What PT School Didn't Teach Me

Welcome to Pelby biz podcast. I'm Dr. Kelly Alhui. I have grown and established brick and mortar practice in Northern Virginia called Ortho Pelvic Physical Therapy and also founded Pelvibiz, which is an online business consulting company that helps healthcare providers make more money and be healthy while doing it, especially in the pelvic health realm. So let's get into today's episode. Today I want to talk about all the things that PT school didn't teach me at all. And what really brought this on is we've been seeing some patients in clinic that are physical therapists, are in PT school. And it really brought on this thought of they were in a career class and they were like, well, you have to create your career vision for the next five years. And I was looking at these paths that were created with these people and I was like, so did they talk about this? They tell you that you could do this? They tell you they could do this? And it was like, no, no, no, they didn't tell me any of that. They basically told them, like, get more letters behind your name to summarize it and like that the dream goal is to be a CI. And it was just like my mind was freaking blown that I was like, this is how we're all still broke and all still have no time and all end up getting burnt out because of the field. It was such an eye opening moment that I was just like, oh my gosh, they're not even allowing other people in the field that have done things differently to come in and even coach these new grads on what it could look like differently. Instead, they're on the education path. They put everyone on the education path that you should do a residency and then you should get more letters behind your name and take all these tests and these con ed courses and then you should become a CI and then you should teach for the. Then you should teach for the university and do research for us. I am seriously blown away. I'm just in shock. So I am wanting to, you know, talk about and bring this to light. And by the way, sorry, there's airplanes in the background, I live by an airport. But I want to bring this to light of what PT school didn't teach me. And guys, we've got to wake up. We got to wake up. And how are everyone? Everyone is like brainwashed. Like literally everyone's brainwashed. So number one, the biggest thing that PT school didn't teach me or was basically like how to deal with my debt. I didn't Even know I racked up $230,000 of student loan debt until the last day of school. They call us. They call the school counselor in and she gives us an envelope and we all open it up and every single person, I kid you not, I remember this. I was sitting in the back of the classroom with my husband, my soon to be husband next to me, and I saw $230,000 in student loan debt on this piece of paper. I didn't even know. I couldn't even comprehend how to say that to that number. Couldn't even comprehend it because I was like, wait, I owe this. I was shocked, Shocked because they A, weren't transparent about how much debt I was taking on, and B, I didn't even know what interest rate meant. I didn't even know what debt was. Like, no one taught me that. That may sound so stupid and maybe you guys are more educated than I was, but my parents weren't bankers or anything like that. Like, they didn't teach me any of that. So I don't know. I didn't know. And then that how, because we're doctors that we think we're going to come out making so much money. And that's not the case. I came out making $62,000, seeing 18 patients a day. Most of you guys right now would croak doing that. And you say, I wouldn't do it and give up immediately, but instead, I decided, you know what? I'm gonna push through and I'm gonna see this through. Oh, and by the way, I'm gonna get three more jobs to help support myself just to be able to pay my student loans. And I wasn't trying to pay it off quickly just to pay my student loans and live in a very normal environment and buy groceries. Like, that was it, you know? But they didn't teach us about money. And now I get it. They wanted me to be poor. Like, literally, I could go back and like, oh, it's so frustrating. Like, why are we not talking about money? Why are we not talking about what people make, what they actually make? And don't think that you guys are different. Coming out thinking, oh, yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to get this amount of money because I have these letters behind my name. That's just not how it works. It's giving us false hope. And I feel so bad for the new grads. I'm like, no, this isn't how it works. If you come and you have more letters behind your name, that doesn't mean I'm going to hire you and pay you more. That's just not how it works. It's can you get the outcomes that the patients want, then I'll pay you more. It's not the letters behind your name, so. Oh my gosh, I was just about to lose it, but I was just like. And it still frustrates me to this day because I feel like I got like one pulled over on me. Like, it's not cool. Now here's the second thing I didn't appreciate. They didn't teach us how everything was connected. Like in ortho class, remember this? They're like, now here is a back eval. Now here's a knee eval. Now here's a hip eval. Oh, by the way, we didn't even talk about pelvic floor. We didn't even get one class or even a mention of the pelvic floor. Oh, and