Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) Student in Clinical Placement Experience
For students in health care fields, obtaining experience in a clinical setting is a cornerstone of their academic journey where they can finally put their coursework into real-world practice. In the University of Pittsburgh Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program, residential and hybrid students are required to complete 42 weeks of full-time clinical experiences over the seven terms of their program. This includes at least one inpatient and multiple outpatient clinical experiences where they will learn to support a variety of patient populations. The clinicals are a progression of their learning experience as students take the foundation they’ve learned at Pitt and build on it by learning from clinicians outside of the DPT program.
Clinical Education Coordinator Mark Malacarne says, “One of our program missions is to develop diverse entry level physical therapists who achieve excellent and equitable clinical outcomes through exceptional training. Clinical education is a big part of that training, and our ability to connect with unique partners across the country who learn and grow with our students helps us to achieve those objectives.”
Department of Physical Therapy Vice Chair and Associate Professor David Wert observes that when students return from clinicals at the end of their first year, “They realize that they are in fact ‘learning’ and on their way to becoming PTs with a curriculum that is supporting that journey. They become reinvigorated after that first clinical experience and realize there is so much more to learn.”
Setting Up the Clinical Experience
Janet Jackson-Coty, director of clinical education, and Malacarne manage the placements for over 150 residential and hybrid students in the Class of 2024 alone and project similar numbers of students in the years ahead. The DPT program has developed partnerships with over 600 medical and rehabilitation centers across the country to place students in positions alongside leaders in the fields of women’s health, neurologic rehabilitation, spinal care, balance and vestibular disorders. The program continually assesses new partnerships and adds more each year.
Malacarne explains that the placement process begins with a one-on-one meeting with Jackson-Coty or himself. “This initial meeting allows for our team to understand all factors that allow us to make informed decisions, including the student’s home area, learning needs, primary interests and career goals,” he says. “We then evaluate our clinical partners’ availability and work toward placements that will establish the foundation for the student’s time in our program and in their early careers as physical therapists.”
This heatmap shows the home locations of the 2024 and 2025 cohorts and the reach of the Pitt DPT program. The darker green means a higher concentration of students in that area. Clinical placements for residential students center in Pittsburgh while hybrid students are placed where they live.
Residential DPT students living in Pittsburgh are primarily placed in clinicals throughout the city and western Pennsylvania, with diverse options at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and other valued clinical partners.
DPT hybrid students live in cities across the United States so their placement process is a little different, but the goals are the same. Jackson-Coty says, “I meet with the students at the beginning of the first semester. The meeting is the opportunity to share information about clinical education and learn about their clinical interests and experiences. The placements for each year are established and up to a year in advance of the clinical education experiences.” She explains that Pitt has partnerships with national and local clinical partners that allow hybrid students to have quality experiences in the communities where they live. Hybrid format students can be assigned positions at a large hospital network or clinic close to their hometown. By investing in the hybrid students, Pitt is striving to develop more clinical partnerships in medically underserved areas – often called health care deserts – where hybrid students could provide communities with high quality physical therapy services they might never have received.
“Our program has made sure that each out-of-state student has an opportunity closer to home by networking and providing opportunities to work alongside physical therapists and health care teams--occupational therapists, speech therapists, nurses, physician assistants, surgeons, PT aids and discharge planners, for example--to provide critical rehabilitation services to a broad array of patients,” says Wert.
What to Expect in the Clinical Experience
Each day brings new real-world lessons when the students meet with patients from diverse populations across the lifespan and across the continuum of care. They are expected to be active participants in assessments and decision making while under the support of their clinical instructor who is also evaluating that their performance meet Pitt expectations.
Class of 2025 Pitt DPT residential and hybrid students together at their orientation in Pittsburgh
Malacarne explains, “The University of Pittsburgh has created clinical performance benchmarks and performance expectations related to both professional behaviors and patient management. Our expectations are rooted in the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Core Values which include accountability, altruism, compassion and caring, dignity and respect, excellence, innovation, integrity, quality and safety, professional duty and social responsibility.”
Jackson-Coty continues, “The students are expected to increase the volume of their patient caseload and decrease the amount of supervision that they require as they progress through their clinical experiences.” When students come out the other side of 42 weeks in clinicals, they can expect to perform at the level of an entry level physical therapist.
Many students enter the DPT program with an idea of what they would like to specialize in, but come to find through exposure to different patients and clinical instructors that they are drawn to a different area of physical therapy. It’s all part of Pitt DPT’s design to develop talented and compassionate health care providers. The clinical experience is more than just practical experience, it is a journey of discovery and professional development.
------------
The Pitt DPT application is open from June 15 - October 2, 2023. Classes start in fall 2024. Apply now!
Have questions or want to learn more? Email enroll@pitt.edu to speak with an enrollment specialist today!
---
Published September 7, 2023