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.

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UIC PT Faculty Practice
Training the next generation of physical therapists

The residency experience

Our program gives you the opportunity to provide hands-on patient care 30 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.

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Closeup of physical therapist's hands using stethoscope and tuning fork on patient's leg

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.

Learn about where you'll practice

Meet our residents

  • Danny Garcia head shot

    Daniel Garcia

    Interests include manual therapy utilization, pre & post-operative rehabilitation, injury prevention and return to sport rehabilitation.

  • Brent Wilson head shot

    Brent Wilson

    Creates a positive therapeutic alliance while using evidence-based knowledge to facilitate patients achieving their goals.

  • ryan headshot

    Ryan Griffith

    Clinical interests include progression towards returning to sport, as well as treatment of running related injuries, gait analysis, and manual therapy.

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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: