What brings stress to your world as a Physical Therapist? How do you handle stressful situations in the workplace?
"As a new Physical Therapist, I may feel stressed at times when the patient schedule is full. Throughout college, I learned great techniques to help manage my time when my schedule if full and I see myself being able to utilize these same techniques with my patient load."
"The biggest stress that I face in my current position is dealing with the insurance coverage end of things for each individual person. With health plans having such a wide variety of coverages for each individual patient, it is important for me to know what their insurance will cover because most patients don't understand their own coverage. I have spent a lot of time reading and speaking with the insurance companies to get a better understanding of how they work to help alleviate this stress."
A career as a Physical Therapist can bring stress to your life in many different ways. For this question, it is okay to be open and honest about the parts of the job that cause you stress. The interviewer will be looking to gain insight on what causes you stress and how you handle those situations. If you've found a particular part of the job to be stressful but you've made personal strides to overcome the stress, make sure to let the interviewer know.
"Throughout my career, I've taken personal pride in the progress of my patients and I've found myself most stressed when a particular patient is rehabbing according to my plan. Over time, I've learned to analyze the progress of each patient individually and take into account personal pieces from each patient that may be impeding on their progress."
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
For me personally, the thing that stresses me the most by being a physical therapist is when I don't have much time to assess and educate a patient with a more complex condition. That's because normally we have available the same amount of time for all the patients, no matter if it is a meniscus tear or a neck injury with neurological symptoms. So in this kind of situations, I try to give as much of the important information as I can and leave the less important ones for a follow-up appointment, so I could be both effective with my particular patient and also be on time without causing any sort of delays with my upcoming appointments.
Rachelle's Feedback
It's very understandable how this could cause stress! I have worked on your response a bit to help with clarity and flow.
"What brings the most stress is when I do not have much time to assess and educate a patient with a complex condition. In my current role, we have the same amount of time for all patients, no matter if it is a meniscus tear or a neck injury with neurological symptoms. So in this kind of situation, I try to give as much of the important information as I can and leave the less important details for a follow-up appointment. With this approach, I can be effective with my patients and also be on time without causing any delays for others."
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