Kendall Halsey – Physical Therapy Internship

My name is Kendall Halsey and I am currently interning at CPRS Physical Therapy located in New Holland across the street from the high school. I acquired this internship by reaching out to Kristin Miller, a physical therapist there, who is also my mentor now. She has helped a lot with my college decision process as she is a graduate of the college I am attending, Lebanon Valley College. CPRS is a pretty small clinic with typically three clinical staff as well as a receptionist. I intern there every weekday morning for about an hour and a half.

A typical day at my internship consists of helping the therapists do their job more easily. I will clean the patient tables when they are done so they can move onto their next patient, put equipment away, and grab anything the therapists might need such as a hot pack or a weight. I enjoy talking with the patients and hearing about what is going on in their lives outside of physical therapy. I assist the patients by setting them up with stim (Electric Stimulation Therapy) and heat/ice, give them weights, and set up exercise machinery. I also do a lot of observation when there are no tasks for me to complete.

Additionally, I have grown a lot through this internship, especially with talking to patients. At my last internship at PIVOT Physical Therapy, I got better with this, but I have improved this skill even more by continuing to spend time in a physical therapy clinic this semester. I am a pretty shy person so it was hard for me to make conversation before, but after spending so much time in the clinic environment I am more confident and can easily start conversations with the patients. I am also better at reading patient charts and knowing exercises and their abbreviations. I can easily read a patient’s chart and know what equipment the patients need. From my internship experience, I know what typical patient care looks like and what exercises physical therapists use to treat the patients.

When I started my internship in January this semester, I was still deciding on a college, but talking with Kristin and the other therapist there, Dakota, helped me a lot with my decision. They are both alumni of the physical therapy program at Lebanon Valley and discussed the many pros and few cons of their experiences. I ended up committing to Lebanon Valley’s physical therapy program. My internship experiences at both of my locations were both very helpful in showing me that physical therapy was a career I want to pursue for sure. I am very thankful for my internship experience at CPRS and I love interning there.