Hello, my name is Doctor Kristen Goodman, and I am the Director of Clinical Education with the physical Therapist assistant program at Germanic Community College. I am going to go through our information session there with me just a few seconds as I get my screen set up. But again, this is the physical Therapist assistant program information session for Germanic Community College.

I want to introduce you first to our program faculty. Again, I'm Doctor Christine Goodman. I'm the director of clinical education for the program, and I also teach several of the first year courses. And then our program director is Professor Tracey Williams. She is again the program director and is also a full time faculty member and instructor for several first year and second year courses. I also want to bring attention to bear with me for a second here.

Stephanie Raymundo Thompson she is the academic advisor for health care and she is a great resource. So take note of these email addresses and I will come back to them at the end.

We'll just talk about a few things. First, some documents you should have is the application packet. It's a large document.

The advising document from the JC catalog and your observation evaluation form. If you don't have these documents now, you can access them through the PTA program website at the on Germanic Community College. And I'm at the end of this presentation going to show you how to get to them.

Just to let you know, the Physical Therapist Assistant program at Germanna Community College is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education, otherwise known as Cathy. Graduation from a Physical Therapist assistant education program that is accredited by Cap D is necessary to be able to sit for the licensure exam, which is required in all 50 states.

Currently, all of the prefix courses. So all of the PGA courses are taught on the Locust Grove campus of Germanic Community College. Sometimes lecture material or even lab material may be delivered online virtually.

If there should be an issue of whether or we had an issue with water having to be turned off in the building. Any kind of a reason that would prohibit us from going onto campus? We may have to pivot and switch to a online platform.

This is a picture of the Locust Grove campus of GCC. It is one older building, and we are optimistic that we are going to get a new building soon.

Let's talk about what is physical therapy. Physical therapy provides treatment and helps manage physical impairments, physical limitations, or disabilities. It promotes function and functional ability and movement potential.

Physical therapists.

And physical therapist assistants really, you know, work with the patients to get them back to doing the things they want to do. Back to independence. Back to.

To being functional.

Conditions that you may work with while working in the physical therapy field. Working with patients of pain. Working on mobility. Working with patients with neurologic or orthopedic dysfunction. Um. General illness. Uh, working on patients experiencing loss of balance or amputations. And some of the treatments you may see are therapeutic exercise strengthening, flexibility, balance, coordination activities, mobility training modalities such as heat or cold, or electrical stimulation or traction. You make it to work with wound care and work on pain management.

What are the practice settings for physical therapy? This is, in my opinion, one of the great things about the profession is there are so many options. You can work in outpatient clinics. You can work in hospitals, inpatient rehab centers, nursing homes, or skilled nursing facilities. There are home health agencies that provide home care. They can work in school systems, sports programs.

Let's talk about PT versus PTA. Licensed PTA or physical therapist assistants work under the supervision of a licensed PT or physical therapist. The PT evaluates and develops the plan of care and ultimately discharges the patient. The PTA carries out the plan of Care Or reports progress or problems to the supervisor.

We talk a lot about the collaboration of the PT and the PTA and the, um, the delegation, um, of work and kind of the flow of how this relationship works in our first year of the program.

I'm going to talk about the job market for PTA right now. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 26% growth in PTA jobs between 2022 and 2032.

In 2022, there were 100,700 PTA nationally, and that number was predicted to rise about 24,000 per year on average over the decade.

The median income, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2023, was $64,080 for PTA. This is dependent on your geographic location in the country. Years of experience and the practice setting.

The growth of the population in the area served by Germania is predicted to be 20 to 26% in each of the next three decades.

This growth will lead to a growing need for trained health care personnel to support this population increase. There's also an anticipated need for health care personnel and clinicians to treat the long term effects of Covid 19.

Canopy to become a PT now the short answer is yes, but not as simply as it may seem.

To become a physical therapist. PT school requires a bachelor's degree and then three additional years of graduate school to earn your doctor a physical therapy. It's significantly more expensive. It can yield a higher salary, but the job market for PT is not growing quite as fast due to insurance reimbursement, um, decreases. There are a few programs in the country that are transitional to programs.

So.

That's just some information on that.

In talking about the expectations of the student, you can see information about this in the application packet on page five. Expect there to be a significant demand on your time.

It is considered a full time academic program. We do have a dress code.

