You're listening to the PT Pintcast,
where smart people in healthcare come to
make noise.
Here's your host, Jimmy McKay.
I want to say something to an organization
helping us keep the lights on before we
kick this episode off that I think you're
going to learn a lot from.
It's Brooks Institute of Higher Learning,
brooksihl.org, residencies,
fellowships down in Florida, orthopedics,
pediatrics, geriatrics.
If you want post-professional education,
you want the support to get there,
brooksihl.org is where you go.
Just listen,
if you're even thinking about it,
Book a call with them and find out.
Don't just stop at the website,
but have a conversation.
That is the place that a lot of
people have gone.
And then I don't think I've heard anybody
in my circle anyway speak negatively about
the experience.
So brooksihl.org.
Thank you for those guys for supporting
the show for more than two years.
Today...
We get to talk to someone who's a
tenured professor, research director,
manual therapy expert,
and somebody who's lived and worked across
seven countries.
I don't even know if I could name
seven countries.
All right, I could name seven,
but I don't know if I've been to
seven countries.
Our guest today has seen higher ed from
every angle,
and he's not afraid to say what others
won't.
Oh, did your ears just perk up?
Good.
As PT programs expand and student debt
skyrockets,
he's asking the tough questions about the
future, sustainability, quality,
and really the future of this entire
profession and how it plays out.
Let's bring in our guest.
Steve, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
You and I were just talking before I
hit record about something that I think
your daughter just exposed you to.
We were talking about podcasts real quick.
Smartless.
And I love how they intro the guest
where they give the movie trailer,
then pop the guest on.
How did I do with your intro?
Did I miss any of the big beats?
You can't summarize everybody's life,
but how did I do?
I think that's pretty good.
I feel like I have a lot to
live up to for the next however long
we're here.
You don't have to brag.
I'm their hype guy.
You just sit there and say, no, no,
thank you, thank you, thank you.
So we connected on LinkedIn.
Yes.
I don't even remember.
I was looking about a half hour before
we record to find the actual interaction.
And that's okay that we don't have it
because the gist of it was what I
sort of talked about in the intro.
You've said, you think or you feel,
listen, at this moment in time,
in December, twenty twenty five,
PT education is facing a perfect storm.
So I'll start off by asking,
what are the biggest warning signs that
we're ignoring as a profession or an
educational system?
What are the flashing lights from your
perspective?
um okay so first before we start so
so nobody jumps on me about conflicts of
interest for some strange financial reason
i am a tenured professor you can look
up tenured professor salary um so i'm a
chatham in pittsburgh i do a little bit
of work at bowling green in their hybrid
program
I work for the North American Institute of
Orthopedic Manual Therapy doing an online
course and helping with their research.
Also help with some DSC students at
Andrews, which is where I received my DSC.
And not that this is relevant,
but I work in assorted clinics whenever
they'll have me around the Pittsburgh
area.
Good.
I like how you're like,
here's my conflict of interest.
Boom.
There's the first slide.
Perfect.
All right.
Now we'll go back to the question.
Right.
And I shoveled snow for my neighbor,
but that's not really a conflict.
All right.
Well, the first thing, you know,
this is this has been going on since
I think about twenty twenty two.
I think there was an article storm clouds
on the horizon and I don't know if
we've turned our back on it.
But I do know that whether it's state
conference, national conferences, CSM,
AOMT, you know,
educators get together and we sort of talk
about,
we start talking about education and it
ends up in the same sort of session,
right, where we talk about things.
And the big thing is, you know,
career regret.
We see,
I've been in academia for fifteen years.
And while I have some stellar students and
students that are doing great work and
they own clinics and they're doing
research,
I have students that have left the
profession.
They have left for either online work to
be a rep for pharmaceutical companies or
medical companies,
somebody that's working with real-time
ultrasound, MRI clinics.
You know,
they're sort of all over the place.
And I think that spans from
You know,
I'm not sure I'm well qualified to talk
about the reimbursement part of it.
But, you know,
just recently in the private practice
section meeting down in Florida, you know,
some guys I know that were there,
same thing.
We are seeing lower reimbursements where
it's more difficult to get into some of
these larger providers to even see
patients.
