The purpose of study: The physiotherapy is one of emerging field of medicine and now there is a paradigm shift from dependent to independent practice. The eventual objective of this study was to categorize the trends of carrier choice in physical therapy students and also to determine the clinical and academic choices of students.
Methodology: A descriptive, cross sectional study involving 200 final year students were selected through convenient sampling technique to participate in the study. A structured pre-tested questionnaire was developed including different areas of clinical and academic specialties. After data collection a descriptive analysis was done to evaluate responses of medical students.
Results: Out of total 200 final year physiotherapy students, 134 (67%) of them were female students while male students were only 66 (33%). The first three preferred teaching subjects were anatomy / physiology (32%), Neuromuscular PT (23.5%) and kinesiology / bio mechanics (16%), respectively. Anatomy / Physiology were the first choice for both men and women. The clinical preferences Musculoskeletal / Manual Therapy (40%), Neuromuscular PT (31.5%) and Sports PT (12%) were the most preferred specialty preferences of final year physical therapy students
Conclusion: It is concluded that majority of students are interested in physiology/anatomy for teaching. In clinical preferences the majority male are interested in Musculoskeletal while female in Neuromuscular rehabilitation. The factors influencing the choice were personal interest and social issues. The trends are increasing towards academic as compare to clinical practice. There is need to address the substantial factors which affects the trends of students.
Key words: Physical therapy, academic, specialty preference
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