Official Therapist Blog

Enjoy Independence Day in Washington DC (and everywhere else)!

Author Healthcare Jobs Blogger | 07.01.2010 | Category 4th of July, Allied Healthcare, Fun Events, Locations, Monthly Events, Occupational Therapy, Tidbits

If you’re lucky enough to find yourself on a travel assignment in the Nation’s Capital on Independence Day, you’ll discover there’s no shortage of things to do in DC. If you can brave the heat, head out to the 4th of July Fireworks on the National Mall. (As an allied professional, you know how to cope: stay hydrated!) Fireworks, music, friendly folks sharing picnics on their ‘viewing’ blankets — plus, the show is free! (But no matter where you are this holiday weekend, you can still catch the concert and fireworks on PBS.)

Annual APTA Conference & Expo coming to Boston this June!

Author Therapy Career Blogger | 06.01.2010 | Category Allied Healthcare, Career Tips, Fun Events, Monthly Events, Physical Therapist Jobs, Travel Therapist, physical therapy

Get your registration information here!

Attention all allied health care workers looking for PT events close to your Massachusetts Physical Therapist Jobs: if you’re anywhere near Bean Town this June, you can look forward to the 2010 APTA Conference featuring the who’s who of physical therapy associations around the world!

The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) is holding its annual conference and exposition in Boston, June 16-19, 2010 at the Hynes Convention Center—a well-known venue in the Back Bay section of town, overlooking the Charles River. Besides an exciting program schedule of the most recognized names in American physical therapy, this event puts you close to premier Beacon Hill dining and shopping, amidst streets lined with Victorian brownstones.

When you register for the 2010 APTA Conference, it’s a way of signing on for so much more than a mini-vacation in one of the oldest, most charming destinations in the country—it’s also a great opportunity to enhance physical therapy jobs and Massachusetts physical therapist jobs with the following career highlights:

• Participation in hot topic debates
• Networking opportunities with APTA leadership
• Exposure to cutting edge products & services
• Seeing old and new colleagues and friends again

Being part of this year’s APTA Conference benefits patients, too. Ask them to save the date, June 19, for the ultimate consumer event, “Staying on Your Feet.” We’ve blogged before about helping patients fall-proof their homes, but this PT event brings those words to life, with free Balance Testing and Strength & Blood Pressure Evaluations. Registration is free and invaluable—as it addresses falls before they happen, and encourages public awareness about healthy and safe aging—critical in a world population averaging longer life spans. PTs are encouraged to take notes and pack their camera phones; there will be an exhibit hall showcasing mobility aids, assistive devices for home safety, exercise equipment and more.

Just to give you a visual: Starting Wednesday, June 16th and through Saturday of that week, more than 2,500 physical therapy professionals will congregate at the Hynes Convention Center to learn more about physical therapy jobs. Because the APTA Conference is opening the exhibition hall to the general public on its last day, PTs get the rare opportunity to access their target market, as well as better understand purchasing decisions at the medical facility where they hold travel nursing jobs.

Students of physical therapy may also want to participate in this PT event, as it will help them gain momentum in their physical therapy jobs healthcare career. The APTA Conference lets them see how physical therapy association decisions are made by giving stage to the APTA House of Delegates.

Watch Senator Tom Daschle deliver the keynote address during opening ceremonies and enjoy a packed week of PT events that include parties, mingling, and star spangled affairs, ensuring that in the course of your physical therapy career and physical therapy jobs this summer, YOU are cookin’ with gas!

2010 Physical Therapy Association Calendar Packed with PT Events

Author Therapy Career Blogger | 05.10.2010 | Category Allied Healthcare, Career Tips, Certifications, Continuing Education Units (CEU), Fun Events, Monthly Events, Ongoing Education, Physical Therapist Jobs, Therapist Jobs, Therapy Jobs, Travel Therapist, Traveling Therapist, physical therapy, rehabilitation therapy

Continuing to grow and improve your skills as a PT takes time and dedication. Of course, you’ll learn a lot from your physical therapy jobs; but you’ll also want to attend as many physical therapy seminars as possible, to stay up on the latest trends in healthcare.

Luckily, The American Physical Therapy Association is a great resource for physical therapists. The association’s events calendar is jam-packed with interesting and informative activities, including the annual conference, as well as physical therapy seminars in everything from pediatrics, to geriatrics, to specific parts of the body (e.g., shoulders and feet).

