Why There Are So Few Certified Hand Therapists (1)
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[00:00:00] At the time of this recording, there's roughly speaking about two million physical therapists, occupational therapists around the world. And yet there's less than 8, 000 certified hand therapists. So I got this question, it says, Hey, how come there are so few specialized certified hand therapists, people who specialize in hand types of injuries?
Well, my name is Huang. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist. And my mission here is to help develop occupational therapists. So they have more business skills, more clinical skills so that they can have more choices in their career. So I'm going to talk a little bit about what I think, Why there are so few.
So I'm going to sit and talk about why there are so few certified hand therapists. around the world. Um, I think there's a, there's a couple of reasons here. And, [00:01:00] um, one, I think not everyone wants to specialize to, I think there's limited thinking around it. And three, the pass rate is really intimidating.
So I'm going to go a little bit more into depth. And if you have some input as an occupational therapist or physical therapist, feel free to leave me a comment below and open up that discussion. As someone who's always known, like in school, that I wanted to become a certified hand therapist, there was a specialty that I saw, like even before getting into occupational therapy school, I saw this specialty and I was like, I think that looks really interesting.
And because I saw it and because I, Found it to be interesting. I started to explore what it looked like, what it would mean if I moved into it. So one of the reasons why there are not [00:02:00] more occupational therapists and physical therapists who are certified hand therapists is because not everyone wants to specialize in it.
If you think about a lot of reasons why OTs and PTs went into the field is one, yes, very generic. We want to help people. But then once we dive into. We want to help people. Some people really love working with kids. Thank goodness for those people, right? Because they love working with pediatric types of injuries.
And then even within the realm of pediatrics, there's a lot of different specialties within that hand therapy within the pediatric community. Is a niche and it's possible, but it's just, it's a small, it's a niche within a niche. And so first you have to sort of, you know, either work in peds or work in hands, and then you combine the two, right?
But not everyone wants to become a certified hand therapist, and I think that's [00:03:00] one of the reasons why there's so few outside of pediatrics. Some people love working in mental health. And so it's completely on the opposite end of the spectrum of orthopedics. Now we look within the realm of adult and orthopedics, there's inpatient rehab, working inside, uh, uh, skilled nursing facilities.
You, even within inpatient rehab, you can break it down to traumatic brain injury, types of injuries, spinal injuries, burn injuries, so many different types of injuries. Okay. And then there's also acute care, meaning these are people who have an acute injury. They're still in the hospital. Now, even though those areas require, require a certain amount of hand therapy, like, uh, expertise and knowledge and stuff like that.
Those people, I think those therapists who work in there don't always see the need to specialize. Right? They don't [00:04:00] always see the need to specialize. And I think the common excuse is that they don't see a lot of, quote unquote, hands. But hands includes hand injuries, wrist injuries, elbow injuries, and shoulder injuries.
So I think, I think in that sense, some people just don't want to specialize because they don't think that they see the bulk of those certain types of injuries. And so they don't feel the need to specialize because a specialty process is time consuming and it's, it's challenging. It's not easy. And some people just love living within the confines of their comfort, right?
Um, I don't want to leave out home health. Home health is another area where there's a lot of therapists working, then we have outpatient. And even within the outpatient realm, like I'm an outpatient therapy clinic, people live in their home, come to me when they [00:05:00] want help. And even within the outpatient realm, there's a lot of different specialties as well.
Like you could, you know, work with very specific neuro types of injuries. You could be more orthopedic or you can work in a clinic that combines both. Right? But at the end of the day, the reason why there's so few certified hand therapists is because not every therapist who works with people want to specialize.
I think they should, but that's just me. Um, the other thing is, I think that stops people from becoming certified hand therapists is, I think it goes around their limited thinking of what is actually possible for them. I think that you can work in certain areas, And so be a certified hand therapist. You can be a certified hand therapist and work in different areas.
[00:06:00] And for some people, it requires being able to see that someone else is doing it. And if you, if we're kind of limited in seeing what therapists are doing, it lends to it saying like, Oh, it might not be possible for us. And that's where I see, where people get really limited in, um, seeing potentially what they could be doing.
So for example, I think sometimes people think that they can only have one specialty and you can work in a lot of different areas and have multiple specialties. I'm going to give you an example. I know several certified hand therapists who became certified hand therapists, love working in, um, in that outpatient orthopedic type of setting, but they also can transition into acute care.
They can also transition into a skilled nursing facility and use their skills, uh, in those settings. [00:07:00] Long time ago when I was doing my internship, I met a certified hand therapist. She was probably one of the first, the batches of certified hand therapists out there when it became available as a national board certification type of thing.
