Quote:
Originally Posted by angelscorpio
and thank you to Vasily for taking the time of writing me. I really appreciate it. I think I am not taking the Psychology path because my age and the things Vasily mentioned above. Even though I am strongly researching the OTA/PTA path here in Miami in where I live.
The thing is that the OTA is not being given in Colleges but private schools so it's WAY expensive, and PTA's are hired over OTA's according to some other healthcare forums. Consequently, the PTA program is do given in College, so I will probably lean more toward this one because is less expensive. Certainly, there is no shortage of disagreement within this point; however, I sadly found a lot of gloomy comments in other forums like allnurses, indeed saying that that career is being absolutely glut at present specially in Florida. And I don't want to move to be honest. I really like this place.
I think I need to dig up even more to find the reality of PTA in Florida. 
Let's see what happens. |
Yes, Florida is actually glutted in many areas of health care. I forgot about that. My bff is a pharmacist and there are no jobs for pharmacy currently. It's because they got greedy and built 10 million nursing homes and rehab facilities and CVS on one corner and Walgreens across the street and another CVS 2 blocks down...then they pulled out all the stops to get enough people, and ended up bringing in a ton of foreign workers over on Work Visas to fill the gap...then the recession hit, and there was way too much competition for too few dollars, so just like the building boom, it crashed, and left all those workers with no jobs.
That said, I DO think it will correct itself, and that health care will continue to be a good field anywhere IMO because we are an aging population and nothing is going to change that.
I have not found companies preferring PTAs over COTAs, especially as COTAs can practice with autonomy, while PTAs need a supervising PT on site at all times. Because of that, there are a wider variety of jobs available to COTAs, such as (in some cases) schools and (in all cases) home health, that PTAs cannot practice in.
That said do by what you enjoy and not just prospects. OT has much more of a psych component, and many more psych classes, than PT does. In a psych setting, OT is going to be used much more than PT, so again consider where you want to work. Also psych hospitals tend to be harder to get employees for because a lot of people (and especially females) do not want to work in that setting.
Again, I think you would learn so much more if you would just go do an observation or 2 or 3 rather than rely on forums. Just call a few places, a rehab, long term care facility, brain injury outpatient clinic, etc. and ask for the rehab department. Tell them you are considering a career in OT or PT and want to learn more about it, and can you come in and observe for a couple of hours. We get this often, we even get potential students who ask to come in and volunteer a couple of hours a week (we'll have them push patients down to the gym, follow with a wheelchair when we are walking someone, etc. They will not think it's a strange request, in fact most schools will require you do an observation (I had to do 2) before you apply.
You know as well as I do that you are going to get a million different answers online that contradict each other, get out there and see things for yourself before you make such an important decision. This advice goes for ANY major you might think of.
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