Waves

If you are a physical therapist, you probably entered the profession with some desire to help your fellow human. If you're a small business owner, you also need to worry about making enough money to pay your staff, keep the lights on, etc. Are the two goals incompatible?

NO! Says Dr. Ryan Shelton, owner of PhilanthroPT, a "for purpose" company in Kentucky that ensures that it gives back to its community and ensures that everyone has access to care, while still pulling in a profit. Sit at his feet, ye listeners, and soak it in.

Michigan PTs and PTAs! Earn PDRs toward license renewal by listening to Waves episodes! Just fill out this form and keep it for your records.

Music by Mark Joesting and Andy Wicks.

Dr. Adam Matichak is a rare bird. Not in the "exotic diagnosis" sense, but in the "really cool guy who does rad things" sense. He is a board-certified oncologic clinical specialist who knows more about cancer rehabilitation than is appropriate, and still has time to be a swell guy. He hopes that you, dear listener, know a little more about oncologic physical therapy after this episode than you did before.

"How an insurer abandoned a cancer patient in his most critical hour."

Are you a PT or PTA in Michigan? You can get PDR credit towards license renewal by listening to Waves episodes! Fill out this form and save it for your records. It's that easy!

Editing help from Brigit Hammond.

Music by Mark Joesting and Andy Wicks.

It's here! Part two! The sequel! Drs. Nikki Pappas and Sara Wallace continue our conversation about vulnerability and curiosity, wherein we also stack soapboxes on soapboxes and idioms upon maxims. There's a lot going on here, but I think you'll like it.

PTs and PTAs in Michigan! You can get PDR credit just for listening to Waves episodes! Fill out this form and keep it for your records. Boom. Done.

Dr. Nikki Pappas and Dr. Sara Wallace are physical therapists and educators in Salt Lake City, UT, and the captains of Team Vulnerability and Team Curiosity, respectively. They have wonderful insight into how to leverage those traits to improve patient care as well as promote well-being among clinicians. Also, I've never had to bleep out as many swears as I did in this interview.

Part 2 of this episode is coming up next in the feed so stay tuned!

If you are a PT or PTA in Michigan, you can get PDR credit towards license renewal by listening to Waves episodes! For reals! Just fill out this form and save it for your records.

PTs can work just about anywhere, including the exclusive niche market of running comedy content creation on Instagram. And that's exactly what Dr. Laura Green has done. She has traveled the world to work as a PT in some amazing (and not so amazing) places. She has also turned her lifelong love of running into a side hustle that became her main hustle: funny videos about running on social media. This path let her travel the world (again) while helping create a community in the running world that we didn't know we needed.

Unless you are a PT student or academic, you may not have a lot of daily exposure to research. But that doesn't mean that PTs are out there on the front lines of clinical research for all kinds of patient populations. We spoke with Drs. Robin Linton-Fisher and Andrew Harrington, both clinicians at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids, MI, as well as clinical researchers for patients with different movement disorders.

Did you know that you can get PDR credit toward license renewal in Michigan just by listening to Waves episodes? It's true! You can receive up to six PDR credits (one credit per hour of media watched or listened to) per license renewal cycle by watching or listening to "professional education media related to practice of PT" (⁠activity code "d" from the Professional Development Requirements for License Renewal: Key Points of the State of Michigan General Provisions document⁠). After listening, simply fill out the ⁠Physical Therapist or Physical Therapist General Response Form⁠ on LARA and save for your records. You're already listening to the podcast; might as well get PDR credit for it!

Music by ⁠Mark Joesting⁠ and Andy Wicks.

Jordyn Bowman is a 3rd year SPT at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, MI. She used a personal tragedy as an opportunity to help other people, and by doing so, helped her realize what could be possible in the physiotherapy profession.

Guiding Light Mission

APTA Magazine article "How PTs Can Help Those in Addiction Recovery"

Editing help from Chris Shumate.

Music by Andy Wicks and Mark Joesting.

Dr. Drew Contreras is the Vice President of Clinical Innovation and Integration at the American Physical Therapy Association. And while that title may not give you the clearest idea about his job description, he can share a lot of pearls of wisdom as to where our profession has been and where it is going.

Oh, and he used to be the White House physical therapist during the Obama Administration. There's a video somewhere about that...

What does it mean to be authentic in patient interaction? For Dr. Allyson Sutkowi-Hemstreet, it means not hiding any aspect of herself. Instead of trying to fit in, she found that she provided better patient care when she brought every aspect of herself into the patient-provider relationship.

Now she works to bring that message to students and clinicians who may feel that being part of a marginalized group means being something other than yourself.

Did you know our very own co-host Dr. Katharine Cline is a published author? She is!

Dr. Cline is a pediatric pelvic floor physical therapist who wanted to create a resource to help kids when they may be having difficulty controlling their bowel or bladder. She collaborated with medical illustrator Rylee Lane to make Potty Heroes: An Interactive Coloring Book, a book that aims to be accurate, anatomically correct, and helpful for young kids.

We spoke to the author and illustrator to hear more about how the project came to be and what might be next for our Potty Heroes!