Even if you are fellowship trained and
certified and have experience,
they're not letting people into the
system.
So they're losing out on patients.
So to try to coalesce all that,
I think students are coming out with a
high level of debt,
which I'd like to talk about that.
They're in the profession and they just
can't make it work.
They're getting burned out.
They're getting pushed to see more
patients, to present more billable units.
And it's difficult.
And this is, I think,
says more about the profession maybe than
education and where maybe we're going to
talk a little bit more.
but there is a considerable amount of
burnout in the profession and students
becoming therapists and then leaving the
profession.
Just a recent, what was it,
career regret with PTs.
I have the numbers here.
Forty-one point three percent of PTs
regretted their career based on loans and
costs.
And then they're leaving within ten years
of graduation.
Why does that?
So that's the hard data.
That's the objective.
But just for a second,
before we move on to a different topic,
why does that bother you so much?
I mean,
I'm going to assume it's because you're an
educator and you care about this stuff and
you're like, hey,
I show up for the paycheck and because
I like the job,
but also I like the thing that we
produce, which is people, not degrees.
Right.
So why does it bother you?
How does it make you feel from a
personal perspective to watch people leave
the profession?
you know i've i've if i've had fifteen
classes that give or take six hundred
students at least coming through our dpt
program um and some of the better students
that are forward thinking and are
excellent clinicians and excellent
managers um are leaving because they just
they either have better opportunities
they're more motivated or they can't make
it work
And, you know, in the end,
this is going to sound like one of
those platitudes that people say,
but this is, you know, in the end,
we're about patient care.
Right.
And producing the best outcomes we can.
And when we see really good therapists
leaving the profession for this reason,
you know, we think about.
you know,
what are we doing for those patients?
If therapists are leaving when they have
experience and they start to develop
mechanisms for evaluation and treatment
and patient-focused care and
patient-centered care and they're up with
the research and their knowledge is
improving,
know that doesn't bode well for us as
a profession in terms of just frankly
marketing right if every time somebody
goes to a therapist there and nothing
against new grads but they're seeing
somebody with without the experience or
without that level of knowledge um my my
suspicion and i i don't have the hard
data here is that um outcomes are probably
not going to be what we would like
them to
let's talk about something that you're
close to but professors don't set prices
right it's not how it works and there's
more than one factor in how much um
something costs or how much debt someone
comes into right you've got interest rates
or there's a lot of factors
multi-factorial as we love to say at big
meetings right but with with dpt student
debt exploding and salaries haven't
changed much
If you had a magic wand,
what do you think needs to happen at
the program level, professional level?
This almost feels like Sesame Street.
These are the people in the neighborhood.
What do those people in the neighborhood
need to do if you had that magic
wand to make this slow down or even
get better?
So let me just back up just a
little bit.
I would say that sometimes you have to
dig deep for this data and for these
numbers,
and oftentimes it's different depending on
what source you pull.
Whether it's private practice, section,
journal article, the APTA,
the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
it's all different, right?
It doesn't seem to add up.
But where I come down,
it's let's just say an average starting
salary of eighty five thousand.
Granted, different New York City,
San Francisco, Pittsburgh,
they're all going to change a bit.
There is some financial advice where
people say you don't take on your maximum
student loan should not be more than one
point five times your first year salary.
Got it.
I've seen that as well.
Yeah.
So and we have undergraduate debt.
Right.
And we're asking them to take on more.
So let's just consider I pull like one
hundred twenty seven thousand as that
maximum number.
Right.
But we know about a third of students
have over a hundred and fifty thousand
dollars in debt and some programs cost
more than a hundred and fifty thousand
dollars.
My hope is that.
Not sure I'm answering your question
because that's that's a tough question,
but.
Well, you're not just saying, well, Jimmy,
it's complicated.
You're showing me some of the many
different ways in which it's complicated,
or it's not that simple.
Simply by saying,
how much does a DPT cost?
Well,
what is that person or the average person
or most of those people carrying?
It is undergraduate.
They are going right from one to the
other,
or maybe they've had two or three years
in between.
So it's not simple.
So one thing is just to get the
information out.
There is a tremendous variety of...
costs when it comes to a DPT program.
Anywhere from an in-state somewhere around
forty thousand dollars all the way up to
the mid two hundreds.
