PT Compact: Interview with Dr. Whitney Gibson, PT, DPT

Last week I got the privilege to interview Dr. Whitney Gibson, a graduate from the South College of Knoxville in Tennessee, who is currently working as a travel physical therapist. I wanted to make a post about the PT compact for a while and I thought who is better to ask for a perspective on this than a travel PT?

A brief overview of the PT Compact:

The Physical Therapy Compact allows PTs and PTAs to have an alternative to licensing. As a lot of us know, the entire licensing process takes awhile. Depending on the state, the licensing process involves fingerprinting, a lot of paperwork, a jurisprudence exam, and waiting time. Moreover, if you do decide to have a license in another state, you will then have to renew two separate licenses and also meet the CEU requirements in both states.

What the PT compact offers is:

1. You are able to start practicing physical therapy in the other state almost immediately.

2. You don’t have to renew a compact license or meet their CEU requirements.

3. It is cheaper. The average price to get a compact license is currently $97 (ranging from as a low as $45 to as high as $195).

As for Whitney, her home state is Tennessee, so she was fortunate enough to get compact privileges for Missouri and is planning on using it for North Carolina as well. She described the process as very simple and efficient.

When did you decide you wanted to become a travel PT?

Whitney definitely had a lot of her inspiration from her mom who motivated her to do travel PT during a time when she was having second doubts of committing to a full time job in a setting she wasn’t passionate about at the time. She goes more into detail in regards to this in her blog, but there was a lot of back and forth. If you are stuck between wanting to do travel therapy or having a full time job in one location, Whitney suggests to not stress too much about jobs before boards and to not let anyone pressure you into making a commitment you are not ready for. Moreover, if you are interested in different settings, travel therapy may be a great option for you since you can get experience in various settings with every new location.

What settings did you work in and for how long?

Whitney was able to work in the LTAC and SNF settings as a travel therapist and is looking forward to exploring the OP setting more as well in the future. Travel assignments are usually 13 weeks, but Whitney had assignments that were short as well as much longer due to extension. Fortunately for her she was able to renew her travel assignment contract during the pandemic since she was needed in her current setting. During this pandemic a lot of travel therapists and even non-travel therapists had difficulty finding jobs, so I am happy to hear that Whitney found something stable for now as she looks for a new assignment.

In her spare time, Whitney enjoys reading, writing (she wants to write a book of fiction one day), and also has a dog walking side hustle!

If you are interested in learning more about travel therapy, visit her blog and follow her on instagram @dr.worldwidewhit