The first clinical rotation for any healthcare student can be nerve racking, but Brian Dorius, second-year Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) student at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions (RMUoHP), returns from his first six-week clinical rotation feeling optimistic for the rest of his physical therapy education and his future career.
Brian says there were many reasons that he choose to get his doctorate in physical therapy at RMUoHP “I chose RMUoHP for a few reasons. The students graduating from RMUoHP had a very high pass rate on the NPTE, which shows that [the university] is effective at preparing their students. I also really appreciated how welcome I felt during the interview process. I could tell that the staff wanted to be impressive to potential students just as much as we wanted to be impressive to them,” Brian says. “I was pleasantly surprised by how truly student-oriented they are. We have the chance to make suggestions to improve our experience, and RMUoHP listens and makes changes based on our feedback. The culture is friendly. I don’t feel like it’s overly competitive. Teachers are very open to helping students and go out of their way to give us that help.”
That student-centeredness feel continued throughout the clinical rotation selection process. Brian explains that the whole process basically starts from the first day of the program. “We were given a survey asking about our preferences. They get the best idea of what kind of setting you’d like to see or what cities you’d like to go to. You then meet with a coordinator who does what he can to meet your preferences,” he says. “There is no guarantee you’ll end up exactly where you’d like, but I really felt like they do their best to get you in locations that you are interested in. I was fortunate and ended up getting my first choice,” Brian says.
For Brian, there were a few major factors that played into his top choices for his clinical rotation, as there are for most every DPT student. For Brian, he was in a serious relationship and he wanted to make sure he would be relatively close to his girlfriend for at least the first rotation in case their relationship progressed. Brian explains, “The coordinator was able to make it work—I married that girl this past April, and then three days later, I started my six-week rotation at Rhodes Physical Therapy in Farmington, Utah. I was a little nervous because even with big events like a potential wedding, there was no guarantee [on clinical placements], but I am very grateful to the clinical staff for making it work.”
Clinical rotations can vary tremendously day to day, especially with so many factors that play into the different physical therapy clinical experiences, such as location, the type of clinic, the busyness of the clinic, or multiple students interning at one clinic location.
When asked what the typical day was like for Brian, he says, “I would arrive in the morning before the first patients showed up. I would look through the schedule to prepare for any patients who were coming that day. Once patients arrived, I would either observe my CI (Clinical Instructor) work with them or I would work with them depending on the patient’s case. I would help the patients with their exercises and progress them to different or more advanced exercises as they approved. I would answer questions that patients had during their therapy session. In the afternoon, we would take a break for lunch. After the break, therapy would resume until it was time to go. My CI would occasionally give me topics to research and instruction on techniques that I wasn’t familiar with.”
The hours spent on clinical rotations provide each student with the opportunity to really take what they learn in the classroom and apply it in real life. Brian says, “Just like any job, you can research and do bookwork all you want, but once you’re in the actual setting putting what you’ve studied to use, that’s when it really clicks.”
Prior to his clinical rotation, Brian didn’t really know what to expect, “I was expecting that I would meet my CI, his staff, and current patients. I didn’t know if I would be expected to observe or if my CI would have me actually working with patients,” he says. “I was grateful for how much time I spent working hands-on with patients.”
At the end of Brian’s six-week clinical rotation at Rhodes Physical Therapy, he and the rest of his cohort returned back to campus for more classroom instruction and didactic work. The next clinical rotation experience that they are all preparing for is a three fifteen-week clinical rotations that begin this December and will go all the way through until they graduate in August of 2019.
For Brian, his first clinical rotation was a positive experience. “It was a great learning experience. I learned a lot from my CI as well as another therapist that worked in the clinic. I saw techniques put to use that I had only heard about. It really opened up my eyes to see how the classwork applied to actual practice and I can’t wait for the experiences that I’ll get in my next clinical rotation.”
To learn more about the Doctor of Physical Therapy program at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions, visit https://rm.edu/academics/doctor-of-physical-therapy-entry-level/.
