In this stirring account, Oluremi Wanjiru Onifade and Sarah Caston present an honest and compelling look at the challenges within the physical therapy educational community for Black and brown people. Onifade paints a picture of her life growing up as a Kenyan/Nigerian queer-identifying Black American, and the obstacles she overcame on the path to her DPT. Her account ends where she challenges her colleague Caston: "There is a lack of representation of Black and brown people teaching in your PT program. Are you willing to do something?"
In response, Caston describes how that direct question changes her perception as an educator. She asks, "What does it look like for me, a white, heterosexual, cis-gender woman, to stand up to racism? And again, I ask, what does it look like for the profession of physical therapy to do the same?"...
This companion piece to the McDaniels article builds on their arguments for improved learning and applies them to physical therapy education. Steven Ambler advocates for the integration of Learning Sciences in physical therapy curricula. “Curricula that position the student, faculty, and profession as learner, and consider the plurality of learning theories, can help us all reach a deeper sense of what it means to be a physical therapist serving society,” he notes....
"Communicating in the Silence" focuses on the challenges that deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) patients can face when seeking mental healthcare. Marcela Almeida and Katherine Kosman detail the barriers to care of one DHH young man, whose "medical diagnosis and treatment path were substantially changed by a more careful assessment that considered the unique aspects of the DHH population." The authors' recommendations for the future include an argument for greater use of Certified Deaf Interpreters in healthcare....
“What started as a narrowly-focused mission to welcome people with dementia … into our museum for the first time evolved into a much broader and more profound project: to reinvent what agency within the museum would look and feel like for visitors living with dementia,” author Susan Shifrin notes in this compelling piece. She details her journey from that experience to founding ARTZ Philadelphia, a program that invites people with dementia to serve as mentors to program participants....
With compelling quotes from participants, and links to their groundbreaking video, these authors relate the fundamental impact of a series of workshops they developed to help cancer survivors live with lymphedema. The lymphedema video is “an accessible tool for patients, caregivers, students, and healthcare professionals,” they note. “We echo the participants’ hope that it will encourage dialogue between health professionals and patients.”...
This poignant case study, featuring impressive art created by a military veteran with traumatic brain injury and comorbidities, expresses the power of Art Therapy to heal profound physical and psychological wounds. “The veteran’s art increased his self-awareness while informing the clinical team of his ongoing experience,” Gayla Elliott notes. His art and his words make a compelling case for adding art to the rehabilitation process....
In this thought-provoking article, Cara Felter, PT, DPT, MPH describes a paired approach between a faculty member and an individual with a spinal cord injury to teach physical therapy students about sexuality and disability, and offer guidance for speaking with patients about this sensitive subject....
Phillip Kellogg, SPT, and Ali Nogi, PT, DPT, present an overview of the practice of Mind Mapping—a visual-thinking tool used for organizing information. Citing Dr. George Huba’s use of Mind Mapping to support his independence as he lives with dementia, the authors make the case for the technique’s effective application in healthcare and rehabilitation....
Eileen P. Anderson-Fye, EdD, and colleagues report on the development of a pilot undergraduate survey course that offered an overview of disciplinary approaches to health across the humanities and social sciences—and provided rich rewards to participating students. ...
Catholic bioethicist Cory Labrecque, PhD, discusses the healing narratives of Jesus as a rich resource for Christian patients and their caregivers as they pursue meaning and the preservation of personhood following life-changing illness or disability. ...
Undergraduate students at Emory University interviewed individuals in three unique relationships to shed light on the diverse impacts disability has on differently-abled people within relationships....
Robyn Fivush, PhD, argues that sharing our stories with others, and listening to their stories, is a fundamental way of connecting–for patients and medical providers alike. She reports on emerging research that demonstrates the power of stories to build empathy and promote healing....
Professors Jeffrey Bernstein, Michael Smith, and Rebecca Nowacek make the case that being a good citizen requires understanding the lives other people experience–their joy and suffering–and working to ease the troubles others face....
Authors Ami Walsh, MFA, Jeffrey Evans, PhD, and colleagues describe how digital technology is being used to create patient-centered audio stories in a dynamic program at Michigan Medicine. Audio storytelling, they report, helps to honor a patient’s sense of self and offer comfort and hope. ...
Vintage 1951 video footage from the first World Confederation of Physical Therapy (WCPT) lays the framework for historical reflections on the evolution of Physical Therapy and rehabilitation, tracing roots of professional identity to distinct cultures and practices from around the world. ...
Dr. Kylie Smith explores the history of mental health nursing by studying the therapeutic role of nurses. By examining the social and historical context of nursing practice, she highlights the humanities as powerful educational tools that allow one to critically analyze the assumptions and narratives that underpin modern health care practice....
Dr. Christina Crosby broke her neck in a cycling accident in 2003. She argues that chronic pain and grieving over incapacity need to be openly explored in both therapeutic and scholarly conversations about disability, because pain unacknowledged is corrosive and weakens attachment to ongoing life....
Alison Cogan, occupational therapist and doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California, explores the benefits of developing skills for understanding and interpreting stories through reading and analyzing published first-person illness narratives....
British researchers Dr. Vinette Cross and colleagues bring a poetic voice to the experiences of patients with chronic low back pain and their family members, creating a performance that bears witness to the frustration, sadness and resolve of these individuals....
Health humanities scholar and creative writer, Dr. Lisa Kerr Dunn joins with Medical University of South Carolina colleagues to provide strategies for designing health humanities courses to foster the development of student collaborative knowledge, attitudes, and skills....
Dr. Jacqueline Laures-Gore, Director of the Aphasia and Motor Speech Disorders Research Lab at Georgia State University, describes how speech-language pathologists have sought to use modes of artistic expression to link humanistic endeavor with the science of clinical work....
Kimberly Manning and her health science colleagues demonstrate the value of the reflective writing process to promote interprofessional learning amongst faculty....
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