Pre-Therapy Experience
The Prisma Health Pre-Therapy Experience will immerse you in a variety of clinical rehabilitation settings where you’ll obtain valuable insight from skilled professionals, acquire an understanding of the therapist’s role and explore evaluations, treatments and modalities within rehabilitation therapy.
As you support our licensed practitioners, you’ll accumulate the hours required for admission into therapy degree programs.
Students currently enrolled in a therapy degree program, seeking to fulfill a program requirement should arrange experiences through the school. Please contact your academic advisor for details.
Because pre-therapy experiences are observation-based, it’s rare they fulfill any type of internship requirements of your university. If your university approves an observation-based internship experience, please note you may need to secure a second opportunity to fulfill your universities hourly requirement as most pre-therapy host limit students to 40-100 total hours.
Academic Requirements
- Expectation to advance to a PT, OT or ST program
- Students currently enrolled in a therapy degree program, seeking to fulfill a program requirement should arrange experiences through the school. Please contact your academic advisor for details.
- Good academic standing
- Letter of interest/cover letter
- Resume
- Commitment of 40-100 hours
- Please note: Pre-Therapy opportunities are capped at 100 hours per an experience. This is to ensure other students have access the opportunity. You may apply to additional Pre-Therapy opportunities for additional hours. You are not precluded from completing the same experience multiple times for additional hours but you will need to re-apply after 100 hours.
Student Clearance Requirements
Student clearance expenses are estimated at $50 to $85 and are the responsibility of the student. Upon acceptance into the externship, each student will be responsible for providing:
- Criminal background check
- Documentation of health/immunization requirements
- Completion of online orientation
Acute Care Department
Therapy is provided while the patient is in the main hospital setting. Treatments are usually in the patient’s room and average between 20-50 minutes. Focus is on getting the patient functional in order to have a safe discharge.
Sub-Acute Care Department
Therapy is provided to patients who are medically stable but not able to be discharged due to functional constraints. Generally, the patients are 65+. Treatments average between 30-60 minutes. The focus is on getting the patient to their prior level of care.
Inpatient Rehabilitation
Therapy is provided to patients who are medically stable but not able to be discharged due to functional constraints. Patient’s age range from 2-100. Specializations include spinal cord injury, brain injury, amputation, stroke, orthopedic and general debility. Treatment times are 45 minutes. The focus is getting the patient discharged to home.
Outpatient Rehabilitation
Therapy is provided to patients who have been discharged and they return to a therapy appointment for further specialized rehabilitation. Patient age is 15+. Treatment time is about 60 minutes. Emphasis is on neurological rehabilitation, wound care, lymphedema and manual therapy.
Students requiring documentation of their observation hours are encouraged to download and complete the Prisma PreT Hours sign off sheet.
Please apply to your preferred experience and allow 7-10 business days for the department to follow up prior to applying to a second opportunity. Simultaneously applying to multiple opportunities complicates placement into an pre-therapy experience.