How to become Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician in 2024

Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician Diagnose and treat disorders requiring physiotherapy to provide physical, mental, and occupational rehabilitation.

Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician is Also Know as

In different settings, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician is titled as

  • MD (Medical Doctor)
  • Medical Director Acute Rehabilitation Unit Physiatrist
  • Pain Management Physician
  • Pediatric Physiatrist
  • Physiatrist
  • Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician (PM and R Physician)
  • Physician
  • Rehabilitation Physician

Education and Training of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician

Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician

Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.

Education Required for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician

Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Degrees Related to Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician

Training Required for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician

Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician in different industries are

What Do Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician do?

  • Instruct interns and residents in the diagnosis and treatment of temporary or permanent physically disabling conditions.
  • Conduct physical tests, such as functional capacity evaluations, to determine injured workers' capabilities to perform the physical demands of their jobs.
  • Assess characteristics of patients' pain, such as intensity, location, or duration, using standardized clinical measures.
  • Monitor effectiveness of pain management interventions, such as medication or spinal injections.
  • Examine patients to assess mobility, strength, communication, or cognition.
  • Document examination results, treatment plans, and patients' outcomes.
  • Diagnose or treat performance-related conditions, such as sports injuries or repetitive-motion injuries.
  • Develop comprehensive plans for immediate and long-term rehabilitation, including therapeutic exercise, speech and occupational therapy, counseling, cognitive retraining, patient, family or caregiver education, or community reintegration.
  • Prescribe physical therapy to relax the muscles and improve strength.
  • Coordinate physical medicine and rehabilitation services with other medical activities.
  • Consult or coordinate with other rehabilitative professionals, including physical and occupational therapists, rehabilitation nurses, speech pathologists, neuropsychologists, behavioral psychologists, social workers, or medical technicians.
  • Perform electrodiagnosis, including electromyography, nerve conduction studies, or somatosensory evoked potentials of neuromuscular disorders or damage.
  • Prescribe therapy services, such as electrotherapy, ultrasonography, heat or cold therapy, hydrotherapy, debridement, short-wave or microwave diathermy, and infrared or ultraviolet radiation, to enhance rehabilitation.
  • Prescribe orthotic and prosthetic applications and adaptive equipment, such as wheelchairs, bracing, or communication devices, to maximize patient function and self-sufficiency.
  • Provide inpatient or outpatient medical management of neuromuscular disorders, musculoskeletal trauma, acute and chronic pain, deformity or amputation, cardiac or pulmonary disease, or other disabling conditions.

Qualities of Good Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician

  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.

Tools Used by Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician

  • Agility ladders
  • Automated external defibrillators AED
  • Balance trainers
  • Chair cycles
  • Cold therapy equipment
  • Custom orthotics
  • Desktop computers
  • Electromyographs EMG
  • Ellipticals
  • Epidural injection syringes
  • Exercise balls
  • Exercise bands
  • Finger ladders
  • Fluoroscopes
  • Folding pedal exercisers
  • Hand dynamometers
  • Heat therapy equipment
  • Intrathecal pumps
  • Iontophoresis equipment
  • Knee braces
  • Laptop computers
  • Mechanical stethoscopes
  • Multipurpose electrotherapy units
  • Musculoskeletal ultrasound equipment
  • Neuromuscular electrical stimulation NMES equipment
  • Orthopedic splints
  • Plyometric rebounders
  • Pulse oximeters
  • Shoulder pulleys
  • Sphygmomanometers
  • Tablet computers
  • Therapeutic diathermy machines
  • Therapeutic treadmills
  • Therapeutic ultrasound equipment
  • Transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation TENS equipment
  • Whirlpool baths

Technology Skills required for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician

  • Allscripts PM
  • athenahealth athenaCollector
  • Automatic Data Processing AdvancedMD EHR
  • Benchmark Systems Benchmark Clinical EHR
  • Biodex Medical Systems Biodex Concussion Manager
  • Bizmatics PrognoCIS EMR
  • CareCloud Central
  • Cerner PowerWorks Practice Management
  • eClinicalWorks EHR software
  • Email software
  • Epic Practice Management
  • GalacTek ECLIPSE
  • GE Healthcare Centricity Practice Solution
  • Greenway Medical Technologies PrimeSUITE
  • HealthFusion MediTouch
  • IOS Health Systems Medios EHR
  • Kareo Practice Management
  • McKesson Practice Plus
  • Microsoft Word
  • Modernizing Medicine Practice Management
  • NextGen Healthcare NextGen Practice Management
  • Nuesoft Technologies NueMD
  • OmniMD PT./OT EHR
  • simplifyMD
  • Vitera Healthcare Solutions Vitera Intergy
  • WRSHealth EMR