I want to work with children with muscular dystrophy. Medical school or physical therapy?
Question : I want to work with children with muscular dystrophy. Medical school or physical therapy?
I am currently a sophomore pre-med and worked with children to MDA summer camp. I do not know what jobs are there. I realize that I have time to decide, but I’ll try to get a feel for what kind of jobs are available working with these types of children. Best answer:
Answer
by Jennifer M
medical school. It can take you around the world, to places where wages are higher for remote sites. Just a thought, the doctors still needed. Good luck to you
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Well if you want to work with kids all the time you are probably better off doing PT. Doctors at the MDA generally don’t just do pediatrics and even when they do they only attend to medical needs. Physical therapists are the ones that actually spend time with the kids and focus on making quality of life better. Both are very important jobs it just makes a difference what you will find more fulfilling. If you enjoy working with patients on a one-on-one basis very often you will probably not want to be an MD. If you would rather focus on treatment go for the MD.
Either tract will offer you a diverse skill set that is useful in other specialties as well.
If you’ve made that connection with your MDA campers, then I think you might enjoy PT more. PTs get to work closely with their patients and spend more time with them than MDs would. You can get to know the families better as well. To see a large number of kids with MD, you will probably need to work at a university.
You could become a pediatric physiatrist if you wanted to go the MD route. Of course, you still get to spend time with your patients and their families, but you might only have one clinic/week or month with the MD kids. And again, typically to get that volume of MD patients, you have to work in an academic setting.
Would you be able to shadow a couple of MDs or PTs to get a better feel for the jobs?
Good luck!