I mean, that's just insane variation.
But I think trying to let students know
what the numbers are and then hopefully
they can be the consumers of of our
programs and look and say, you know,
if if if that honda and that um
mercedes they're getting me to the same
location right why am i choosing the
merced like like let me take a look
at this and really make an informed
decision agreed let me throw one more
wrinkle into that too though because if
we're using honda analogies and mercedes
one more wrinkle on that would be if
i apply to three hondas three mercedes and
a lamborghini
And we know seats are limited because
that's how seats are.
And I'm standing still with the world and
time passing by.
And I go, well,
there's more people applying to Honda.
So it's harder to get in there.
Less people applying for Mercedes because
they don't,
they're smart and they're not even going
to apply there.
And very few to the Lamborghini.
I have to make that decision on what's
a year's worth of me standing still worth.
And where'd I get in?
Right?
So there's one more wrinkle.
And again, that's simple, but not easy.
true and and you know i i would
i would call linkedin the polite twitter
or yeah yeah yeah for now for now
it's not ruined steve and i do have
some students reply to some of my posts
saying you know i only got in here
yeah and i really want to do this
and they've taken what i think is a
smart strategy and worked for a few years
and banked some money and become a little
bit more independent and then they get
into a program that's you know
And look,
I am not saying that these programs are
not good,
that you don't get a good education,
that the faculty isn't good.
It's just when you look at the numbers
and you look at what we know about
burnout and people leaving the profession,
I don't think we can ignore that.
We have to really kind of look at
as an educator and say, well,
what is happening to these tuition
dollars?
And invariably, what I see, again,
I don't have hard data for you.
There is somebody doing this right now,
but it's just not done yet.
So she didn't feel comfortable sharing
incomplete data with me.
A lot of the newer programs are basically
to stabilize institutions that are not
doing well.
And there are a lot of institutions not
doing well because of what we call the
fiscal cliff or the enrollment cliff in
higher ed,
which is
more students or less students, right?
A less population of college age students
and people aren't seeing the return in
investment or the value on undergrad or
graduate education.
That was predicted ten years ago to start
in twenty twenty five.
Well, guess what year it is?
So I think we have to look at
that.
And as faculty members say, you know,
look,
where we have to do something proactively
with our costs of tuition,
what we offer students,
Um, and where, where our money is going,
if it all is going right back into
a university system,
that's concerning to me.
Right.
Well, let me ask you this then,
because there was a pivot.
There was a, this is impossible moment.
Uh, maybe ten years ago,
maybe a little more.
I remember it was when I was in
PT school or just graduating.
So we're talking twenty fifteen,
twenty sixteen,
which is weird to know that that says
ten years ago.
Uh, the idea there was hybrid education.
Can't work in PT, everybody.
We have to be in person.
That's impossible.
And of course,
necessity being the mother of invention,
hybrid was sort of on the way of
being a thing.
And then a little year of called twenty
twenty happened.
And that's when impossible became
completely possible.
So hybrid education, though,
was designed to meant to reduce cost and
increase access,
maybe have to limit where someone would
have to physically be from your seat where
you sit.
Is it working?
Is it doing those things?
What do you think about the goal and
then where it is?
So let me preface by saying I am
all for innovation, one hundred percent.
I am for hybrid if that fits your
learning style.
I am for traditional.
I am for modified.
Whatever we can do to deliver succinct
education to students in an affordable
manner, I support.
I do not see that hybrid education has
lowered costs for students.
There are hybrid programs,
and this is all public data.
You can get on the APTA or CAPTI
website and find this stuff.
They are as expensive or more expensive
than what people like to call traditional
education.
Now you can live at home.
That's great, right?
Hopefully save some money,
but there's travel costs, right?
You go anywhere from five to ten weeks,
give or take per year.
So you're traveling, you're staying there.
Some people like to say shorter is better,
right?
If you can get in and out of
a hybrid program in two years.
However,
in my brief experience with a few
programs, students are, man,
are they stressed, right?
Some of them, not all of them.
They are in full-time education.
They are working on their own with their
hands-on skills,
which we can have a conversation about
whether that's the best way to go about
that.
And then they're working and they're also
taking some online sort of evening
courses.