by the way, here's toe rehab or whatever it was, but they didn't say that. The back, the hip, the pelvic floor, it's all connected. No one talked about that. Everything was separate. Because we want to chop everything in half in the medical world. Like, what the heck do you think this is? Comprehensive care? Hell no. Hell no. This podcast has me fired up already. Jeez. Alright, the third thing. This is the third thing. They didn't teach us how to do business. They didn't at all teach me how to do business. They taught me how to be a clinician. They didn't tell me how to open up a bank account. They didn't tell me how to talk to patients. They didn't tell me how to what it would potentially look like. They didn't give me any path besides clinical work that I could do and become a CI. What the heck. And that's not going to lead me to anything. Here's number four. They taught me nothing about how to communicate to the people. This is the biggest thing I would say I'm upset about. They don't communication, how to truly understand the patient's deeper why and not. What's the next best special test to get the patient to understand that they got a problem? The patient doesn't understand what the. I don't even remember the special tests are. The figure 4 test is that if you can't drop your knee below your hip or something, then you got tight hip flexors or something like that. I don't even know because I don't do them. But why are they teaching us special tests? They need to teach us how to communicate and get the patient to say why they're truly there. They're not there because they have pelvic floor issues or hip issues or back issues. Why are they there? They need to teach us how we're, how we're going to show the patient that we're going to get them results. That's what they need to teach us. They need to teach us how to keep the patient motivated so that they get their own results and believe in themselves. They also need to teach us how to communicate, why we're doing certain things, and what it's going to do for the patient, what the outcome is rather than, again, another special test. Special tests don't prove anything. Now I'm probably going to get a lot of hate on this podcast, but that's okay. Share it with a new grad because I really want them to know the truth about PT school or OT school or whatever. I'm sure it's the same for OTs. Okay. Like really, it's just, it's just crazy. Why in cadaver lab. Here's my other thing. Why in cadaver lab did we have to cover up the pelvic floor, but we dissected everything, including the face, the brain, the whatever. We don't even work with the face. Why do we dissect the face? Why didn't I dissect the pelvic floor? Because there's private parts down there, so I didn't dissect the pelvic floor. Like, come on now. Come on. Like, it's just crazy. We dissected everything. I dissected toes, toes fell off. I mean their heart, their lungs, everything. Cut open their head, their brain, everything. Oh my gosh. Anyways, I don't even know what number I'm on. Maybe number five or number six. They taught us no time management. I have come to realize most new grads do not know how to time management. They, they over document, I believe. And they don't care enough about the patient, they don't care enough about the patient outcomes. They think they care about patient outcomes, but they don't know how to dig deeper with the patient. That leads me back to communication. So when it comes to communication, they don't know how to communicate effective, which then takes them longer time, which then bleeds into time management. So time management is a big, big, big issue. I find with prioritizing, decreasing people anxiety, all that kind of stuff is. Time management is huge. How do you, how do you prioritize in time management or in time manage that is massively important number. I want to say it's probably seven. They really didn't teach us higher level exercises. All my training that I have is in from my Pilates certification, my yoga certification, and I'm not CrossFit certified, but I do a lot of CrossFit. I've did step aerobics, I've done water aerobics. I've taught so many freaking classes that I've just had a lot of exercise training. And I truly believe that sets me apart from a lot of other people because most PTs do not know higher level exercises. They don't. And so they don't know how to take someone from just doing the dinky leg lifts. It's so outdated. Someone can go find that on YouTube. Why would they pay you money for that? No one's paying us money for that anymore. We have to be innovative. So no higher level exercises to get them truly back to like climbing the mountain or running that mile that they want to run without leakage or whatever it may be. You got it. You got to know higher level exercises that aren't considered rehabilitation. Number eight, pelvic. There was no pelvic courses. I think I mentioned this already, but there was no pelvic courses in my grad school. Now I graduated 15 years ago, so still, it wasn't cool back then to do pelvic health, by the way. Everyone was making fun of me. Everyone's like, why would you do internal exams all day long? Now it's kind of cool. But back then it was not. So I, you know, I went to the. With, I went to school when the recession hit. So with that, it's just like there was no pelvic courses back then. Just didn't exist. Number nine, I would say, I would