Therapists to Therapy Assistants: Experiences of Internationally Educated Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: In Canada, internationally educated physiotherapists (IEPTs) and occupational therapists (IEOTs) may work as occupational/physical therapy assistants (OTAs/PTAs) while pursuing Canadian licensure. This experience presents personal and professional opportunities and challenges. Purpose: We explored a) the barriers and facilitators experienced by IEPTs and IEOTs working as OTAs/PTAs while pursuing licensure in Canada and b) how might their professional identity changes during this period. Methods: In this cross-sectional qualitative study, we sampled IEPTs and IEOTs working as assistants using online focus groups. Reflexive thematic analysis of data was used to generate themes. Findings: Fourteen IEPTs or IEOTs participated reporting barriers including financial impacts while working as an OTA/PTA, discrimination, and challenges completing licensing exams. Facilitators while working as OTA/PTAs included social support, acculturation with Canadian systems, and career opportunities. Changes to professional identity encompassed accepting a new identity, reclaiming their old identity, or having a strong sense of identity within a healthcare profession. Participants advocated for bridging programs and modifications for examination processes for IEPTs and IEOTs to improve their experiences while pursuing licensure in Canada. Conclusion: Increased advocacy is needed to address the current experiences of IEPTs and IEOTs working as OTA/PTAs after migration.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.016 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.016 | 0.009 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.010 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".