So they're fairly busy and doing a lot
in that two-year period.
Some people can do it.
Some people are a bit stressed.
But in answer to your question,
has it lowered the cost?
I do not see that it has.
I do not see...
hybrid programs being substantially less
than traditional programs or the overall
average of a DPT education coming down.
That has not happened.
Okay.
Staying in this sort of area and
understanding there's,
it's almost like the government, right?
Federal, executive,
there's always branches that lean on each
other.
You've got programs,
you've got the industry,
you've got insurance, multifactorial.
But from education, as enrollment drops,
But programs keep growing.
Are we risking quality by admitting
underprepared students?
Because we've got to fill the seats
because filling the seats keeps the boat
floating moving forward.
What levers are at play?
What could be in the future if we
do do this?
Well,
our first time pass rates within the
profession have dropped since.
There's a KPI.
Now, is that COVID?
Is that a new learner?
Is that social media?
I mean, I don't know.
It's again, multifactorial.
You can't isolate, right?
That's how the world works, right?
So cohorts above seventy,
from me just looking at the data and
pulling things and looking,
This is not published information.
This is my going online and looking.
Your lens, right.
Okay.
That's okay.
A lot of these cohorts have more than
seventy students.
So that less than eighty percent
first-time pass rate, right,
these are programs with large cohorts.
Now,
does that mean they are trying to fill
seats of students that traditionally would
not be admitted to a DPT program?
Or because of this enrollment cliff,
are there less students and we're pulling
on less qualified students?
Or is there grade inflation?
We're not sure.
But typically, these are newer programs,
both traditional and hybrid,
mainly hybrid, but also traditional.
And that's just, I think,
because hybrid is just the newer format.
So we see more newer hybrid programs.
But those modes,
they don't seem to be related hybrid
versus traditional in terms of first-time
pass rates.
Now,
the good news is the ultimate pass rate
is usually high, right?
High nineties.
So eventually, but when you look at a,
you know,
at twenty percent of students starting to
retake an exam, you know,
that's a high number, I would argue.
So anecdotally, again,
just from talking to my colleagues and
peers,
We are starting to see unqualified or
students who are challenged by a DPT
curriculum.
They're either failing out or they're
dropping out or they're unable to pass the
hardcore sciences like anatomy and
physiology at a graduate or doctoral
level.
We still see very good students.
We still see sort of the middle of
the road.
But why that's happening?
I mean, I think it's just basic math,
though.
Like you said,
if there's fewer students and more
programs where, you know, again,
anecdotally talking to people,
they are going through their accept list
and their wait list and everybody's
getting in.
So there are some programs that don't flat
out reject people.
They put everybody on a wait list just
in case.
Um, and, and I,
I hate to hold that against a student
that wants to become a PT.
Um,
but we're seeing it in the numbers again,
we're,
we're seeing the first time pass rate
drop.
Um, and we're seeing,
we're seeing students leave the program,
right.
To leave their cohort before they're even
there, they graduate.
So let's go to the other end of
this too.
You've, you've got faculty with DPTs,
PhDs, fellowship, EDDs, um,
And it would be hard to argue that
getting smarter people is bad, right?
So I'm not arguing that,
but I get to ask the questions and
look smart and you got to answer it.
You got the tougher job, man.
So we got faculty with DPTs, PhDs,
fellowships.
Is that raising the bar or reacting to
a broken system?
Um, a little bit of both.
It depends.
I knew Steve, come on, we're PTs.
We knew it and it depends would come
out eventually.
You know,
it's more fun when you just put a
slogan on a T-shirt or threaten to sue
somebody on Twitter and then, you know,
people are, you know,
think you have all the answers.
But, you know, look,
here's my experiential answer is...
I think it's thirteen to fifteen per
teaching assistant, right,
in a lab scenario that CAPT requires.
So I would argue that that number should
be a little bit less, something like ten.
But technically,
I would be qualified to go help out
in a pediatric lab.
I do not consider myself personally
qualified to do that,
but technically I could do that as a
teaching assistant.
And I think that needs to change.
I think there needs to either through
CAPTI or through schools need to say,
look,
if you're coming to help out in my
spine lab,
we need you to have at least three
years of outpatient experience.
