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Sup?

Hey, thanks for stopping by. Whatever it was that brought you here I do appreciate you stopping by to check this out. My name is Chris and this is my blog about PT school. My ‘DPT reality’ if you will. Get it? Yeah, I’m also funny, clever, and make fucking hilarious jokes, but I’m mainly just a PT student. And you know what, yeah, I’m not quite a DPT yet, SPT to be exact. But, what happens when I graduate and pass the boards? Can’t use ‘SPT reality’ when I’m a freshly minted DPT and making everyone call me doctor. I’d have to change the name, maybe make a new blog altogether, who knows. And I’m fucking lazy. So, this is what I decided to do so that I don’t have to change the name of this blog in a year and a half.

So anyways…who am I. I’m Chris. I go to PT school at a school named Alvernia University in Reading, Pennsylvania (shout-out Reading). Our program is in the process of getting accreditation and we will get the final decision from CAPTE in April. I have full confidence that we will get accreditation, which is good because I’m already old (I’m 28) and gotta start making that PT money, feel me?

I started PT school last Fall (August 2016) and just started the Spring semester of my 2^nd year this week. So, I’m basically half way done.

What’s it all about?

So, I will document MY reality as I see it in PT school. I’m going to give you, as best I can, my DPT reality. I hope by doing that I will do a few things for you:

• Give you some things to laugh at and help take your mind off studying for a few minutes. I like to have a good time and make things fun. If physical therapy wasn’t fun or I didn’t like it I wouldn’t do it.
• Introduce you to some new people to follow on social media who have ideas about things that you may not have been exposed to before. People I listen to when I’m looking to learn new things. And people that I not only respect, but that I believe are on the front lines of pushing their professions further along and helping make people better.
• Offer personal experiences, opinions, etc. that will be valuable/insightful to (hopefully) anyone considering PT school as an option, anyone currently in school, and even people already practicing that are out of school.

**Just a quick note on points 2 and 3. I’m hoping to introduce to you people who have valuable information to share and that you can learn from. Like, actual people I consider experts in their given field. And I hope I can also help you in some way by sharing my experiences and opinions. If you learn something from me sharing my experiences or opinions, great. But one thing you shouldn’t look for is for me to give you my take on the ‘3 keys for recovery after a rotator cuff repair’ or my manifesto on motion at the SI joint (lulz had to do it). I don’t know shit in the grand scheme of things when it comes to physical therapy. And definitely not enough at this point to expect anyone to listen to me as an authority on treating patients. Listen to your teachers that you respect and the clinicians out in the field that are making an actual impact on how physical therapy is practiced.

How will I do it?

So, how will I do what I say I’m going to do above? Well, I have, at least, an initial game plan. I’ll even list some of the ways how below. I’ll also do other things if new ideas come up and I think they are good.

• Do quick (1 page or so) write-ups about people I like to learn new things from and where you can find their stuff
• Post videos, charts, documents, articles, etc. of things I think are cool and that I learned something from
• Do quick logs of my day-to-day schedule to give people an actual idea of what a PT student’s life looks like each semester
• Talk about funny stuff that happens during our classes. PT school can actually be pretty fun.
• Talk about cool insights from class. If a light bulb goes off about something I learned that day I will try to share it.
• Give some background on how I got to PT school and some details on what it took to get in to school to help people considering applying to PT school
• Rant about PT-related or non-PT-related stuff

You should also know this about me and this blog

This blog will not be just physical therapy. I am going to talk about all of the things that interest me, and I believe all of these things can be connected to physical therapy in one way or another, however abstract that connection may be. This includes topics such as business, psychology, endocrinology, weight training (specifically for sports performance as well as bodybuilding, powerlifting, Olympic weight lifting, strong man, etc.), education, physiology, spirituality, nutrition. There are probably more, but you get the point. My interest and main passion is human performance. Specifically, high level human performance. And getting the most out of the bodies we were given. I love finding out the possibilities of what the human body can achieve in various physical pursuits and how we can best be a catalyst to that process using a mix of many different disciplines. I also enjoy helping people and it is my hope to use my career in physical therapy as a way to help others maintain the ability to achieve the excellence that they are in search of in whatever it is that they have decided to devote their time towards.

The End

So that’s it. Your DPTreality primer is complete. If you are also in school, may your 3 years of PT school be all that you wish for them to be. Study hard, goni precisely, and palpate softly (or with whatever amount of pressure is appropriate, but that didn’t sound as good). If you’re thinking about applying to PT school I wish you the best of luck. And if you are already done school, get back to your notes, WebPT is calling your name.

I’m just a dude going through PT school too, looking forward to sharing the experience to hopefully help someone along the way.

All of my stuff will be posted to one or more of these 3 places:

1. my blog here – http://www.dptreality.com – For the long(er) format posts.
2. Twitter – @DPT_reality
3. Instagram – @dptreality