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ABSTRACT
Background and Purpose: Physical therapy residency programs are post-professional education opportunities in which licensed physical therapists spend between 11 to 36 months in specialty practice advanced training. Residency programs are in a state of rapid growth, with the number of accredited residency programs growing from 246 to 347 in the past 5 years.1 An important step in the continued evolution of these programs is the understanding of their benefits on both residency participants and the profession of physical therapy as a whole. Residency programs are designed to provide physical therapists accelerated advanced training in an area of specialty2 through didactic coursework and clinical mentoring. The primary purpose of this literature review was to identify and evaluate the literature examining the benefits of physical therapy residency programs across all specialties. A secondary purpose of this literature review was to assist residency program directors and developing residency programs in providing evidence to administrators of potential clinical partners on the added value residency programs can bring to their facilities, thus increasing the reach the residency education has on the physical therapy profession. Methods: The evidence-based search for articles discussing the outcomes of physical therapist residency was conducted on manuscripts published from January 1998 through December 2023 on the 5 following databases: PubMed, WorldCat, CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, and Web of Science. Search terms used were "physical therapy," "residency," and "outcomes" with filters including English language. Results: This review included 9 total articles, with common themes emerging from these articles. Residency graduates reported numerous benefits from participation, citing improved diagnostic skills, improved clinical reasoning, and a positive effect on professional development. Discussion and Conclusion: Overall, the published evidence exploring the benefits of physical therapist residency training is sparse and is disproportionately focused on the orthopedic specialty practice area. Current evidence suggests an improvement in examination and diagnostic skills, as well as an increase in personal, patient, and employer perception of professionalism and skill of residency trained physical therapists. An improvement in patient outcomes is currently inconclusive in the literature, with the reliance on patient reported outcome measures and surveys of patient outcomes making it difficult to formulate any firm conclusion. While the current literature looks favorably upon residency education, more evidence is needed to fortify the understanding of the...