We need you to be understanding of the
way we teach,
maybe the classification systems,
manual therapy stuff before you come in.
And that requires, right, a little bit of
experience and a little bit of motivation
on on the teaching assistance part.
So that would be one thing.
Now,
I do know there was a move to
and I can't remember the number of maybe
as fifty fifty at this point of PhDs
to fellowship trained.
Right.
So yeah,
can a fellowship trained therapist be an
outstanding teacher?
For sure, right?
And can a PhD be not as good
as that person?
But we probably have to eventually get to
a place where we're looking at terminal
degree, years of experience, patient load,
research, involvement in the profession,
and look at all those things before we
make a decision.
Okay.
So what would be your call to action,
right?
We're going to go to CSM and we're
going to put you on stage.
We're going to live stream it.
Three hundred thousand physical
therapists,
all the physical therapists just in the
U.S.
are going to be able to hear Steve
for for ninety seconds.
What would your call to action be?
What do what do PT faculty,
program leaders, clinicians?
What is I mean,
this is pretty much saying, Steve,
you ask everybody one question,
but what do they need to be doing
right now?
You can really only have one call to
action.
What would your charge be?
And I know I'm asking a big question,
right?
And you're, you know,
this is not an easy thing I'm asking
you to do,
but what would it be if it's a
hypothetical?
So in the end,
we are where we are to serve patients,
right?
PT is not a profession in general that
or medicine shouldn't be where you go in
thinking, you know,
I'm in this for the money.
So I think we have to look at
where we are now and we can't ignore
it.
The first thing is for educators and
academics,
and I probably will need more than ninety
seconds for this, but I'll try.
That's all right.
We need to really look within and say,
look,
we need to make tuition more affordable.
We need to look at that one point
five over first-year salary and think
about what it is in Pittsburgh and Kansas
City and Oklahoma City and Los Angeles and
figure out what is possible.
And then I think we have to get
a little bit confident as educators and
say, hey,
if we're bringing in a cohort of,
let me just make this round numbers,
right, of ten,
and we charge them ten dollars,
that's a hundred dollars.
Where's that money going with the
university?
It's not all going to salaries.
And if we're in a hybrid program and
we don't need office space and we don't
need the traditional lab space,
I understand there are additional
expenses.
We need to price that accordingly to keep
the profession going.
Well,
I'm not going to say you said this.
I'll say sources have told me a lot
of times PT programs are programs that can
float other majors.
They essentially help the university stay
afloat because it's so ROI positive.
I think I said that.
I would.
Yeah, I mean,
you just and that's why I say we
need to be a little bit more confident
in what we're doing and looking at the
growth that is projected for physical
therapists in the coming ten,
twenty years.
Again, depending on where you look.
and not be the program that props up
either the overall university or
universities that are running into fiscal
distress.
It's not fair.
I'm sympathetic and empathetic to that,
but it is not sustainable for the
profession.
not just to start a program because your
university is having financial problems
yeah um we're we're and and the data's
out already right we're seeing people
leave profession we're seeing people
stressed um we can go over numbers of
what this means for monthly payments for
students but we have to look at affordable
tuition we have to look at when we
bring students in we have to advocate for
students so that they can advocate for
their patients
Work study should be something that we
give them.
If they're going to help a professor with
their research,
there should be a stipend associated with
that.
Perhaps with graduate students in profit
making or profitable programs,
we ought to let them like,
fifty percent off housing or even free
housing.
Universities do not want to hear this.
They do not want to hear somebody saying,
Hey,
you made one point two million off of
our program last year.
I have an idea.
Let's make it eight hundred thousand.
They're not going to be receptive to that.
But if they're not,
I think we're shooting ourselves in the
foot for later because eventually the
market forces
are gonna pull students to places that are
more affordable.
And it's just not gonna work for some
of these universities.
You got smart people making smart
decisions.
And that's not to say, oh, I don't,
don't be quoting me.
That's not to say someone who stays as
a clinician is not doing a smart thing.
But when someone leaves you,
I left clinical practice because I said,
this really isn't for me.
But also that math wouldn't math even if
it was smart.
People are making decisions based on...
I gave this analogy the other day.
