Best Career

By Sue Antinoro PhysicalTherapistSource.com

An annual report published by U.S. News & World Report (Dec. 2008) listing the best careers for 2009 has included physical therapists as one of their top choices.

Their list of best careers where judged on the following criteria:

Job outlook, which takes into consideration the new presidency, the increasing focus on a green economy and the current and percieved future state of the economic downturn

• Average job satisfaction
• Difficulty of the required training
• Prestige
• Pay

The physical therapist role received a grade of A under job satisfaction and market outlook and were given a grade of A/B for prestige and B/C for the amount of training required.

The physical therapist career has just missed being including in the best careers list in past years due to its stringent training requirements for one, but had a higher score this year because two national surveys rated this career field as very high in job satisfaction (scoring only less than the clergy). In fact, more than 75% of the physical therapists surveyed by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center stated they were "very satisfied" with their occupation. Another survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal's Career Journal found that physical therapy was one of the eight best careers.

Some of the reasons behind these conclusions are that physical therapists often have more automony in how to solve a patients' problems, there's a variety in your day to day work, you get one-on-one time with patients, and the satisifcation in getting to see real progress with your patients as well as the ability to work in a variety of work settings.

According to the U.S. News & World Report, the job market for physical therapist is projected to remain strong as aging baby boomers end up getting more weekend-warrior injuries as well as other serious problems.

In addition, the article noted several specialities within the physical therapist career that appear to have a steady client base which include assisting amputees, sports physical therapy and working with professional dancers.