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I want to go into physical therapy but still want to work with sports. Any ideas other than a school athletic trainer?

I know they don't make lots of money.

thanks besites!

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Rachael’s Answer

Hi Phoebe, if you're interested in working with athletes and physical therapy but want a higher salary, you can be a physical therapist and work in a sports medicine clinic. Your patients will primarily be athletes that you're working with to return to sport. While you won't be directly working in sports, you will still have that connection to athletics and return athletes to their previous level of activity. The other option to work directly in sports is an Athletic Trainer, like you mentioned. And you are correct that the average salary for an athletic trainer is low, but it is improving. The amount of schooling for AT and PT is about the same length now, with 4 years of undergrad and 2-3 years of graduate school. Some programs do a combined format where you finish both undergrad and grad school in 5 years.

If you're interested in learning more about physical therapy, contact a physical therapy clinic in your area to see if you can shadow a clinician for a couple weeks to get some immersion into their day to day. Research PT and AT programs to learn more about the curriculum to see if that would be something you're interested in pursuing.
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