say that they did not set realistic expectations at all. And I still am finding that to this day based on these PT students that we're seeing in clinic. I am still finding this to this day, that there is definitely not realistic expectations being set from PT schools. And I would love if any PT school is listening to this, I would love to come and chat with napt students about what it's like in the real world and what it's like to hire people. What it's like to work many places. I've worked in New York as a pt. I worked in Atlanta as a pt. I worked in California as pt. I worked in Portland, Oregon as pt. I worked in Virginia as a pt. I moved five different states thinking the system will be different based on the state it wasn't different. Newsflash, it was not different. It was the exact same. So I have experience and can talk to you about all demographics, about every corner of the United States that I've lived and worked in and how my experience didn't change and how can we set realistic expectations with people coming into school. That's very, very important. And I think all PT school did for me. Honestly, I didn't learn much at all. To be honest. I learned way more from mentors, my mentors that in many different states that I live, they were the best freaking mentors ever. And that's how I learned all my stuff. I couldn't tell you that I learned much from PT school. I think it just prepped me how to take a test and that's pretty much it. And I was also didn't take tests well, but that's it. So I think all the extracurricular work of me teaching all the fitness classes and that's my own time and effort, all my extra courses for pelvic floor, that's my own time and effort and money, right? All that extra stuff is what made me the clinician I am today with the mentors that I had in many of those different states. That's how I truly actually am able to treat the way I do and have the results that I do. It's not because of some con Ed class that I took or it's not because of the school. It's just not. No matter what school you went to, we haven't we had even a clinic on campus. Most of you guys in your PT schools, you don't have a clinic on campus. But we did so every single day. Even when we first started the school, we would be treating patients in our clinic. So I treated Ms. Patients before I even knew about Ms. I treated amputee patients before I even knew about amputees. I treated PEDs clients before I even knew about PEDs because they would just throw us in there with their CI and say, here you go. And we'd figure it out and then potentially have a course on it later on. So I think there's a lot of things that could be addressed in PT schools that aren't being addressed that could really set people up for success and to not come out disappointed, burnt out and hating life and trying to get out of the field. I think so many Pelvic health, maybe not even pelvic health world, because I feel like pelvic health is growing, but I feel like just so many PTs, I can't speak on the OT world as much in that realm. But I know PTs are trying to get out of the field or maybe not even getting into it because they know now the word out is out that you have so much student loan debt you don't come out making much. And so, you know, let's set realistic expectations and you know, really create a path that works if you are going to go to this school. What path works? What, what does that look like? Are you going to own your own clinic? I would say that's the path that actually makes it worth it. Otherwise it's not worth it. There's too much debt. So anyways, this is a big lesson of what PT schools didn't teach me. And this is my again, I'm speaking from my own personal experience and things that I've experienced through living in many different states, hanging out with many different PT students that I'm just seeing is a massive, massive problem. So if you want to share with a DPT program and I would love to come guest lecture to help set better expectations, let me know. Also, we are doing Pelibiz 2025 event and if you want an application to that event, it's down below where you're going to get one problem solved in your business. So if that is something you're interested in, I would be happy to look at that application. We're only taking 30 applicants, so if you're interested, go ahead. You can apply below with the application and then we'll let you know if you've been selected. All right guys, hopefully have a good night. Bye Bye. Thank you guys so much for listening to the podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Jane. They are the people that are going to have amazing scheduling system for your patients. They're going to provide you with a super bill, they're going to make templates for you. They're going to be provide you with the best customer service. And because of that they allowed us to have a code for one free month for those that are wanting to try Jane for their scheduling, checking out super bills, telehealth, all the different options. That code is pelvibiz1mo. We'll put in the show notes but pelvibiz1mo that is the code for Jane. And thank you so much Jane for sponsoring this podcast. If you guys want more information and want to learn how that you can keep bettering yourselves, go ahead, click the link down below and make sure that you book a call and we love to provide any clarity questions on any follow ups. Bye guys.