In the classroom, it's more appropriate. And you know you need to be able to access different body parts. When we're talking about things like palpation or learning about muscles or bones, if you're working on exercise or modality, you modalities, you need to be able to access different body parts. So dress code related to that. And then when you go out into your clinical rotations or go out into the community. We do have trauma scrubs that you'll need to purchase and your lab coat. There are physical demands in the program. You need to be able to push, pull and lift. We do have a little bit more stringent academic standards, and we do have a code of conduct. You also need to be willing to provide care to individuals who are critically ill, and who may have different lifestyle choices or beliefs that differ from yours.

Can you talk a little bit about the academic program? It's 68 credits in total.

46 of those credits are made up of the core curriculum. I'm going to talk about that separately, but that's the core curriculum. And that's four semesters. And that's a combination of classroom lab and clinical affiliations. Then the other 22 credits are your general and education requirements and related courses. So prerequisites and co requisites.

It's a minimum of two and a half years total. But it's a two year full time core program. And that's the four semesters I was talking about. Your first semester is three academic courses totaling, I believe 14 credits your second semester. So spring of your first year is two academic courses, and then you end with a four week clinical rotation.

And then your second year, fall and spring are eight weeks of academic work. And then a six week clinical rotation, one in the fall and one in the spring. So just keep in mind that holding a job during the two year program may be challenging. While we do understand the need for financial resources, this is it is a fast paced and, um, rigorous academic schedule, so there's not always a ton of extra time to work.

I'm going to talk about the academic prerequisites. These are on page seven of the application packet. You can also refer to the advising document and the course catalog or college catalog. Sorry.

There is one. There are academic classes that are prerequisites. And then there's the TES comprehensive exam which we will talk about in a few slides. said.

Okay. General education PTA program prerequisites. You need to demonstrate a math competency, meaning you're eligible for math 154 with or without Po requisite SDB 101 or SDB 100, which is orientation to health care or College success skills English 111 or College Composition psychology 230 or Developmental Psychology. You need to take a humanities elective and receive a C or better, and then bio 141 which is Anatomy and Physiology one. In order to take bio 141, you must have had bio 101 or NAS2

And have completed that to take bio 141 and you need to grant a grade of an A or B within the last five years. And this is five years within the last five years of the application to the program. Um, just to note here that all gen ed courses may be taken at any VCs, college or other institution, but you must go through the course transfer process if not taken at JCC.

So they were our prerequisites, and I'm going to just go back real quick. Prerequisites are the math competency, the orientation to health care or college success skills, or SD 101 or 100 English one fifth. Sorry English 111. Psych 230 a Humanities elective or bio one and bio 141. And these are your first five that SDV the English, the psychology, the humanities elective and the bio one 5041 I keep wanting to say bio 151 bio 141 and they.

Are prerequisites required to apply to the program.

Then we have a few code requisites. Biology 142, which is anatomy and physiology two. Sociology 200 are principles of sociology, and these two courses can be taken during or prior to the to the two year program. So you can take them, you know, the summer in between first year and second year. You can take them prior to starting the program. You can take them alongside of the of the core curriculum classes. And then there's also a requirement of 105 which is CPR or basic life support. And this.

Will be taken by students who are accepted into the program, either in the summer before they start the program or the fall first semester. Professor Williams often teaches some of these classes to make sure everyone did it. HLT 105 is required to graduate. So even if you are certified for a job prior to coming in, you will still need to take up to one oh five.

Transfer courses. Students transferring prerequisites or co requisite courses from any other college must complete the transfer evaluation request form and submit it to admissions and records. Additionally, for colleges outside of the BCS, official transcripts are required. You must complete the request form first, and if you're sending transcripts via email, send them to transcripts at German Edu.

Okay, now talking about the teas, I'm going to talk a little bit. So this is going to all be part of the application process. The Teas is the test of essential academic skills. It's offered through Germanos Testing Center in person. When the colleges open there is an option for remote proctoring if necessary. And we'll talk about that on next slide. There are reading, writing, math and science sections. And there's a sliding scale for priority points based on your composite scores.

These are worth points towards your towards admission. The test may be taken up to two times, but a 14 day minimum is required between attempts.

So the process for signing up for and taking the teas. First you create an account at that 80 test income. Do not purchase the test there, but you will use your vicious email and create a password and then select your mana dash cc dash dash h as your program. You'll then email LGC testing at germanica edu, provide all the details on their instruction form and you will get a response with your next steps. If you select remote proctoring, a dry run is required to test the remote process. Make sure your device is appropriate and working and to make sure you have, I guess you know a strong enough connection to complete the test and payment will be made at the time you log in to take the exam.

