to find that assignment with all the support you want. So here’s my short list of the other ways to stay motivated, stay on track with your professional goals, and stimulate that mind of yours:

Take a certificate program (i.e. Paris, Maitland, McKenzie, etc.)

These certifications I personally believe are narrow in scope, but they require multiple courses and extensive study in their content. The process for each makes a person a stronger and more knowledgeable therapist.

Become an ABPTS Board Certified Clinical Specialist

This is most comprehensive way to expand you knowledge base in a specific practice area. The studying and learning required to pass the exam for a specialist certification is very time consuming, but will force you to stay up on the latest research and techniques. When you receive the certification it’s a great distinction for your resume and future interviews.

Attend state and national APTA conferences

Conferences are a great way to gain exposure to the highest level of practice. You can get education on a great variety of topics and practice setting in one place. The energy and inspiration at these meetings is contagious.

Enroll in a residency program

There are residencies that allow therapists to take a series of courses on weekends and collaborate with a mentor/expert through electronic means. Finding the right residency can be tough as a traveler, but it can be done if you are determined!

Add a new skill

Take a course on something specific you want to add to your tool box. The sooner you can put new techniques to work, the better, so maybe it’s a skill that meshes well with your current practice setting. Continuing education topics that come to mind for me would be dry needling, manipulation, wilderness medicine, primary responder for sports, mobilization with movement, or muscle energy technique, but your list might be very different from mine.