Here’s a sampling of the physical therapy events on the 2010 events calendar, listed chronologically:

Pharmacology for Physical Therapists

• May 22-23
• Chapel Hill, NC
• Description: Study the effect of drug actions on the major body systems, problems of drug interaction, and variables that modify their effects.

Annual Conference

• June 16-19
• Boston, MA
• Description: This annual gathering for the Physical Therapy Association has everything the practicing physical therapist could wish: seminars, networking, discussions, and, of course, socializing with your fellow PTs.

Screening for Medical Referral: The Pediatric Client Birth to Six Years

• July 10-11
• Valhalla, NY
• Description: Course emphasizes taking a history for the pediatric patient and using evidence to screen and review the cardiovascular, pulmonary, gastrointestinal, neuromuscular, musculoskeletal, urogenital, and integumentary systems for infants, toddlers through the use of case studies.

Biomechanics, Examination, and Selected Interventions for Foot Disorders

• July 17-18
• Portland, OR
• Description: The biomechanics of the foot and ankle with normal and abnormal motion during walking will be evaluated especially in relation to lower extremity dysfunction and the physical examination of the foot.

Women’s Health-Men’s Health: What All PTs Need to Know

• Sept. 11-12
• Burlington, NC
• Description: Gender and sex differences are presented using an evidence-based, body systems approach that illustrates how the unique characteristics associated with sex/gender matter across physical therapy practice settings.

Evidence-Based Assessment, Examination & Rehabilitation Interventions in the Medically Complex Older Adult

• Sept. 25-26
• Somerville, NJ

Examination and Selected Interventions: Lower Extremity: Hip, Knee, and Ankle

• Nov. 6-7
• Jacksonville, FL
• Description: Course is designed to integrate a comprehensive clinical examination with selected manual therapy interventions for the hip, knee, and ankle.

In addition, there are several physical therapy seminars and conferences for specific disciplines scheduled around the country, such as:

The American Society of Hand Therapists Annual Meeting

• June 23
• Orlando, Florida
• Description: Meeting theme “Best Practice in Hand Therapy.”

Aquatic Section Summit

• Oct. 6-8
• Colorado Springs, CO
• Description: Conference of the APTA’s Aquatic Physical Therapy Section will coincide with World Aquatic Health Conference. Note: e-seminars will be available at this event.

Gait Analysis Seminars

• June 5-6, Tempe, AZ
• Nov. 6-7, New York, NY
• Description: For gait and foot-function specialists: Learn how in-shoe pressure mapping technology is used to analyze foot function and gait by revealing what the eye cannot see.

These are just a few of the numerous choices for physical therapy seminars and PT events around. With physical therapy jobs from Travel Force, you may very well find yourself on assignment in an area that is featuring one or more of these physical therapy seminars and conferences. In which case, you’ll certainly be in the right place at the right time!

May is Speech and Hearing Month—a celebration of miracle workers

Author Therapy Career Blogger | 05.03.2010 | Category Allied Healthcare, Career Tips, Monthly Events, Speech Language Pathologist, Speech and Hearing Month - May, Therapist Jobs, Therapy Jobs

No two ways about it, Speech and Language Pathologists (SLPs) are miracle workers. Their professional expertise restores the human connection for those with aphasia—a language disorder affecting approximately 1 million American stroke victims—stuttering, hearing loss, and other communication disorders.

This Spring, like any other and many to come, we add our voices to an appreciative public by recognizing allied health professionals in speech therapy jobs; it’s the 75th Better Hearing and Speech Month (BHSM) in the United States.

We’d like to take a moment, review more current statistics on communication disorders and define some of the challenges the modern speech therapist faces—and how their skills benefit patients during BHSM and all year round.

According to the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders, the number of Americans suffering from speech, voice, language or hearing impairment hovers around 43 million—in that sobering statistic, there are at least 28 million confirmed cases of hearing loss—and the figure that resonates? 10% of these communication disorders are owned by our children; reason enough for SLPs to get up each day and excel at doing what they do—teaching strategies that help patients cope and overcome.

Because a child with a communication disorder is 4 or 5 times more likely than his peers to suffer from significant reading problems, speech and language pathologists are relied upon by the general public to anticipate those hurdles, and, if possible, lift them out of the way; of course, SLPs are there for anyone in need, at any age, unwilling to let communication disorders hamper social lives, careers or G.P.A.