The coach always told us, you know,
the logo on the front of the jersey
is more important than the logo on the
back,
meaning the team is more important than
the individual.
And I push back on that now.
The name on the back is my family
name.
I make decisions on that first,
and then if it's okay,
I play for the team.
So I sort of reverse that.
So I think you have people making
decisions based on, unfortunately...
being able to survive in twenty twenty
five, twenty twenty six.
And those people have signed up for.
I'd love to be in a profession that
does.
Yes.
And it helps me survive.
And I get to be the greater good.
I think if I was going to sum
up what you were saying is let's make
sure we don't penalize for people doing
that.
Let's make sure we all can at least
win.
If we don't do that,
we will feel repercussions five to ten
years from now.
We're now, we're already.
And that would be what I would say
to academia, to the APTA,
or to our larger organization,
and to CAPTI, say, you know,
when you
Approve a new hybrid program.
You're approving an influx of therapists
across the United States,
and that needs to be a consideration,
right?
Are we indeed going to flood the market
with new PTs?
Possibly.
Again,
depend on what data set you look at.
And when you're looking at regional right
programs just in the Pittsburgh area,
I don't I don't want to mention schools,
but there are a lot within nine miles.
Pittsburgh, Boston, New York.
I mean, obviously,
the big metro centers have very large
concentration of those programs.
So we have to have somebody say,
you know,
there are enough there are enough programs
in this area or there are enough programs
that feed, you know, the whole country.
And when there are programs that say,
well,
we're going to we're going to admit one
hundred, but they only have sixty five.
Well,
How far down their wait list are with
their qualified students?
And my fear is that are we setting
some of these students up for failure?
And is that why we're seeing the drop
in first-time pass rates?
Because they drop out of the program and
they're figured in that overall rate.
The final thing I would add is, okay,
I agree with that.
But then you do have this good movement.
Connie Hauser was pretty instrumental in
starting a program in a rural area.
Could you reward students who wanted to go
and stay for a predetermined amount of
time?
Reduced tuition if you stay in this
underserved rural area.
Like,
wouldn't that be great if almost the ROTC
version of PT?
So you...
You know,
you've hit on something that we haven't
brought up yet,
but that is very important.
And that's the Department of Education
reclassifying as master's level and not
professional.
So, you know,
this may be forced upon us quicker than
we think if students are only able to
leverage twenty thousand five hundred
dollars, I think is the number per year.
So so just again,
I sort of in prep for this,
I looked at some numbers.
So an average student.
So let's just go one hundred thousand over
twenty years just to make it round
numbers.
Right.
And you can do this.
Just Google loan repayment calculator
comes up.
So, you know, it's not that these loans,
these government backed loans, you know,
they're coming in at somewhere around
eight percent.
Correct.
Oh,
that's eight hundred and thirty six
dollars a month over twenty years.
Just for the interest rate.
right no no no to repay right so
you're paying almost you're you're on a
hundred thousand you're paying almost
double that right when you're when you're
finished um and then we have these
variations so so i bank with citizens
right which is around pittsburgh i think
it used to be mellon but anyway i'm
getting all these emails like hey would
you like a student loan
And then in the little asterisk,
it says variable rate between three point
two four.
That's pretty good, right?
That's that same thing as five hundred
fifty seven dollars a month.
all the way up to thirteen point three
seven.
Twelve hundred a month or one hundred
thousand dollars,
two hundred and eighty seven thousand
repaid.
So you need it.
You're going to need a cosigner.
You're going to need to either have have
your have something in savings or own a
home or have some sort of collateral.
And when we look at what we've been
trying to do in terms of first-gen college
students or socioeconomic data of students
that we're really working to try to get
into the PT profession,
how is that going to be viable for
this sect of students that are driven and
motivated and intelligent and can make
good physical therapists but don't have
the financial means
to qualify for these loans?
We're getting people dropping out of the
profession now at a, you know,
thirty percent rate in ten years.
You know, what's going to happen?
I mean,
I know for a fact my mortgage wasn't
twelve hundred dollars a month.
I don't think I've ever owed twelve
hundred dollars a month for anything.
But, you know,
what are first of all they might not
be able to get a loan at a
decent rate and then when they get it
this these payments are just not
sustainable it's a mortgage and more
mortgage uh is french for death note
there's a reason for that like look that
up uh i feel like we can keep
going on this and maybe we will
But let's do a game right now.
