Rehabilitation

What to expect

If you are interested in health and helping others but you aren’t sure you want to be a doctor, this could be the area for you.

Courses in rehabilitation prepare you for professions that are closely aligned with other health professions, particularly medicine. They include physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech pathology, among others, and are, like most health professions, highly regulated. You cannot practise unless you meet the very strict requirements set by the profession. This means that the courses within each field tend to be very similar no matter where you do them. Sub-fields, however, are obviously very different from each other.

Depending on the specific profession you choose, you might find yourself working on feet, backs, bones or speech. Demand for entry to these courses is high, making them very tough to get into.
On the upside, graduates enjoy good employment prospects and starting salaries (see below).

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Getting a degree in rehabilitation

Visit the University Ratings section for rehabilitation course ratings.

Courses and specialisations

Courses in the rehabilitation professions typically involve four years of full-time study. Since professions in this field are highly regulated, courses in each particular field tend to be very similar no matter where you decide to study them.

Many courses in rehabilitation involve practical placements and considerable amounts of time may be spent in a clinical setting gaining hands-on experience. When considering your course options you may therefore want to check out what each institution offers in the way of clinical facilities or access to them.

A new degree structure that has already been established in some fields at selected institutions has the potential to become part of a growing trend in some areas of rehabilitation. The structure follows a US-style model where undergraduates enter a general pre-professional degree (perhaps in science or applied science) and then transfer to a postgraduate qualification in their professional area.

Getting in

Demand for entry to courses in the rehabilitation field are is usually very high making courses very tough to get into. While entry requirements will vary depending on the institution and location, courses generally demand very high tertiary entrance scores. Depending on your chosen area of study, you may also be required to take the Undergraduate Medicine and Health Sciences Admissions Test (UMAT).

Prerequisite subjects will also be the standard for some course in this field and may include English, chemistry, and one of maths methods, specialist maths or physics.

Where to study

These courses are still in fairly limited supply, and are offered at around 25 campuses throughout the country, except in the ACT and Tasmania. So depending on where you live and the availability of relevant courses near you, you might have to be prepared to travel to take the course you want.

What to look for

Since professions in this field are tightly regulated, the courses tend to be fairly similar between institutions and locations.

Many courses in rehabilitation involve considerable amounts of time spent on practical work, so it may be worth ensuring that the course(s) you’re considering offer good facilities and access to equipment.

Careers for rehabilitation degree graduates

Degree courses in the rehabilitation field prepare graduates for careers in niche areas of health, such as audiology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, orthoptics, speech pathology, speech therapy, optometry, and podiatry.

Graduates of courses in this field can work in a broad range of different settings in both public and private health care organisations. They may find themselves working in hospitals, rehabilitation centres, community health centres, schools, mental health services, sports clinics and fitness centres, to name just a few. They may also work in government departments or universities in managerial or research positions.

According to the national Course Experience Questionnaire survey, new graduates are very satisfied with their courses and skills, and quite satisfied with their teachers. Employment prospects are excellent, with only around 9 per cent of recent graduates still looking for work after four months. The average starting salary in 2009 was very good, at $50,035.

For more information

For more information, contact:
Australasian Podiatry Council, www.apodc.com.au
Occupational Therapy (OT) Australia, www.ausot.com.au
Orthoptics Association of Australia, www.orthoptics.org.au
Speech Pathology Australia, www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au
Australian Physiotherapy Association, http://apa.advsol.com.au
Audiological Society of Australia, www.audiology.asn.au

Note that the mainstream health professions are increasingly being challenged by newer ‘natural’ therapies. See the health services and support profile for more information. If you are interested in this field you should also consider courses in psychology or perhaps medicine , veterinary science and dentistry .

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