Top Ten Things I Love about being a Physical Therapist/Athletic Trainer

By: Dr. Jill Murphy

10. The continuing education is a narcissist’s dream. You get to learn about yourself (i.e., the human body) in every session. No, seriously, the human body is amazingly designed, and we are constantly learning more about it and the most effective assessment and treatment approaches for orthopedic injuries.

9. Helping high school and college students decide whether healthcare and physical therapy is the field for them through job shadowing and internship opportunities.

Brian Butch

8. Teaching patients about their body, how it works, how tissue heals in a predictable fashion, and how to keep your body healthy.

7. Re-training patients movement patterns in squatting, deadlifting, and functional activities like bending, squatting, and lifting. The look on a patient’s face when they “figure out” the new movement pattern (Ah-ha moments!)

6. The opportunity to develop relationships with patients. I learn so much every day from my patients, least of which is about medical or physical therapy related topics.

5. Being creative with treatment ideas and home exercise programs, especially when working with kids!

4. Engaging kids, tweens, and teens - communicating with these age groups at their own level and finding what makes them tick makes the buy-in to their care (including home exercises) so much greater. Plus we have a lot of fun!!

3. Turning the challenging cases that haven’t gotten better elsewhere (because they don’t do what WE do at MotionWorks!) into successes!  Having and growing a large tool box as a physical therapist/athletic trainer is critical!

2. The satisfaction of improving my patients’ quality of life on an every hour, every day basis.

1. When patients graduate from physical therapy, having fully returned to what they love to do, and knowing that I have given them the tools they need to succeed in the long term without having to come back to PT.