First Week

It is great to be back to school again. I am thoroughly enjoying my students and the course I am teaching. Everybody is excited, energized, and demonstrating their eagerness to learn. I reminded the students today about how this is such a great time for them. Even though they feel very busy with reading, studying, and attending classes; right now is the time that they have to make mistakes and really spend time learning and tuning their hands into fine instruments for good.
Tomorrow they will be bringing their computers to lab to work on a project they have due in a few weeks. Since we will be working with computers and new software this can often be challenging for the students but I think this group will do a really great job. I will post about how it all goes down.

Favorite things

One of my favorite things about teaching is seeing someone have his/her "ah ha" moment. It is very gratifying to think that I had a small part to do with it. I realize that our students are very bright and they will have many "ah ha" moments regardless of who is teaching, so I feel lucky to be part of that.
In the courses I teach I have the extra bonus of having both diadactic (lecture) and psychomotor (lab) elements. One particular moment that I see year after year, that I never seem to tire from is the skill of manipulation. In a manipulation the student positions the patient in three planes and then provides a high velocity, low amplitude thrust to a joint. This often occurs with a audible pop or, as we say in the business, a cavitation. In lab when this first occurs there is much rejoicing with some high fives, some whooping and hollering, and a lot of smiles.
As we get older sometimes the high fives go away and perhaps there are not as many bursts of joy but that feeling of happiness and accomplishment that we feel inside continues, which is yet another reason that I love the field of physical therapy. We, as physical therapists, pretty much always have something else to learn, some new skill to acquire, another "ah ha" moment to accomplish and what is even better is our patients benefit with each new lesson learned, with all the newly acquired skills, and with every "ah ha." Pretty cool...pretty cool!

CSM was Great (Great and Busy)

It has been over a week and a half since returning from the American Physical Therapy Associations national conference. It was really great. As I mentioned last time, Rockhurst was very well represented as we had 16 posters presented. If you would like to look at the posters you can see them here. When I returned I told the students that I felt like I was in PT school again because I was up every day at the crack of dawn and was in classes/presentations taking notes all day and then meeting up with colleagues and friends until late at night while still trying to find time to prepare for my presentation...needless to say I came home ready for a vacation. Even with how full my days were and all my running around, I really enjoy going to those conferences where so many smart and like-minded people meet and share their knowledge and camaraderie. It was a great event and I am sure next year in New Orleans it will be just as great.

APTA National Conference this week in San Diego

This year the American Physical Therapy Association will be holding its national Combined Sections Meeting in San Diego. It should be another great year to go and enjoy presenting and listening to the latest and greatest in research in physical therapy. We are especially excited this year as we will be having over 15 separate poster and platform presentations from Rockhurst Faculty, current and former students. Below is only a partial list of topics:

The Effect of Body Position on Maximum Inspiratory and Expiratory Pressures
and Forced Expiratory Flow.

Neurodynamic Testing of the Upper Extremity.

Comparison of Lower Trapezius and Serratus Anterior Muscle Activation during Shoulder flexion under Three Hand-held Load Conditions in Young and Old Adults.

The Effects of Carbohydrate Supplementation on Measures of Gross Motor Coordination and Cognitive Function during Prolonged Aerobic Exercise.

Bent Knee Fallout.

The Effects of Core Stabilization in a Competitive Cyclist with Low Back Pain

Promote Active Learning Using The International Classification of
Function, Disability, and Health Model.

Does Short-Term Use of Dance, Dance Revolution Increase Motivation and Motor Proficiency of At-Risk Children and Youth?

Audiovisual Training with Motor Practice May Promote Postural Stability: A Pilot Study

Representing the ICF Model as an Electronic Ontology for Use in Physical Therapist Education.

Exploring Standardized Vocabulary Use for Physical Therapy Exercises: Practice and Perceptions.

Innovations in Physical Therapy: The Wii and Beyond.


I did not get a complete list of topics due to some faculty already being gone or in route to San Diego. I hope you can see the wide variety of topics and interests. It is a lot of fun and satisfying to be part of helping to understand physical therapy and to share that knowledge with the world.
Well, I am off to catch my flight. Let's hope we have beautiful, warm, San Diego weather....

Unique Clinical at Rockhurst

I think we have a really great PT program here at Rockhurst. All PT programs provide clinical internships or affiliations (known by many as clinicals) to their PT students. The students go and work in a clinical setting under direct supervision of a licensed physical therapist. A unique opportunity that we give to our students at Rockhurst is the option of choosing a very specialized clinical. We have a student currently who feels that he would like to end up teaching physical therapy one day, so we have given him the chance to have his last clinical in a faculty internship. He attends faculty meetings with us, has to plan and teach curriculum, and attend other meetings just as if he were part of our faculty. This week he has been doing some instructing in one of my labs. It is great to see him really thriving in his role as instructor. He is doing a great job and getting some really great experience that should benefit him in helping him decide if he really wants to continue with this goal and providing him with feedback for improvement and encouragement to continue.

A typical day in my life

People often mistake the number of classes taught with lack of work. When I tell them I am teaching two courses most assume that I am teaching for possibly a couple of hours every other day and sitting around the rest of time. Well, here is how my day went today (a typical day in my life):
7:00 am Arrived at Rockhurst (lots of parking available), Finalized agenda for Assessment Committee Meeting
7:35 am Worked on a Case Study for CSM presentation (CSM stands for Combined Sections Meeting. This is an annual meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association where researchers present and share their latest findings and generally enjoy coming together for a meeting of the minds and good camaraderie.)
9:00 am Interviewed a prospective PT Student
10:15 am finished interview, ran to bathroom (TMI), and collected materials for next meeting
10:30 am Musculoskeletal III Planning Meeting with Jim Dronberger, PT, DPT and Justin Trent, SPT and Gary Eichenberg, SPT our two graduate assistants.
11:00 am Assessment Committee Meeting with Drs. Jean Heibert, Jim Dronberger, and Brian McKiernan
12:00 pm Conference call with collaborators (Bob Latz, PT from Kentucky and Judy Deutsch, PT, PhD from New Jersey) to discuss and finalize our presentation at CSM in San Diego
1:00 pm Meeting with Brian McKiernan, PT, PhD to discuss computerized ontology mapping CAPTE objectives through the curriculum for our PT program
2:00 pm Worked on Poster for CSM
3:00 pm Met with Anne Pearce a faculty member from the Art Department to discuss collaboration on PT and Art Research/workshop
4:00 pm Worked on another poster for CSM
5:45 left Rockhurst
and I still have to edit a paper and study for the class I teach tomorrow AND I didn't even teach a single class today. I love my job.

Another month has left me

Where did it go? The month of November, did I have it? did I blink? where did it go? I remember coming and going to Rockhurst and teaching, I remember going to the clinic and treating patients, I remember receiving word that my paper written with Julia Chevan from Springfield College and Daniel Vreeman from Indiana University and Regenstrief Institute was accepted for publication in the Journal of Physical Therapy Education, I remember my twin boys turning 5 months old, and I even remember thinking that it was November already after thinking that October went by so quickly but I don't remember how November has come and gone and this being my one and only blog of the entire month.

I need to get better about, well, about everything. Sometimes I feel so spread thin. I did get a new app for my iPhone. It is a to-do list. I am hoping that it will help me become more organized and feel like I can be on top of things better than I am today. We will see in the next weeks if I am doing any better.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend.