Will I Have A Mentor?
"Will I have a Mentor?" When interviewing a potential employer one of the first questions you should ask is, Will I have a Mentor. While reviewing the APTA website I came across their Mentor Program and thought to myself, if the APTA is putting a focus on Mentorship for future Physical Therapist and Physical Therapist Assistants will this become a topic of conversation during an interview?
"According to many experts, career success often requires the assistance of people willing to support and encourage another’s career development–a mentor. In fact, the Department of Labor has identified the lack of mentoring as one of the "organizational or attitudinal barriers" preventing career advancement for working professionals, especially women."
You have just spent the last three years finishing your Masters in Physical Therapy and now it’s time to take everything you have learned in the academic world and transfer it to the clinical world. How would you feel being a new Physical Therapist in a facility just out of college and the only treating Therapist in a facility with no one to turn to for guidance? I am sure that you would be very unhappy in that position feeling very alone and unsure. Why would a company find it beneficial to themselves to place a New Grad therapist in a facility with no one to support and supervise? Many new grad therapist want that guidance and support of a mentor to go to for questions and advice. This has become a very hot topic in the student world when looking at future employment. During many of the job fairs I attend the number one question I am asked is…. "do you have a mentor program?" Happily I can say yes. RehabCare and the Campus Relations Department has put a focus and emphasis on providing mentor’s to all the New Grads that we are hiring on a daily basis. Our Mentor Program is designed to follow the new grad through their first year of employment with the company to help develop strong and successful therapist.