That being said, have you taken stock of your own health lately? How’s your hearing? It may surprise you to know that of those 28 million people we mentioned earlier—the ones with hearing deficits—only a quarter of them seek diagnosis and hearing aids; since this is a “silent treatment” we can’t afford to perpetuate, here’s a shortlist of symptoms we’d like you to consider.

Is Speech and Hearing Month when you decide you need a hearing aid? The answer may be yes, if you identify with any of the following:

• Have pain or ringing in your ears
• Frequently ask people to repeat themselves
• Keep the volume up on audio equipment, others say is too loud
• Understand people better looking directly at their faces, or by wearing your glasses
• Lose your place in group conversations
• Often turn your ear toward a sound to hear it better

If you don’t get around to thinking about these issues this month, but nonetheless like a historical excuse to take charge of your hearing and communicative health, let June inspire you too.

On June 27, 2010, Helen Keller celebrates her 130th birthday. While not a board certified, and rigorously trained speech therapist, her teacher and mentor, Anne Sullivan, who employed SLP skills helping Hellen, made a huge difference in the quality of Helen’s life; to come so far a century ago, is so telling of what speech therapists are capable of now. This May we ask you to celebrate Better Hearing and Speech Month and to keep working your miracles all year long.

About Travel Force Speech Therapy Jobs

Speech Pathologist Jobs at Travel Force Staffing take your career to the next level. We staff more university teaching hospitals and top-ranked rehabilitation hospitals than other therapist job agency. We have high-paying speech therapy jobs in Washington D.C., Boston, Baltimore, Atlanta, San Francisco and other fast-growing healthcare markets.

Get started now on the path to financial freedom. Not only can you earn up to 20 percent more with therapy jobs at Travel Force our free benefits, bonuses, company-matched 401(k), reimbursement for approved travel and utilities, licensure reimbursement and Tax Advantage Plan mean thousands more in your paycheck every month. Call to speak to an expert today at 800-617-0608 or Apply Online.

National Occupational Therapy Month well under way this April

Author Therapy Career Blogger | 04.19.2010 | Category Allied Healthcare, Career Tips, Monthly Events, Occupational Therapy, Occupational Therapy Month - April, Therapist Jobs, Travel Therapist, rehabilitation therapy

Just like everyone else, occupational therapists file their taxes in the spring, with the ultimate goal of satisfying the IRS before April 15th —whether or not your tax return gives you something to celebrate, April is and will continue to be, a busy and celebratory month for OTs across the nation.

Why? Because April showers bring reasons to showcase what high paying occupational therapy jobs do best: help patients live their lives to the fullest!

Yep, it’s National Occupational Therapy Month for a couple more weeks; those of you in travel occupational therapy jobs close to Florida are close to the American Occupational Therapy Association’s (AOTA) annual conference in Orlando. If you registered by the extended deadline of April 11th, you’re good to go in a conference beginning on 4/29/10, lasting through the second of May. We’d love to read comments from occupational therapists in attendance, if you would be so kind as to post one after reading our article!

Nowhere near Orlando this month? No big deal. You don’t have to attend the AOTA conference to practice what it preaches. Here are just a few things you—and in this case “you” applies not just to OTs, but OTAs and students—can do to showcase the importance of an inspiring occupational therapist career.

Visit www.promoteot.com to see OT related gifts from AOTA’s new line of products; your purchase goes a long way in showing clients, referrers, and colleagues how much you care—the best part being that proceeds help the AOTA help you!

• Host a little Occupational Therapy Month party in the break room where you work; now that spring cleaning is through, those plates and utensils ought to be easy enough to find! Serve coffee and donuts while sharing stories about how occupational therapy careers greatly benefit the public—little events like these are great at getting the word out!
• Send out April greetings to clients or mentors, expressing the occupational therapy mission statement: to help patients “live their lives to the fullest”; this is AOTA’s platform—OTs  are encouraged, this month especially, to distribute consumer tips that help millions of patients (of all ages) through the hardships of their medical conditions.
• Finally, promote the unique role OTs can play by getting involved with Rebuilding Together (RT). AOTA and Rebuilding Together (RT) have collaborated on home modification projects for low-income homeowners for more than a decade. OTs play a crucial role in this outreach program as members in RT affiliate programs spanning the country.
• Remember that April, a month of painted eggs, tax advantages and sunshine is just a temporary bright spot in a whole year’s worth of showcasing the importance of Occupational Therapy.

We’re certainly going to tell the world what occupational therapy does 365 days a year.