Another part of the application packet is your volunteer observation hours 20 hours of volunteer or observation hours in a physical therapy setting is required. Outpatient setting is preferred. There is a rating form that will be completed by the PT or PTA supervisor.

Hours earned as an employee in a rehab setting are permitted. So if you work in a rehab setting or in a physical therapy setting, you can use hours as your observation hours. Reminder to dress neatly and professionally. There are instructions on the back of the form on how to return this form. The preferred method is via email and you can end. The supervisor can email the form back to PT assistant at Germanna.edu

And here is a copy of the form and I can show you. I will show you where that is at the end of this presentation. And on the back is where the instructions are.

Then there is an essay portion, and you can see page 11 of the application packet for those details. And these are 25 points towards priority points towards your um application. There are three components to the essay to compare and contrast inpatient and outpatient physical therapy.

There is a link which I will show you in the application packet to a video on Philips, and it is an inpatient video. That is what you will use for your inpatient therapy, and then your observation hours and what you did in your or what you got to see when you volunteered. And you will compare and contrast the outpatient to the invasion. From the video. There's a personal characteristics background section of the essay, and this should be where you let us know how. what characteristics you have? What background do you have, what you have that you feel will show us that you will be successful as a student and successful as a PTA. This is your why.

And then we will look at the grammar and writing mechanics of the essay. The rubric for this is also in for the essay is also in the application packet.

Your essay. Your essay will be de-identified de-identified before we read it.

I encourage you to take notes during your volunteer hours and when you're watching the video, so that you can really compare and contrast. The two do not identify any patients that you may observe, and limit any information about yourself, so that it truly is a blinded essay. And let us see your passion for the profession, your prevent your passion for wanting to help people and for and for being a PTA.

Final advising is also required for application to the program. Final advising can be done Face-To-Face or via zoom with one of the PTA faculty members between November 15th and May 1st. You do not need to have completed all of your requirements in order to complete final advising, but you need to complete final advising to be compliant for application.

And email a faculty member for an appointment. And when you do, include your student ID and some dates and times that work for your schedule and we will get a final advising scheduled.

Okay. Final admissions. Admission to the program is based on combined scores. Remember I I've talked a little bit about the different areas for application. So it's the application. And then there are priority points for the tease test. And that's up to 50 points. There are point priority points for the observation hours and that is 20 points.

Up to 20 points that your supervisor, the PT or PTA that's supervising you in these observation hours will give you. And then you get five points just for turning it in on time. So that's 25 points for or are up to 25 points for observation hours, and then up to 25 points for your essay. So 50 for TES, 25 for observation hours and 25 for essay.

Accepted students will be selected and then an alternate list is maintained.

The goal is. Our goal is to select students who will be able to complete the program, and that that will make up a class that is representative of the diversity of the student population.

Just some fun facts for you or some numbers. Our acceptance rate in 2026 was 85%, in 2025 was 63%, in 2024 was 60%. In 2023 was 80%.

Upon conditional acceptance, students will provide documentation of Covid 19 vaccination status along with proof of or exemption form, so either yes or no or exempt into viewpoint. Viewpoint is a tracking system that we use to track physicals, medical documentation, vaccinations, liability insurance, CPR, all kinds of things that are required for our program. It's a program that collects and stores that all.

Just in talking about Covid vaccines and other vaccines. Um, some sites for clinical rotations will require vaccinations and not being vaccinated against Covid 19 or other um required vaccinations, such as TV or Tdap or MMR, could result in inability to complete the program or delays in completing the program because it could delay your clinical rotations or affect your clinical rotations. Additional information will be will be provided in your acceptance letter.

And we will continue to talk about.

Vaccinations and requirements throughout the program.

A criminal background track and drug screen are also required. Three viewpoints. There's information about this in the application packet. Do not complete these until a conditional acceptance into the program has been offered, and in that conditional acceptance will be instructions on how to do this. You do not have to send anything to us meeting the program. Everything will be stored and handled through viewpoint. Again, do not do anything with a background track or drug screen until you receive a conditional acceptance to the program. Just be aware that a history of a barrier, crime, conviction or a failed drug screen may limit acceptance into the program due to the difficulty of placing you in a clinical site by having a crime conviction or a failed drug screening.

Drug screening and background checks will be required annually.

