As the dust begins to settle from separating one department into two, this extended break from school allows me to get a grasp on what being a manager really entails in an outpatient rehabilitation facility. From balancing payroll to juggling hours in three disciplines to staying productive, to completing performance appraisals and performing ...

It's hard for me to believe it has been four years since I graduated PT school. I remember working as a student with physical therapists who had been practicing for four or five years and looking at them as a source of information and experience. Now that I'm on the other side of that spectrum, I still feel like I'm learning every day. As the ...

An interesting article came out in the British popular press last week that states some chronic low-back pain can be cured by antibiotics. The writing is fairly clear that only certain cases would benefit from this approach and it includes links to the two scientific abstracts the article is based on: ...

I completed the first full week of my six-month clinical affiliation, and things are off to a tremendous start. This past week, I was assigned two patients of my very own who I'll likely see throughout their course of care on the inpatient rehab unit. It might not sound very monumental; however this is the first time that a patient has been ...

Amazing what can happen in one week. In a major healthcare system of a large metropolitan area surrounded by water, we've successfully accomplished separating pediatric from adult rehabilitation in preparation for our growth as the Rehabilitation Institute of South Florida. Every day of this mission has started at 5 a.m. with communication with ...

My newest thought project for this week is to better understand how physical therapist staffing is predicted for a new clinic. How does a new healthcare company or private practice facility estimate what kind of staffing it will need in a new location? My general understanding of private practice is that due to limited funds, staffing will start ...

I've spoken to patients from many countries and places around the globe. Sometimes it's like watching the movie Billy Elliot or trying to understand the lyrics of South African rap-rave crew Die Antwoord. I'm aghast, did they just curse? I wouldn't know because they speak so fast my mind can't keep up. It sounded like a curse word but there was an ...

I learned this expression while working in England. It was a way of getting to the core of something, often a product, to determine the original intent and whether it was accomplished. I wonder that about continuing education requirements. Florida has had them (12 hours/year) since I've been practicing (a long time) while New York has only ...

Please don't be fooled by the title of this post. I don't have a good method by which to accomplish this. However after starting my fifth clinical last Wednesday, I've realized that earning the trust of a clinical instructor is a very tricky game requiring a great amount of patience. I just began the first half of my final yearlong clinical ...

Since I've spent a lot of time in the past 18 months making changes in my own career and developing the content of the training and orientation program for new employees at my clinic, the concept of mentors has always been on my mind. Even when I graduated PT school (which seems like an era ago), the common words of wisdom from my professors were, ...