cht_success_plan__map_out_your_hand_therapy_journey_today (1080p) (1)
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[00:00:00] Your goal is to become a certified hand therapist. Now, whether you have always known that you wanna become a certified hand therapist from the time you're in school, or you're just now discovering hand therapy and you're like, ah. I think hand therapy is for me and I wanna become a certified hand therapist.
Well, you're in the right place. My name is Hog Tran. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist. And over five years ago, I started hand therapy seekers to just share what I've done, what I'm currently doing, and to help other therapists develop their clinical skills at hand therapy. And.
Just have more choices. And listen, if you wanna become a certified hand therapist, stay tuned. This is for you. I'm gonna share with you how to essentially map out your journey from the beginning, right? Number one, you have to get the job in the year. So years are gonna pass you by regardless of whether you do anything or not.
So this is for the girlies and the guys who have been a therapist for a long time, and now you wanna become a certified hand therapist. It's okay. It does not matter how many years you've been. An ot, a pt, or [00:01:00] whatever. You still can become a certified hand therapist if you want. I've helped people with more years of experience than I have, and they became CHCs, you know, and you can be the girly that always knew, and you got that job straight outta school, and you got that job, you got the hours.
You're like, okay, I'm ready to go. It doesn't matter which bucket you're in, either way, it's possible for you. The years are gonna pass you regardless. And so what you wanna do is. You got the years right? It's super easy. It's the hours that you need. So hours. If you have a lot of years of experience, you probably already have the hours.
The key thing to remember when it comes to hours is that the hours do not need to be mentored from a certified hand therapist. There's so few. CHCs as it is. Can you imagine? We have to mentor everybody. Um, it's almost impossible. Number two, it doesn't all have to [00:02:00] be in this outpatient setting. Now, when you become a certified hand therapist, does it make it easier for you to get a job in outpatient?
Yes, it does, right? Yes, it does. But you can get your hours from anywhere. I got a lot of my hours in acute care. I saw a lot of complex. Cases, um, they don't have to be complex, but I saw complex cases. I saw regular. Degenerative types of cases where I was like really working on a lot of hand in arm issues, uh, stroke patients.
Um, I worked with, I worked in the NICU and I worked with, uh, brachial plexes. I worked with kids with Born Without Bones and deformities. I mean, are you gonna get a ton of hours from NICU babies? Like, not necessarily, unless that's your, like, your whole thing. Uh, but think about how you're building your hours, building your career, building your hours.
It isn't like you have to sit there and be like, I, I saw that patient and I did this for eight minutes. Let me add up my hour. 'cause you don't have to do that. Just chunk [00:03:00] it up. And most likely you have the years and the hours. Now this is for you if you're like at the two year mark. You have to be three years in order to sit from the time you are licensed.
As an occupational therapist or physical therapist, listen to this again if you're like, can I use my hours from volunteer? No. Can you use I was a COD before? No. These aren't rules that I'm making. This is coming from HTCC, right? The people who put the exam on. You have to be an occupational therapist, a physical therapist.
And you have to have it from the date, right? You have to have it from that date. And then you count out like, by the time I am three years, when is the exam given? Do I take it in May? Do I take it in November? So you have to calculate that, and then you have to calculate those hours, right? So if you're planning this, you can start studying a year in advance.
So people [00:04:00] always ask, well, how long does it take and how many hours do I need to do it? Listen, it is all based on you. So number one, when it comes to mapping out your journey is that you've got to. Set the date. I can't do that for you. Other people can't do that for you. They'll share with you their experience.
My experience has been that it took me a year, probably a little bit less, 'cause I was bullshitting the first three months. Let's be honest, right? Some people can do it in six months, but they do it in six months 'cause they. Are like freaking champs and dedicated, dedicate themselves to it. I had one therapist, she was like three, two and a half years, and then by the time she was gonna take it, it was gonna be her three year mark and she had been an outpatient the whole entire time.
So she was like, Juan, can I do it in six months? I was like, well, do you have any babies? Do you have any major events? Are you getting married? Do you have a [00:05:00] husband? Do? Like, is there anything coming in your way? She's like, Nope, I got nothing. I'm single. I work. I come home. I was like, bitch, you come home and study then let's knock this shit out in six months.
And you know what she did? She got into my program, she bought her resources and she nailed it like six months down. Boom. Took the test right, and that's all you can hope for. So she passed. But you gotta set the date, right? So once you set your date, you can become a lot more intentional about your studying, about the time that you're spending.