And she was like, yeah, I've worked in different types of settings and she was working in burns. She was working in acute care and in burns. So, um, she goes, yeah, once you're a certified hand therapist, you, you can take your skills and move into different settings. And since I saw that, I saw that it was possible you can be in acute care and say, Hey, you know, 'cause in acute care, especially if you work in a really big hospital, I saw a lot of.
various types of hand and arm injuries, but I saw them at it's a very acute stage. I never saw them months down the road. I just saw them at the very beginning parts of their injuries. If you work in a skilled nursing [00:08:00] facility, you might see them in a very particular stage where they're not as independent.
Maybe they are Um, they're not able to go home and do all the things that they need to do, but they still have a hand and arm type of injury and you as the therapist can help them, right? I've seen CHTs go back into skilled nursing, um, you know, when it fit the phase of their life and then they can extract and move into different settings.
And it's just because the skill that you create for yourself, that you develop for yourself. Can go everywhere with you and you can have different specialties. You can be a certified hand therapist and, um, love working with strokes and neuro types of cases because so many of those people have hand and shoulder types of injuries.
I feel like every neuro type of shoulder is [00:09:00] a. becomes an orthopedic shoulder. I mean, I'm working with someone who has a stroke right now. He has a subluxation, but he also has potentially a brachial plexus traction type of thing. And then he's got burns on his hand. So he's got contractures. We need to be creative with, um, what kind of splints he might need to support him.
Uh, the treatment that he requires in order to facilitate any nerve, uh, Are what's the word? Um, like basically to facilitate the reconnection, the neural pathways to pay attention to the arm and to move the arm in a way that's going to help him become more independent. Right? So I think if you think that there's only one thing that you could do, then you'll be limited to only doing that one thing.
But if you can Think and expand on like, wow, [00:10:00] I can sit and be a certified hand therapist and really love working in the geriatric realm. Those people have, you know, arthritis. They are, you know, they have so many questions about, are they qualified for surgery? Is surgery even a really good option for them at certain stages of their lives?
You can, um, like for I'll give myself, for example, you know, I worked in acute care for a really long time that I moved into outpatient, worked in the hospital setting, did tons of surgeries. And now I'm in my own private practice and I get to see a nice real mix of people. I see young folks. That have chronic issues.
I see middle age, I see, um, older folks that have chronic issues. I also see post-surgical cases. I see neuro cases. And once you become a certified hand therapist, you can stack different specialties. You know, I'm starting my spine [00:11:00] specialties, um, so that I can work the whole spine. injured my knees multiple times.
And so multiple times, multiple injuries over the years. And so a therapist once told me a joint is a joint is a joint. Once you learn one joint, you can learn other joints. It's totally possible. Once you learn one technique, you can take that technique and you can apply it to multiple areas of the body.
It doesn't just have to be like the fingers, you know, fingers are really similar to the hip in the sense that they are a ball and socket joint. I mean, obviously, you have to understand, um, the dynamics of the movements and the muscles and ligaments just a little bit, but a joint is a joint is joint. So I think that if um, more therapists can open up their mind to thinking like, wow, I have this potential to help X number of people or these groups of people.
You can, you can [00:12:00] become a certified hand therapist and still do a lot of other things that you enjoy doing, like working with very particular populations of people. You can work with very particular diagnosis if you want. You can integrate various types of manual therapy skills or exercise methodologies to help support what you decide to do as a therapist.
I think there's a lot of therapists who can go and just say like, yeah, I work on this hand injury or that hand injury. Um, but there is something really special about. becoming a national board certified hand therapist. And it's because it takes more, it takes more effort, right? So here's the last reason why I think there's so few certified hand therapists is that the pass rate, it intimidates people.
So the pass rate intimidates people. So they either [00:13:00] don't, they don't even bother, right? We can't help those people. If you're not going to even bother. Right? Then there's that's the reason why there's so few certified hand therapists. There is such a need. There is such a need for certified hand therapists, clinics like myself, all around the United States, all around the world.
They're looking for certified hand therapists. Now one, you could find a place that you could work, right? Two, you can open your own clinic, right? There's nothing wrong with either, but there are so many clinics that are looking for certified certain, uh, therapists who have that specialty. And if you're an occupational therapist or a physical therapist, even though the pass rate can be intimidating, consider trying.
I can sit here and I can talk about tendon injuries. I can talk about finger fractures. I can talk about disorders, [00:14:00] fractures, but if you can't even see that it's possible for you to specialize, um, me teaching on those things is not even that helpful. because you won't even see that you have the potential to help somebody.