So let's talk about what costs are expected. The cost of the program is for this current academic year of 2026, is $14,792.50, and that is for five semesters.

Textbooks and other educational resources are approximately $1,500 related fees such as liability insurance, uniforms, background track, drug screening, etc. are approximately 3 to $400. And then keeping in mind that there could be possible travel expenses to clinical sites, um, things such as gas or, um, you know, car maintenance if you have a further commute. I really try to do my best to keep everyone's commute to being reasonable. It does say in the contract for the program that you can expect to go up to, I want to say 65 miles from campus or an hour. I try my best to keep it under that.

And then there is national licensing exam fee of $485. After you graduate and sit for the licensing exam, and then a state board fee of $100 for licensing.

These are just some things to keep in mind. Yes. You know, the 485 and the $100 for licensing and state board fees are not until, you know, after graduation when you sit for licensure.

What about financial aid? Applicants are advised to complete the Fafsa prior to the application deadline. Waiting until acceptance to the program may delay processing and then the receipt of funds.

Germanna has the G-3 program, which is a last dollar program which covers any remaining tuition and fees after other grants are used. And I recommend consulting JCPS Financial Aid Office for assistance.

Just so you know about the application process, it is selective and based on the point system, which I went through a little bit before. Um, you also are required to have a GPA of 2.5 or above. You need to have successful completion of all the prerequisite coursework. Then 50 points for the TEAS, volunteer observation rating of 25 points. An essay with 25 points. These are the maximum point values you can get in these areas. So Max 15 points for the TEAS test, Max 25 points for the volunteer observation hours and 25 points for that time.

Then once in the PTA program, you need to maintain an overall minimum GPA of 2.5. You need to complete all PTA courses with a C or better. You need to maintain your CPR.

And then have a clean annual drug screening background check. You also need to maintain liability insurance and current immunizations.

You need to meet all academic requirements, which you can see on page 13 and 14 of the application packet.

Just so you know, attendance will be tracked using a Google form. Please complete this form within seven days.

This will be emailed out to you.

And this is the first time you're doing it this way, so please bear with me. With that, attendance will be sent out to you in attendance form will be sent out to you.

I know that is a lot of information and any questions you may have, please do not hesitate to reach out to.

Either professor Tracy Williams, the program Director at Williams at Edu, or myself, doctor Kristin Goodman, the director of clinical education for the PGA program at Kay Goodman at Manatt Edu. Or you can reach out to Stephanie Raimondo. Thompson. And she is the academic advisor for health care at Ms.. Raimundo Thompson. Edu. Okay. Bear with me for a second here.

As I talked about before, I want to show you guys are.

So if you go to germanica edu and search for physical therapist assistant.

And then you can click on the PTA associate degree program. You can get a lot of information on our website. So here's kind of just a general things to talk about. But you can you can look at here for application details the prerequisites instructions.

About taking the test, but I wanted to show you the application packet.

Click here for read the packet. You can get the program information.

And I wanted to show you a few things here. Um, here's about the essay instructions.

There's the video that I talked about with Phyllis. Here's the instructions for the essay.

Here's our rubric kind of spelled out for you.

I wanted to talk about.

Here's our prerequisites and requirements. Talking about the English competency, math competency and science qualifications, here are the prerequisite courses. The bio 141 English 11. Psychology 230. the orientation to health care or college success skills, and then the humanities elective. And then here's the co requisite courses. The second half of Anatomy and Physiology sociology 280 105.

I wanted to it's always finding what I want to find.

Under additional materials in the first tab under Application Information and Program Information. Here is the outpatient volunteer observation form driven enrollment forms. Again another link to the inpatient video on Phyllis and our transcript evaluation request form. You can click on the Observation Volunteer hours page. One is the rater is the rating form that your the supervising or PTA would fill out. And then on the back is the instructions of how to return it. And again, there's that PTassistant at Germanna.edu, which is the preferred method for returning.

Uh, okay. Okay. I'm going to come back on to screen. I have no idea how to make myself bigger, so we'll just keep that on there. Again I'm doctor Kristin Goodman K Goodman at germanna.edu. I am more than happy to answer any questions anyone may have. And same for our program director, Professor Tracy Williams. T Williams at Germanna.Edu. We are excited to see all the applications coming in and to work with all of you and answer any questions that you may have. And the attendance code for this will be One zero. Oh nine. That is the attendance code when you get the attendance tracker sheet. Thank you so much and have a wonderful evening.