You set the date for six months and you're, you're ass partying, you're going on like these vacations and every other weekend you're hanging out with your, like, you are never gonna get to that date. You're gonna end up moving and moving. So you are the only person who can be realistic. Stop fucking asking me questions about like, how long is it gonna take?
Right. It's gonna take you as long as it's gonna take you. One of the things that I say is, you [00:06:00] know, when you're doing hard things to move fast. Fast isn't about time. Fast is about taking action every single day to do something that moves you towards it. If you buy the program but you don't open it for a month, that's your problem.
You can't move fast, right? You're not gonna get it done in six months. Right? Yeah. If you buy the book and you know, never crack it open, right? You don't study from it, then how can you do it in a year? You can't, right? So, number one, to map out your journey to become a certified hand therapist, you must set a date and stop bullshitting yourself that, oh, I'm gonna do it in two years.
Then put it outta your mind. Right? You are not gonna like stop talking about it. If it's 2, 3, 5 years from now, stop talking about it. 'cause it's not gonna help you get to your goal. The reason when you make a goal, [00:07:00] it could be a long term goal. You put it in the, you know, you make it, you put it in the back of your head and you're like, I'll get to it when I get to it.
Right? But if you are gonna make a goal and you wanna meet it, you want to have a realistic timeline. And that's usually between six to 12 months. Right, because within six to 12 months it's gonna come up pretty fast, and so you actually have to do something to get there. The longer a away it is, the least, the less likely you are to be able to take any steps or.
Or do anything about it. You know, if your, if your goal is like, well, I, I'm, I'm gonna do it in like five years, like, I get the job first. Put that outta your mind. Get the job, put all your focus into getting the job, getting the hours. But if you're gonna focus on becoming A-C-H-C-C-H-T and get those three letters, then be intentional and set your date.
Second, get your resources. [00:08:00] Get your resources. So you're serious about it. I mean, if you. If you set the date and you don't do nothing else afterwards, then what the fuck are we doing? Right? Set the date by your resources. Now, one of the things that you can do is you can buy all your resources at one time.
I recommend Rehab of the Hand, seventh Edition. And this is my latest practice questions. So as you study, you can do practice questions as you study, you can do practice questions. There's over 800 questions in this. It's equivalent to like four whole exams, right? Four whole exams in here. Um, and it's divided by topic, so it's hands, wrists, tendons, burns and wounds, elbows, shoulders and nerves, and then others.
So there's eight major sections of questions in here. It's, I mean, she, she's thick, right? There's tons of questions in here. Get your resources right. [00:09:00] Rehab of the Hand. This is the, um, book that I teach from. This has pretty much all, it is like, has all the information that you need. The Hand Therapy Commission has a whole list of books, but this is the main book that that is used and is taught from.
And I think there are other resources kind of just mimic or confirm a lot of the information. Right. Uh, so if you're gonna. If you're gonna pick one topic, I really do believe that rehab at the hand has a majority of the topics in the depth that you need to know it. I think that other resources, um, like the Asta book has outlines and they have some descriptions and stuff like that, but what happens if is if they don't have enough information, you're going to rehab of the hand.
If you buy an anatomy book, it's, it is not gonna have enough information so you can end up going back to the rehab of the hand, right. So you can buy your resources all at one [00:10:00] time. Um, or you can buy them one at a time as you need it, right? So it just kind of helps you to, um, you know, make sure you're sticking to your goal.
Okay? Um, let me get started with rehab of the Hand, right? That's what I re recommend. Get started with the rehab of the hand, and within a month or two of you studying it, get the practice question. Right. Got the practice questions. Now, if you're somebody who knows, you need a little bit more help, you don't want to do this shit on your own.
You want someone to teach you and explain it to you. The exam on demand program is that, I'm gonna link it below, right? It takes everything from the rehab at the hand and it puts it into, uh, videos and conceptions that make it easier for you to understand, like basically I translate that book, right?
Regardless. Get your resources. You can use mine, you can use theirs, whatever it is, however you need it to help you, right? How, however you need it to help you. Now, here's the thing. Stop [00:11:00] being fucking cheap about it. Everywhere I look, oh, it's too expensive. This is less than 1% of what you would spend now to focus and to serve you so that you have an opportunity to make more money later.
Right. So yes, you gotta spend a little bit to invest in yourself so that you can have more choices in your career. When you went to OT school or PT school, you spent a shit ton of money and became a therapist so you can enter the game to play. Now most therapists are making real good money. I know people, oh, like it's all good.