I think sometimes we take for granted like distal radius fractures or finger fractures because they're like, Oh, it's so common. Everyone. Yeah, but no, it's not so common. Uh, in the sense that, that, uh, there can be challenges and difficulties in terms of treating them, right? If you're a certified hand therapist, um, you at least can catch a lot of the potential problems that can play your patient.
Right. You can get them better. You can get them better faster. You can help them avoid other surgeries. So I think there is a real need to have more and more therapists see that it's possible and try. Just try. Right. The other group of people [00:15:00] who are intimidated by the password is that they have tried and they failed.
Right. But if it's something that you want, I say, like, you, you're never going to get it if you don't try again. Like, you're never going to get it if you don't try again. So, I believe that the pass rate does intimidate a certain, um, majority of people. Um, which kind of stops them from, you know, achieving that goal.
Achieving that goal of becoming a certified hand therapist. So, I see that there is a need, I see, I talk to um, therapy clinics that currently don't have hand therapy and they would love to find occupational therapists that are certified hand therapists so they can help more people in their community. I, I get messages from people in other countries with hand and arm injuries and they're always telling me how, you know, they're like, help me, and I'm like, I can't help you.
You know, I can't give personal, [00:16:00] I cannot give personal medical advice. That's very irresponsible. I'm not technically allowed to, but what I'm wanting to share is if you're an occupational therapist and physical therapist, And what I learned from just watching this is that no matter what country, no matter what area, you can be in a big city, you can be in a rural area, there is a need for you to be specialized, to have that critical thinking, to be able to make decisions in terms of what is possible for your patient.
And the learning part is really not the intimidating part. The learning part is actually easy. If you give yourself a chance. The learning part is actually easy, right? Um, but if you're intimidated by it, then you won't, you won't ever do it. So I've always been, I think I've always been driven [00:17:00] by my patients and their needs and saying like, Oh man, that one was really challenging.
I didn't really, I didn't really, um, solve that problem as well as I wanted to or as fast as I wanted to. There's probably something else going on and that drives me to keep learning and to keep, um, developing my skills and getting better with my critical thinking, with learning about like all different types of issues and injuries and problems that can be associated with it.
So, um, I hope that If that is you too, that is you too, like you're driven by like, Oh, you want to help your patients get better and get better faster and avoid different types of complications. I hope that the pass rate doesn't intimidate you. And I hope that it is something that you would consider that is a possibility for [00:18:00] you.
If you work in different settings and you're like, man, but I, I really would like to move into a setting where I get to work with different types of hands, wrist, elbow, and shoulder injuries. Um, I just want, you know, it's possible for you. I've helped therapists who, um, have worked in skilled nursing facilities.
I've worked with people who worked in, um, various types of inpatient settings, acute settings, pediatrics, all those people. Um, maybe not the bulk of your patients, but all those people have some form or fashion of a hand and arm injury. And you can learn and practice with them because those people need love and tender care just like everyone else.
And then that can help develop your skills and move you in the direction of maybe. You're saying, Hey, this is possible for me. I can become a certified [00:19:00] hand therapist. I can study for it. I can apply for those jobs. They're going to move me a little bit closer and closer to becoming a certified hand therapist.
Right? So I just want you to know it's possible. There's certified hand therapists that become a certified hand therapist and then leave the field. There's certified hand therapists that are retiring and there was always a need anyway for more certified hand therapists. There's always more need, and I just hope that this helps you to understand that no matter um, if you haven't seen it before, if it's, if you haven't seen anyone in your close proximity, just know that it's possible for you and if it's something that you want to do, um, I hope that you would consider giving yourself a chance because in the world where there are billions.
and [00:20:00] billions of people all around the world. Um, there's approximately 2 million therapists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists being the bulk class. I looked, it was like over a million, like, let's say it was like a million and a half. And then, um, in terms of occupational therapists, there was like a half a million, right?
And then of the OT and PT world, 80 percent of certified hand therapists are OTs. Right, so out of, out of the 2 million, right, there's only less than 8, 000 certified hand therapists. Out of all the certified hand therapists, 80 percent approximately are OTs. So, um, I hope you see that it's possible for you if it's something that you want to, to specialize in.
I think there's such a need. I think there's opportunities, job opportunities, business [00:21:00] opportunities for you. Um, I certainly have seen it, but you yourself, you have to see it for yourself in order to even take the necessary steps to do the work that's required. The pass rate's been about 50 50 or 60 40, 60 percent pass, 40%.
But I believe that there's a way in which you can study to, to make it possible for you to achieve. You can't achieve it if you don't try. So, uh, if this video has helped you see what is possible for you, uh, consider sharing it, liking it, and subscribe for more. My name is Huang Tran. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist, and I hope to help you as occupational therapists have more choices in your career.
See you next time.
