Names: Patryk Lewandowski, Łukasz Dobrakowski
from Poland
PT educational system:
In Poland to become a physiotherapist you have to graduate an university at Bachelor level (3 years). There are both public and private universities. After that you can become a Master within 2 years. Unfortunately, you don't need any of it to work as physiotherapist according to polish law. Physiotherapy is not a legal medical profession, so theoretically everyone can work as physiotherapist in Poland. Thankfully, if you are not at least a Bachelor, you very likely will not get hired.
How many schools/ universities do you have?
Around 60 and growing
Name of your students organization(s):
Oddział Studencki Stowarzyszenia Fizjoterapia Polska (Student Chapter of Physiotherapy Poland Association)
Describe your students’ organization in 3 sentences:
We are group of students from all over Poland, who want to make a difference in our country. Right now there are 11 of us- the board of the Student Chapter, but we are about to expand our activities to all polish physiotherapy schools. We gathered together in November 2012 and ran a survey on needs of polish physiotherapy students. Since then, the survey has been filled by 670 students, which is our first success. Now we are going to fulfill the most important needs.
What are the goals of your students’ organization?
Our goals are:
1. To represent all polish physiotherapy students in Poland and Europe.
2. To find and fulfill the needs of polish PT students related to education and study fields.
3. To improve communication between physiotherapy students from all polish universities
How many PT students are there within the organization?
Counting only active students - 11 from all over Poland. Around 200 of passive students.
Communication about ECPTS within your country:
Because of the Assembly there is a big interest in ECPTS among polish students. We keep their contacts and we encourage them to be active in our Student Chapter first. After that we know if they are hard-working and trustworthy and we plan to propose them joining on ECPTS' working group.
What is the entry level for working as a physiotherapist in your country?
As is written earlier (point 3), according to polish law there is not such thing as the entry level to work as a physiotherapist in Poland. Our government is working on legal act changing it, but it doesn't exist yet
Do you offer English-speaking courses or summerschools for PTs/ PT-students? No