Residency in Orthopedic Physical Therapy
Develop your skills as a clinician and educator
UIC’s orthopedic physical therapy residency is a 13-month full-time specialized clinical learning experience in an academic faculty practice. Our program challenges and expands your clinical reasoning capabilities, and enhances skills for effective teaching and mentoring.
This exceptional clinical experience will offer a wealth of opportunities for you to develop your skills not only as an orthopedic practitioner, but also as an educator. Improve your teaching effectiveness by providing numerous presentations in lecture format to clinical faculty, fellow residents, DPT students and local therapists.
We expose our residents to the unique culture of an academic medical center while receiving direct mentorship from UIC faculty members. Dedicated debriefing sessions immediately after evaluating a new patient optimize the learning experience, and manual skills labs dedicate time to develop and practice hands-on skills with your mentor team.
You’ll have the opportunity to collaborate with internationally recognized researchers, with access to state of the art research equipment. Residents also complete a Capstone Project resulting in submission for presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the APTA.
100% success rate in program completion and pass rate on the OCS examination. Fully accredited by the ABPTRFE.Â
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The residency experience
Our program gives you the opportunity to provide hands-on patient care 35 hours per week at our PT Faculty Practice Clinic, while working alongside UIC clinical faculty. The balance of your time will be spent in ongoing formal training and personal development.
You’ll participate in resident presentations, reviewing clinical practice guidelines and preparing and delivering critically appraised topics with the intent of answering your own specific clinical questions. Our residents provide classroom instruction within the UIC DPT program curriculum, and attend clinical faculty and guest lectures.
In the first three months of the residency, we’ll cover topics like:
- The use of real-time ultrasound in rehab
- Spinal manipulation
- Medical screening
- Review of clinical practice guidelines and clinical prediction rules
You’ll also have an online education portal available to review relevant anatomy and personal video sessions, helping you advance your skills and knowledge.
Academic track options
Contribute to research in UIC’s state-of-the-art labs, or pursue a clinical educator track, which trains you to teach physical therapy students. Completing the residendy program will earn you a graduate certificate in clinical research or clinical education, comprising 20 graduate credits that can be applied toward a PhD.
Clinical Educator Track
Under the mentorship of a senior core faculty member, the clinical educator track teaches you to become a more effective clinical educator for physical therapy students. You’ll enroll in Special Topics in Rehabilitation: Teaching and Education Development. If you’re interested in enhancing your communication skills or see yourself moving into a more formal educational role in the future, this is the right track for you.
Clinical Research Track
The clinical research track teaches you how to participate in clinical research trials, working through developing the investigation, obtaining IRB approval, subject consent, data collection, and abstract/manuscript preparation and submission. You’ll enroll in Research in Rehabilitation Sciences, where you’ll work with a faculty member to conduct independent research in one area of rehabilitation sciences.
Physical Therapy Faculty Practice
Our orthopedic outpatient physical therapy faculty practice is embedded in the Chicago community, providing high-quality physical therapy services in a convenient location.
Meet our residents
We're here for you
We’re here for you
Still wondering what a residency in orthopedic physical therapy can do for you? Contact Aaron Keil.
You can contact Aaron at:
Email akeil123@uic.edu
Phone 312.413.0744
Address 1640 W. Roosevelt Rd.
336 DHSP, MC 882
Chicago, IL 60608
Accredited by the ABPTRFE
Accredited by the ABPTRFE
Initial Accreditation: December 2015
Current Accreditation: Active through January 2026