You making good money, right? Let's be honest. A lot of people are close to six figures, uh, over six figures depending on where you live, right? It's good money. I'm not saying we're millionaires, right? We spending a little too much here. But I'm, I'm gonna speak for myself. We're spending a little too much here, right?
Um, but our [00:12:00] careers give us an opportunity to work in a very particular way and to earn a living. And when you think about it, take your salary, what is 1% of your salary? It is going to be a lot more than the amount that you'll pay to advance your career and. When you become a certified hand therapist, you will have the opportunity to make more so when people are like, what's the rate of return?
If you can make 20% more a year working in the area that you want, having more expertise and more security in your, in your role, in your career, what is. The 1% that you're paying to study, invest in yourself, pay for the test to become a certified hand therapist. Like it's not just about cu. You have to have a lot more long-term thinking.
This gives you long-term career status, [00:13:00] uh, stability and earning potential. Like people stop being so fucking cheap. I can't take it sometime. I'm sorry, am I going off a little bit? Alright, that's okay. This is how I would talk when my therapist comes and is like, oh, what should I do? Okay, well here's, here's the thing.
You know, you can do what you need to do now, or you can sit 10 years, 20 years from now bitching about how nobody respects you and you can't make any money and, and everyone wants, you know, X, y, z for you to do more shit. You know, like you just gotta have more choices when you have clinical skills and you're specialized.
You can pick. You can pick what to do. You can start your own fucking business. If you don't like what people telling you what to do, hey, that's what I did right Another day. Set your date, get your resources, and schedule out your studying. Be serious about it. There's nothing that irks me more than people saying, I wanna become a certified hand therapist and then don't fucking do [00:14:00] anything, right?
This happened when I, my therapist was working with me. She was wanting to become a certified hand therapist. I was like, listen, I as a boss, as a boss, I, I, I don't take any bullshit. I'm not gonna hire you. And you say to me, I wanna become a certified hand therapist and me pouring into you for you to sit there and not do fucking shit.
Right. Someone came in and was like, I wanna become a certified hand therapist. I'm like, great. You know? Um, and so my therapist as, as wonderfully nice as she is, she's like, I'm gonna help her. Dragging her saying it for five years. Got the job saying she's gonna become a CHG and wasn't doing anything to become a CHG.
Nothing. I'm not talking shit. This is what the therapist told me. She was like, well, I talk, you know, but I haven't really done anything. And oh, well it's because I have this and I have that. They're all at the end of the day. I understand that. You know, she's like, these are my reasons. To me, those are excuses.
If you don't wanna become a CHG, just [00:15:00] don't, don't say you want to, right? Don't say it from my, from my benefit. I could give two shits if you're gonna become a CHG or not. Right? I told my therapist, stop dragging her along because she's gonna, she's gonna slow you down. You have this goal. You have set your dates.
And you wanna partner up with someone who, oh, we're gonna study together and we're gonna hold each other up and whatever. If they're not serious, they will drag you down. Right? So, you know, schedule out your time, be very intentional about it, and be intentional about who you're hanging out with when you're studying in this time period, you can still be friends with that person just later, right.
Still be friends with her. Just like, just, you can't, you have to like narrow down your focus. When I was writing this book. When I was writing this book, I was like, let me focus on this thing so I can get it done. In the time I set my date, I wanted it out by a certain time, and I set my date, got my resources together, [00:16:00] right, invested in myself, and I scheduled out.
To write this, the process is essentially the same for you when your studies to become a certified hand therapist. It is not any different. You just have to be very intentional about it. And if you have gotten to the end of this video, please let me know. Has this been helpful? I know sometimes I sound really harsh, but I sound really harsh, is because I'm trying to give people a fricking kick in the ass that they need to be able to do the thing that they say that they want to do.
Right. So if this is what you want, you know, let me know. Is this helpful? If it's not helpful, you can, you can still tell me. I don't. Um, my skin's kind of thick, so, um, but I will take it with a grain of salt and I will try to improve. Leave me a comment if you like it, like the videos, subscribe, see some more videos.
I'm gonna share more videos on practice questions and so hopefully that will also help [00:17:00] you along your journey to becoming a certified hand therapist. I have tons of other videos. On my YouTube channel as well. So take a look through there and see if there's anything that can help you. And if you need my personal help, my links below.
Um, for, I have free resources on my website, but also, um, I have, um, online courses and I have live courses that can help support you on your journey to become a certified hand therapist. All right. Um, until next time, thank you.