Are you down with a game?
I didn't prep you for this,
but you want to play a quick game?
All right, let's do it.
All right.
Thanks to U.S.
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USPH.
All right, Steve,
the game we are going to play today
is called Storm Clouds or Silver Lining.
So we're talking about the storm clouds
coming.
You mentioned that.
I'll throw out a trend or an issue
in PT education.
You tell me if it's a brewing storm
on the horizon or a silver lining and
maybe give me like a couple words why.
And am I allowed to choose both or
just one or the other?
It's PT.
You can always choose both.
You can always choose independent.
It depends.
First up, storm clouds or server lining?
Hybrid education, storm cloud,
server lining, or both?
I think silver lining because I am hoping
that the tuition rates will rebalance
themselves.
And I do know several...
very good educators within the hybrid
space at this time perfect uh pass rate
declining storm cloud server lining that
is a storm cloud exponential and if we
don't look at that we're in trouble new
doe rules you knew i was going to
bring it up somewhere there it is new
doe rules which was which had happy
twitter linkedin in a tizzy for the last
two weeks um
The only silver lining is that it's going
to force programs to do the things that
I've sort of suggested.
Hope you're right.
The rate at which we're looking is that
that's a storm cloud and that's going to
be a very difficult thing to navigate.
AI in PT school.
Is this a storm cloud or silver lining?
Funny,
I just met with somebody about this.
Talk about an it depends answer.
Yeah.
How it's used.
He has a silver linings.
Can't wait.
I'm just going to have to defer the
answer to that question.
I just don't know enough about it.
That's a lot.
If I see a Steve Karras avatar teaching.
That's when we know where it is.
Final rehab somewhere.
That's going to be a problem.
All right, last one, last one.
International student enrollment shifts.
Is this a storm cloud or a silver
lining?
You know,
it's a it's a it's a storm cloud
starting.
I think any time we deny an education
to qualified students,
we're really not fulfilling our mission
and we're not producing therapists
qualified to give good patient care.
OK, you're off the hot seat.
That was a storm cloud or server lining.
Last thing we do on the show, Steve,
is called the parting.
This is The Parting Shot.
One last mic drop moment.
No pressure.
Just your legacy on the line.
All right, just your legacy on the line.
Parting Shot.
I want to thank Empower EMR.
They've supported the show for the last
two, three years.
That's the platform helping clinics
simplify documentation,
improve patient engagement,
and get their time back.
Your EMR doesn't have to be painful.
That's a choice.
As long as you pick the right one.
Kick the tires for theirs now at
empoweremr.com.
That is empoweremr.com.
So the mic is yours now, Steve.
Parting shot, whatever you want.
Your mic drop moment,
soapbox statement as we wrap up.
Go ahead.
Students considering physical therapy,
take a look at all your options.
Take a look at how much money you're
going to be making,
what your return on investment is,
and really consider the type of education
and the amount of
tuition that you will be charged and what
that looks like over long-term payback
within what you think you're going to make
and what kind of lifestyle you expect from
this profession.
Also understand that this is an amazing
profession.
The rewards that you get on a daily
basis are outstanding and you're going to
love it.
To educators, you know,
We need to really think about what we
do and how we deliver our education.
And I think we're in the driver's seat
now.
There are students that we can really
deliver a quality product to,
an affordable product.
And we have to, I think,
advocate for our students who advocate for
our patients one day.
And think about how we best deliver this
and where those tuition dollars are going.
It's not going to be comfortable speaking
to an administrator about why we need to
do what we need to do to attract
quality students.
But it's something that we need to do,
and we need to do it yesterday.
You need to do it yesterday.
Perfect.
Steve, appreciate the time.
And thanks for dropping by.
We'll have you back soon.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Thank you.
That's it for this one,
but we're just getting warmed up.
Smash follow, send it to a friend,
or crank up the next episode.
Want to go deeper?
Hit us at pgpinecast.com or find us on
YouTube and socials at pgpinecast.
And legally, none of this was advice.
It's for entertainment purposes only.
Bullshit!
See, Keith?
We read the script.
Happy now?