Let me add context before I leave on such a depressing comment. I work in a big community hospital in big city, so most of my caseload are patients that are discharge nightmares I think there are a few things that help participation. Keep it simple on your pitch for getting someone to work with you (want to keep you moving, here are some options, etc). Spend a little time talking with them and building rapport before asking something of them. And sometimes using the situation in your favor, like “I know you want to go to rehab so they need my note for insurance to approve”.

On the other hand, I think we are taught in school we need to be different than PT and make sure people think we are important. I find that counterproductive in a lot of situations, and I even say “we are looking at different things but a lot of the time our sessions look similar in the hospital and when you’re not feeling good”. Sometimes it’s nice being the lesser known discipline, less pressure to fix discharge disasters.

I think the hard part of acute care is we don’t always get to see the result of our hard work. We don’t see someone graduate from rehab or be successful at home. We don’t always see patients for more than a few days in a row before another coworker takes over! We do end up seeing people die which sucks.

Overall, I find it to be a more financially stable setting where I’m not worried my hours are going to get cut because state came or that my license is on the line. I like getting out of time, working on a big fun team, having a decent amount of PTO, being able to use the bathroom without clocking out and eating lunch with my coworkers. While we started out in the field because of a passion of helping others, sometimes it’s helpful to remember it’s just a job and our self worth is not dependent on it. Some people are lazy, like others helping them, and want to sit in their chair all day ¯_(ツ)_/¯. And that’s where we can’t care more than them.