<p>It is important to remember that a PT is able to to set up a private practice. In the states with direct access, a PT is able to operate autonomously. </p>
<p>The majority of PTs work regular hours, or may choose to work additional hours but without onus of shift-work, particularly night shifts. PTs do not frequently work every weekend, and seldom both weekend days. PTs do not work most major holidays except in the hospital setting.</p>
<p>PT salaries vary but traveling PTs can make a substantially higher salary than “sedentary” PTs. The drawback is frequent travel every 6 months or year, but the benefit is travel every 6 months or year. Some PTs can make in excess of 120K as a “traveler”. Many traveler PTs are young, unattached and mobile. This is useful for paying back loans rapidly.</p>
<p>Private practice PTs with effective work efficiencies can make substantially more than the standard hospital based staff PT. These amounts can be found on “salary” websites. It is important to realize that PTs starting in the profession working in a hospital setting may earn half or a third as much as a PT with 5-10 years experience working in private practice, and the salary figures may be taking the average of such settings. PT practice environments tend to be more heterogenous than nursing environments.</p>
<p>There are also many female PTs who only work partial hours while taking care of young families; thus their annual income is reflected by a 24 hour week or a 36 hour week as the standard work routine.</p>
<p>PTs are also able to specialize and subspecialize in a wide variety of medical fields. Some PTs deal only with sports orthopedic clients, while others deal with a more general population. PT offers flexibility in the choice of clientele once the basic experiences have been obtained.</p>
<p>The importance of the doctorate level PT is in regards to the continued advancement of the profession. In the 1960s, people gained entry into the profession through a two year certificate program. By the 1990s, most programs advanced to a 6 year MS, or a 2 year MS following 4 year baccalaureate degrees, with increasing rigor added to the curricula and entrance requirements. Now the new standard is a 7 to 8 year DPT with more difficult entrance requirements and more demanding course requirements. As they stand now, DPT-program entrance requirements are more difficult and more selective than the majority of those for nursing programs.</p>
<p>It is not the case that OT and PT practice scopes are “very similar”. There were moves by unscrupulous corporations in the 1990s and 2000s to recklessly merge the practice models as a means to impede professional autonomy, and increase revenue at detriment to the care provided to the patient base. Most of these corporations have since been destroyed by a combination of their own greed and Medicare regulatory changes. </p>
<p>A student interested in either PT or OT will need to research the practice scopes carefully to understand the important distinctions.</p>
<p>Nursing, and hospital-based and home-health PT and OT, are all direct care professions. They are not interchangeable although some of their functions overlap. In the case of outpatient PTs and nurses, there is no overlap at all.</p>
<p>If the impetus is to make money, there are more lucrative professions such as pharmacy or investment banking. I presume that people who work their way to reach a DPT degree are doing so because they have some specific interest in practicing as a PT, for the sake of enjoying that particular kind of work, not for the sake of making more money or worrying about whether the pay is more or less than that made by people performing other professions, doing entirely different or depressing things that one has no interest in.</p>