Leaving Inpatient to Become a Home Health Therapist

I was one of those people that had no clue what I wanted to be when I grew up. Frankly, I was having too much fun in high school to think beyond it. I went through 5 different majors and 3 different schools before I landed on Physical Therapist Assistant (that’s another long story). I was inspired to pursue this career by my baby cousin. He was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy at one year old. I watched him develop and grow and at the center of it all was his Physical Therapist.

During my clinical training at a middle school, I discovered working with children was definitely not for me. Luckily, I was immediately hired post graduation at a local high profile medical institution in a setting that I was sure I would hate: neurorehab. Working with stroke and traumatic brain injury patients was not glamorous. I wanted to work in outpatient with the athletes. However, after only a couple of months in neurorehab, I had found my passion. This setting was challenging and rewarding and no two patients were ever the same.

In neurorehab, it is imperative to work very closely with the patient’s entire care team. The camaraderie is strong. We would often talk in our tiny office (many of us had to share a desk) about how we loved working in this setting but why do we not see any older therapists? Turns out, neurorehab is a young man’s game. It is physically demanding and I was starting to feel it. But where do all the older therapists go? We speculated home health must be it, but “Ew, I’d hate to work in home health! I like being with my co-workers everyday! I couldn’t stand having to be out in weather everyday and all of that driving!”

Eventually my back pain became too debilitating and I left neurorehab for outpatient. It wasn’t as excited as I had once thought it would be and I wound up seeking out a back-friendly geriatric setting.

During this time I reconnected with an old friend who happened to open her own home health staffing company (sound familiar?). It took a lot of encouragement on her part to convince me to give home health a try. I still had those voices in my head saying “Ew, home health." I agreed to some PRN visits. It didn’t take long for me to take it on full time.

The home health setting sometimes gets a bad rep. Sure, I do a lot of driving, I’m not in a large gym with fun co-workers, and weather is a real thing. But I found a couple of other things that trumped all those: flexibility, autonomy, and a deeper connection with my patient.

The flexibility of home health allowed me to be more present for my family. I was no longer working on my employer’s time. I could make my own schedule (hello independence!) and be able to take my kids to school or drive my husband to the airport. Every employee wants to feel as though they have some control over how they perform their duties. Home health affords employees autonomy over meeting their patient’s needs as well as their own. There is something about being welcomed into a patient’s home, meeting their caregivers, seeing their personal photos and how they live their lives that really forms a deeper connection with my patients. I feel like a detective helping them problem solve how to remain in their home safely and get back to the activities that made them.... them. The only downfall with that- discharging my patients is such sweet sorrow.