Becoming A Physical Therapist Essay

Career Description Overview

Physical Therapists help injured or ill people to improve their movement and manage any pain that may have been caused from an injury (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). To go into detail, Physical Therapist’s review a patient’s history and diagnose them for their specific injury/illness (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). The observation period is especially important to a Physical Therapist because they develop a plan of care for exercises, stretches and equipment that will be beneficial for optimal recovery. A Physical Therapist also keeps a close watch on how the patient’s recovery is going and changes the care plan accordingly (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). The typical Entry-Level education needed to become a Physical Therapists would be a Doctoral or Professional degree (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). The requirements needed to get into a program to receive a Doctorate of

An overview of this information would show that the most common race/ethnicity for PT’s is White (A., 2017). The next most common race/ethnicity to work as Physical Therapists would be Asian then Black or African American (A., 2017). Although these are the three most common races, Whites make up about 81.4 % of the Physical Therapist work force (A., 2017). Asians only make up about 10.2% of the workforce (A., 2017). The number of females in the workforce is 70.4%, leaving 29.6% for male workers (A., 2017). From 2014 to 2015, the percentage of female workers increased and the male workers decreased (A., 2017). The average age for a male Physical Therapist is 40.3 and for a female it is 40.9 (A., 2017). According to the data, males are typically younger than females in the workforce. From the past years, there does not seem to be a great amount of changes in the demographics of age, gender, or race. However, there does seem to be discrepancy between certain