Where Are They Now: Emily Hamilton, MSOT ‘21

Travel therapists are going to travel. And, Emily Hamilton, MSOT ‘21, has been all over the country since graduating from the Occupational Therapy (OT) program at Salus University.

Her first stop after passing her boards was in New York City at a skilled nursing facility, where she stayed for a year. “I was getting skills under my belt. I stayed there because I love New York but also because they kept wanting to extend my assignment,” said Hamilton. “Typical contracts are three months. I was still a new grad and it was nice for my first job to get a true base of skills.”

From there she went to Denver, for a three-month stint, then back to the East Coast in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. After that, there was a job in Myrtle Beach, North Carolina at an assisted living facility.

And, then just after Thanksgiving 2023, Hamilton took a big jump: she secured a gig at a hospital in Hawaii. “In travel therapy, once you get to a year in the same metro area, you need to move, because you’re not considered a traveler and you won’t get the stipends as a traveler if you don’t move,” she said.

Hamilton, who originally hails from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, secured her undergraduate degree in Human Services from Penn State Abington. Her whirlwind of travel in the first few years of her career has been comfortable for her while she continues to learn and gain experience, something she attributes to how the Salus OT program prepared her to become a professional. “I liked to size of everything at Salus, I liked that it was focused on health professions. I feel like you kind of know everybody,” she said.

In fact, Hamilton is one of the alumni who was impacted by the pandemic, which she was also able to turn into a positive experience as she pursued her graduate degree. “I knew Salus was doing everything it could to make sure that we got what we needed. The University quickly switched to remote learning and also made sure that we still got to go in when it was safe to practice our skills,” said Hamilton. “I appreciated that. We were constantly updated what was next and how the university was doing the most that it could.”

The pandemic forced her to be both more flexible and more prepared in ways that students normally might not have been. “We were all going through the pandemic while going through grad school and learning a whole new profession. And, then we had to adapt everything we knew about going to school and learning,” said Hamilton.

That experience, she believes, reinforced her desire to become a travel therapist. “Every three months I’m picking up my life and putting it somewhere else. The pandemic, it rocks you. But I came out stronger because it was an obstacle that hadn’t happened to anybody before,” she said.

When she’s not hitting the road to practice OT in another location, Hamilton likes to sew, read, go to concerts and hang out with friends.

So where to next? Hamilton has a boyfriend back home on the East Coast who is a teacher, and with summers off, he’s been able to visit her at many of her stops. She also plans to travel to Australia at some point.

Ultimately though, she misses being home in the Philadelphia region. And, she really loved her time in New York. “I’m going to give myself two years to figure out what I want to do,” she said. “Hawaii is hard to beat. But my heart is in New York City. I did not expect that to happen.”