How to Find Mentorship as a New Grad Travel Therapist
A LACK OF MENTORSHIP IS A MAJOR CONCERN FOR NEW GRADS HOPING TO TRAVEL. MANY STUDENTS DON’T HAVE THE SELF-CONFIDENCE TO ENTER THE FIELD WITHOUT SUPPORT, AND MANY INSTRUCTORS RECOMMEND TO STUDENTS 1-2 YEARS OF PERMANENT EXPERIENCE BEFORE CONSIDERING TRAVEL.
In this post, we’re going to share how we evaluated this advice for ourselves to try to make the wisest decision for our situation. Hopefully its helpful to you as well!
Ryan and I were really hoping to travel right after school because we knew there would be no other time in our lives when it would be this easy to travel. For this reason, we really tried to evaluate any good reason we or others had against traveling right away so that we felt good and confident about our decision.
ONE OF THE BIGGEST ROAD BLOCKS TO TRAVEL WAS A LACK OF EXPERIENCE
Many people told us that it would be hard to find a traveler position as a new grad and that we wouldn’t receive mentorship as a traveler. Because of this we evaluated what mentorship actually looks like in permanent positions – from our personal experience on clinicals we found that most often mentorship looked like having a more experienced clinician in the same office that you could direct questions to. Sometimes it was a time slot set aside at the end of a week to ask a bulk amount of questions or maybe it took the form of a call, an in-service, or a continuing ed presentation. From these examples, our impression of mentorship was pretty laid back.
In order to get a fuller picture of what mentorship can look like, we also polled some new grads working in perm positions to see if they were receiving any mentorship and what theirs looked like.
WHAT WE FOUND
We found that 10 out of 14 students said they were being mentored. Two of those were explicitly receiving hands on and experiential teaching of treatment methods, manipulations, review of body parts, and help with complex patients. Three said they were supposed to be receiving something called “mentorship”, but it was pretty unstructured and they questioned whether they were truly getting mentored at all. The remaining 5 said they had lectures, labs, calls, face to face meetings, a skills check off, or basic orientation for their mentorship.
After gathering this info, we looked into what type of mentorship was offered in the travel setting.
EACH RECRUITING COMPANY WE CAME ACROSS OFFERED SOME FORM OF NEW GRAD MENTORSHIP
Most times this meant the recruiting company would get you in contact with a more experienced clinician whom you could email or call if you had questions. We thought this would be pretty comparable to the new grads in permanent positions who received mentorship in the form of calls or who was able to ask questions to other clinicians when they popped up. Even with this form of mentorship available to new grad travelers, we also found that there were important questions you could ask contract facilities during your interview to ensure a new grad friendly environment. After all, it is nice to have someone to call, but its even better to have someone a few steps away.
HERE ARE A FEW IMPORTANT QUESTIONS TO ASK
Are there other clinicians (of your same profession) who will be working at the clinic?
If so, how long have they been working there?
What is your productivity standard?
How much time does the clinic have set aside for onboarding and training?
If they are expecting you to work with patient populations that you don’t feel as confident in/that could be specialized in (wound, peds, women’s health), are they going to offer training?
We also found that recruiters can be a great resource for finding a new grad friendly location. Sometimes recruiters will have locations that they know are great with new grads. Sometimes the contract location itself will even offer mentorship as a part of the contract. In this case we told our recruiter that it was important to us to have a good first travel experience and land at a location that would be new grad friendly.
In conclusion, we found that mentorship as a traveler often looked very similar to what other new grads were receiving in permanent positions. For my first contract, I ended up in a clinic with 6 other seasoned therapists who were super nice and willing to answer questions. The manager was very laid back and gave me plenty of time to train. I even got to learn and practice new skills that I didn’t have exposure to from clinicals such as aquatic therapy and wound care. The clinic was very team oriented and friendly.
WHAT WE SUGGEST
If you want specific mentorship and structured training on manual techniques, treatment strategies, manipulations, etc – you may more likely find that in a permanent position, but then again, you may not. Make sure that you have negotiated the terms of your mentorship into you contract to ensure that you receive the structured mentorship and training that you are looking for.
If you travel, make sure to ask the questions that we specified above during your interview and look for new grad friendly locations.
Either way, you are going to learn a lot as you enter the workforce for the first time! This is an exciting period, and remember to have confidence in what you have learned already!
Written by Megan O’Rear, PT, DPT
