Yesterday was packed with activities! In the morning, the PT students met
with Meg Stuart of the physiotherapy department at ACU. She told us all about ACU’s program,
and was interested in learning more about ours! For anyone who’s interested, ACU’s program is a 4-year
Bachelor’s program that costs a mere $7,400 per year, which is about 1/5 of
Northeastern’s tuition. Tuition is
only a small portion of the school’s funding because it’s Commonwealth-funded
(or a state school). Also,
physiotherapist’s starting wage is approximately the same as ours will be…
except they won’t be in debt!
During the first of the four years, students observe PT practice as part
of the curriculum. This builds up
and in the fourth year, students perform 900 hours of clinical practice. Unlike in the U.S., physiotherapists
need to re-register each year, which requires continued education and continued
practice. Also unlike in the U.S.,
there are no board exams for PTs.
Upon graduation, they are considered competent enough to perform
physiotherapy. This is because
there is a series of assessments throughout the curriculum when working
physiotherapists assess students performance and can pass them to the next
level. If one assessment is
failed, the student cannot move on to the next level until that assessment is
passed. In Australia, there are
about twenty post-graduate specializations including acupunture, dry-needling,
and animal PT, and in order to obtain a specialized Master’s degree, the
student must teach and compile research to be published.
In the afternoon, we met with Cancer Council, which is an
organization throughout Australia that performs cancer research and supports
patients and families who are affected by cancer. It was extremely interesting to hear from the different
departments of the organizations! They’ve
collected $16 million for research, and it seems that their personal research
has been pretty successful! They’re
looking into the effect of vitamin B3 for protecting against skin cancer, and
it’s currently in stage two. They
also served afternoon tea, which was adorable! Coffee, tea, orange juice, lemingtons, fruit, and a coconut
biscuit cookie thing that was delicious.
Lianne, Kate, Kara and I walked back from the Kings Cross area and got
to know the city a little more. We
also passed the most delicious looking bakery.
In the evening, some of us went to Scubar to watch their
world-famous crab racing. It
wasn’t at all what I expected, but it was probably one of the most entertaining
things I’ve ever seen! People
basically put a few dollars in to name one of fourteen hermit crabs. The crabs were released, and the people
who bet on the first three crabs to get to the edge of a circular platform won
prizes. Ridiculous entertaining,
and all I had to drink was a coke!
It was pouring on the way home, so some of us took a taxi
when we realized we weren’t going to find the right bus station. When I got back, Lianne and Kate and I
indulged in TIM-TAM-SLAMMERS!
Delicious. For those who
don’t know, tim-tams are chocolate-covered wafer cookies that taste like
kit-kats. You bite off two
opposite corners and use it like a straw for some sort of hot beverage. If it works correctly, the inside melts
really quickly and you pop the cookie in your mouth before it falls apart. We had so much fun, and the three of us
went through an entire box!
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