Valenzuela Gutierrez 1

Alfredo Valenzuela Gutierrez

Communication 1010

Professor Nicole Anderson

February 13, 2017

Interview Assignment

The Interviewee

The physical therapist that I will be interviewing is Keith Ludwig. Keith Ludwig is a
physical therapist working at Rocky Mountain Therapy Service. I was able to land this interview
with Keith by calling his work. Thankfully, the receptionist was able to find an opening in
Keiths schedule. He got his bachelors and doctorate in physical therapy and has been working
in this field for over twenty years, I believe he has great understanding in his field of work and
will be able to answer all my questions. I will be meeting him February 10, 2017 at 9:15 am in
his office.

The Career

Physical Therapy is very hands on career. You must know what muscles work with
ligaments, where muscles and ligaments are, and how to strengthen ligaments and muscles. The
average salary of a physical therapist is $81,128 dollars. The low average is $68,917 dollars,
while the high end in $94,305 dollars. Every day brings in new challenges and patients. They
have to be good at multitasking, problem solving, and be good with people. To become a
physical therapist, youll have to get a bachelors in any field that has to do with physical therapy
and also obtain a doctorate.

Interview Plan

Keith Ludwig, thank you for taking time out of your busy day to let me interview you. I
have prepared some questions to ask you, if you could answer them to the best of your abilities,
that would be greatly appreciated. Your answers will help me choice if this career is for me, your
time is highly valued. Shall we get started?
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Topic one: History

Q: What type of education and training prepared you for this field?
A: Get a bachelors degree, take some prerequisite classes, like biology, chemistry,
physiology, kinesiology, and physics to know the levers of the body. After a bachelors
degree, you would need to get into a doctorate program.

Q: How did you get started in physical therapy?

A: With my father being a physical therapist, I was able to see how much he liked it, and
as I got older I started to like it more and more.

Q: What the biggest stumbling block you see with younger job seekers?
A: lack of experience, getting to know people, reading the body language of their
patients.

Q: What was your training like?

A: The first year or two of therapy school is learning the basics and doing bookwork and
then you have internships with different type of fields of therapy. You practice through
those internships and also see what field you like the most and try to get a job in that
field.

Q: Is there anything you wish you did to better prepare yourself?

A: Im pretty lucky because my dad was a physical therapist. So, I was able to work with
him through high school and college. Saying that I had a lot of experience before hand
and kind of knew this is what I wanted to do.

Topic two: Industry

Q: What type of skills are necessary for succeeding in this career?

A: Have to have good people skills because you are trying to get people to do something
that isnt the most comfortable thing for them. Also, have the basic knowledge of the
body, how it heals, how to get it stronger, to help them reach their goals.
Q: How was the career field changed since youve started?
A: Things moving more onto computers, putting in notes on patients. Insurance
companies dictate more things like how long you can treat a patient, getting authorization
and approval for care.

Q: What is common misconception of your job?

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A: That you have to hurt to get better. No pain no gain is not necessarily the case. You
want to work within their pain tolerance.

Topic three: The Job

Q: What do you like most and least about your job?

A: What I like most is watching people get better, working with people and spending
quality time with them. What I like least about my job is probably the paper work and
dealing with insurances.

Q: What are some of the biggest challenges you face in your job?
A: Getting people motivated to do their exercises in the clinic but also at home. Getting
asked to do more with less time, insurance companies limit the amount the visits patients
can have with us. So, we got to get them from point A to point B in less, and less, and less
time.

Q; What is stressful about being a physical therapist and how do you cope with it?
A: Not seeing your patient make the progress that they should be. When that happens,
you see what different workouts would benefit them better. Sometimes its that they dont
do the workouts at home, when that happens you tell show them what pains they have
right now, and if they do the at home workouts thatll make them feel better.

Q: Have you ever had any conflict with your patients? If yes, how did you overcome
them.
A: For the most part I havent had any issues with my patients. They are coming here to
get better, so they are pretty understanding for the most part. Most of the conflicts are
with their insurance rather than the actual patient. Personal conflicts we are usually pretty
good to get around.

Topic four: Overall

Q: What is the most important advice you have for someone starting out in this career?
A: Get a little a bit of experience with it, do some job shadowing.

Q: Describe a typical day at your current job.

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A: See a variety of people, in this clinic we see a lot of shoulder and hip surgery.
Anywhere from fifteen to thirty patients a day. Sometimes we have multiple patients here
at the same time, so we must be good at multitasking.

Q: How much money did you make starting out?

A: On average I believe physical therapist make anywhere form $60,000 a year to
$85,000 a year. I was making about $62,000 to $64,000 a year.

Q: Have you ever had any cultural differences with a patient? How did you solve them?
A: Here in this clinic we have a lot of patients that are Spanish speakers, I myself am not
a Spanish speaker but we have translators that come with them and help us out. We also
treat a lot of refugees here. I luckily havent offended anybodys culture during my
career. *knocks on wood*

Q: What are the top three traits of an excellent physical therapist?

A: First of all, have a good basic knowledge of the field of therapy and can adjust to what
a patient is doing. Another thing would be very good people skills, being able to motivate
people and understand where they are coming from. Finally, time management, being
able to handle a bunch of different patients and things.

Q: How much time do you get off?

A: Right now, I work four days a week, I take Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday off. Paid
time off depends on the company you work for, its usually about two weeks though.

Conclusion

Doing this assignment opened my eyes to what I would need to get into the world of
physical therapy, and what I would need to do to thrive there. Keith Ludwig was very helpful
with all the answers he gave me. I really liked that my career would be hands on, that there
would be a new problem every day. Schooling wouldnt be much more after I got my bachelors
done, from what Keith was telling me was that it would only be three more years.
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Works Cited

"Physical Therapist Salaries." Salary.com. Salary.com, 30 Jan. 2017. Web. 12 Feb. 2017.
Brkich, Valentine J. "10 Questions To Ask When You Job Shadow Someone." My Path
101. My Path 101, n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.
Rose, Teena. "Interview Questions for Physical Therapists." Interview Strategies .
Interview Strategies , 13 Nov. 2015. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.
"Top 10 Things to Ask When Job Shadowing Someone." Job Shadow . Job Shadow , n.d.
Web. 09 Feb. 2017.
"Physical Therapist interview questions." Workable. Workable , n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.