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Physiotherapy as a course and career?

  • 04-03-2014 09:50AM
    #1
    Paddyg96
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 118 ✭✭


    I'm very interested in sports and improving the body through movement. Physiotherapy is a career I have been looking at. Here are my questions
    Why are the points so high (550+) in ucd and TCD?
    Is physiotherapy a good career? (Enjoyable)

    What is the pay and potential pay like?
    Thanks in advance


Comments

  • #2
    stealinhorses
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 774 ✭✭✭stealinhorses


    The points are high because the demand for places is high. The demand is high, because you are trained to become a clinical professional, who gets paid well to work with athletes, or to help people regain mobility after accidents, or to conduct research into improving the methods used in both those areas.

    With increasing innovation in science and technology, particularly materials science and robotics, more and more (smart) people are needed to implement these technologies in order to improve people's lives (think of prosthetic limbs, exoskeletons, etc.).

    Similarly, as athletes strive to achieve better and better results, the demand on their bodies is much greater and they need experts to help them reach their physiological peak for competition time, to guide their recovery process and to make sure their bodies are performing optimally at all times.

    So if you're interested in any of that, then it's a good career for you, but the points will always be high as mostly smart people with a scientific mind go into this field.

    Pay isn't ridiculously good if you're working in the public sector (up to 40k sterling, as quoted by the NHS for advanced physios), but in the private sector you can definitely make much more.


  • #3
    Anita Blow
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,935 ✭✭✭Anita Blow


    Paddyg96 wrote: »
    I'm very interested in sports and improving the body through movement. Physiotherapy is a career I have been looking at. Here are my questions
    Why are the points so high (550+) in ucd and TCD?
    Is physiotherapy a good career? (Enjoyable)

    What is the pay and potential pay like?
    Thanks in advance

    I think Stealinhorses answered your first question fairly well. It's a professional degree which leaves you with a great degree if responsibility & autonomy over the management of patient's illnesses/injuries. Beyond that it leaves you great opportunity to travel abroad (Career prospects & pay are infinitely better abroad) or to enter a career in medical research. It's also quite well paid (Even in the public sector although career progression there isn't too great.) Starting salary is €33k in the HSE, but physios work slightly less than a 39 hour working week (Although this has changed in some hospitals) and as a result, a lot have the time to see patients privately in the evenings/weekends so they'd also have that as a side income.

    I think some key advice is that you'd need to look into Physiotherapy beyond the sports aspect of it. It is an incredibly small, almost niche part of the career. A lot of people associate stuff like massage with physio, when in reality you spend 2 lectures max over the entirety of the degree looking at that. Core placements are Orthopaedics (Outpatient- Traditional rehab/diagnosis of broken bones, soft tissue injuries which you'd associate physio with. Inpatient- Rehab following joint surgeries), Neurology/Care of the Elderly (Geriatric Rehab, neuro conditions like stroke, Parkinson's etc.), Respiratory (Post-op patients where you restore lung function, help in clearing airways, management of chronic resp conditions etc.) & Paediatrics (Neurodevelopmental disorders, Cystic Fibrosis mainly). Ward-based physio (Which is all the above expect for Orthopaedics in the outpatient setting) is very very different to outpatient or sports physio.

    You'll have the option to do a 4 week elective at the end of 3rd year wherever you want, so you could organise a sports physio placement there if it interests you. You'll also do Sports & Exercise Medicine module in 4th year, however if you are looking to go into Sports Physio as a career you'll likely need to do a Masters in Sports Medicine once you get your degree.


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