A few weeks ago we highlighted a thank you letter we received from one of our traveling therapists who was stepping away from the travel world to take a permanent job. We enjoyed hearing about the experiences she related in her letter so much that we decided to reach out to her and find out more about her travel experience.
A phone call changed physical therapist Jess Visintainer's career. As she was approaching the end of her internships and thinking about a permanent job, a conversation with a fellow therapist led her to a split-second decision to becoming a travel PT, something she went on to do for seven years.
"It ended up being the best decision I ever made. So much for planning. I wish I could say I planned really hard to be a traveler but I didn’t," Jess says. "It just seemed like a good idea at the beginning and it was noncommittal, kind of, because it was only one assignment and my plan was to do it for a year. And it’s 2016 so that didn’t exactly go as I was thinking."
Her assignments have taken her across the United States 11 times as she focused on working on the two coasts and in Alaska. Working in a variety of practice settings has give her vastly different experiences and made her a better PT.
"There’s two ways to look at an assignment in the PT world, location and setting — so outpatient, skilled nursing, acute care, what have you, versus the islands, mountains, city, east coast, west coast. In a world of travel, at least what I have found, you can only work with where there’s jobs but typically you get at least one of those," she says. "There are a lot of assignments out there, lots of opportunity, everywhere looks awesome so choose based on either setting or location. Whatever is your priority then you’ll end up having a fantastic go of it."
After seven years of travel Jess finally decided to stick to one place and spend more time with family, but she is grateful for her time spent travelling and all that she learned.
"I have worked with fishermen and lumberjacks and shooting victims and general population, but general population isn’t general when you’re going from a small town to a big city," she says. "The need, the requirements, the language, the way in which you communicate is all very different. As a clinician, I can bring so much more to the table because I have worked with people from so many different backgrounds and I’ve worked with clinicians who are from different backgrounds."
Check out our open PT jobs.
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A phone call changed physical therapist Jess Visintainer's career. As she was approaching the end of her internships and thinking about a permanent job, a conversation with a fellow therapist led her to a split-second decision to becoming a travel PT, something she went on to do for seven years.
"It ended up being the best decision I ever made. So much for planning. I wish I could say I planned really hard to be a traveler but I didn’t," Jess says. "It just seemed like a good idea at the beginning and it was noncommittal, kind of, because it was only one assignment and my plan was to do it for a year. And it’s 2016 so that didn’t exactly go as I was thinking."
Her assignments have taken her across the United States 11 times as she focused on working on the two coasts and in Alaska. Working in a variety of practice settings has give her vastly different experiences and made her a better PT.
"There’s two ways to look at an assignment in the PT world, location and setting — so outpatient, skilled nursing, acute care, what have you, versus the islands, mountains, city, east coast, west coast. In a world of travel, at least what I have found, you can only work with where there’s jobs but typically you get at least one of those," she says. "There are a lot of assignments out there, lots of opportunity, everywhere looks awesome so choose based on either setting or location. Whatever is your priority then you’ll end up having a fantastic go of it."
After seven years of travel Jess finally decided to stick to one place and spend more time with family, but she is grateful for her time spent travelling and all that she learned.
"I have worked with fishermen and lumberjacks and shooting victims and general population, but general population isn’t general when you’re going from a small town to a big city," she says. "The need, the requirements, the language, the way in which you communicate is all very different. As a clinician, I can bring so much more to the table because I have worked with people from so many different backgrounds and I’ve worked with clinicians who are from different backgrounds."
Check out our open PT jobs.
