The Day After the NPTE

By: Dr. Trey Martin PT*, DPT

The National Physical Therapy examination (NPTE) is no joke. You’ve poured countless hours hitting the books, writing notes, taking practice exams, and chugging coffee. I must admit, I wanted to walk out feeling good about it. The day after the big exam, you would think you may feel a sense of finality. You think you would reason with yourself and come out feeling accomplished, finished, or victorious. Wouldn’t that be nice? To be truthful, I feel none of those things and I assume I am not alone. As soon as I punched the submit button on the NPTE, the excruciatingly difficult questions come to mind. Maybe you even call a few classmates and discuss questions (pro tip, don’t do that). It seems that 9 out of 10 people that I have talked to all feel discouraged.

What if those well rationalized guesses were not quite as rationalized as I thought? Why can’t I remember all the easy questions? What cruel organization would enact a 10-business day waiting period to find out results?

It is a curious thing, to be successful in a doctoral level program of any kind you must be just a wee bit tightly wound. Perfectionist, type A, anxious, results driven, and afraid of failure are similar traits most physical therapy students possess. These traits that have propelled us to this point, now cause us all some token of agony during this NPTE score waiting period. We take to over analyzing everything about the big test. Your family will tell you that they have the upmost confidence you passed with flying colors. You chuckle and think, “I wonder if they have any idea how many scans, medications, wounds, outcome measures, random conditions, seldom discussed muscles, and trick questions I was asked yesterday.” So where do you go for comfort? Most of your classmates are in full on despair, and your family and close friends are unrealistically optimistic. My solution is this, you find comfort in the very traits I mentioned above. You have to trust that your preparation for the exam was enough and if you are an odds person like me, dwell on the fact that 9 out of 10 pass their first attempt.

Notice, I left Dr. Trey Martin and DPT in my title. The NPTE cannot take that from me. The NPTE can’t undo 7 years of education and the things I learned in clinical education. It can’t change the traits that have brought me through PT school. We all still have unrelenting drive for success. For 91-93% of us, this week of worry will be needless and we will be licensed. For the rest, this is a bump in the road. A big bump, but not one that cannot be overcome.

The NPTE is tough, there is no question about that. But hey, the day after boards, you can’t change your answers. We prepared our best and answered to the extent of our knowledge. Now, we just leave the results on the playing field. Win or lose, we are still valued the same as before the test. Our families and friends still think the same of us. Our traits that got us to this point still remain within us. Ultimately, the NPTE is a huge test, and the results of it feel potentially cataclysmic.

Trust in the knowledge you've built to this point, life will go on either way, and chances are, you and I probably did just fine.