Registration for the final two courses has taken place. Mental, physical and emotional preparation is next on my agenda. Although I have a pretty good idea about what my case report will be, I often question myself and my ability to develop a doctoral-level document capable of being published. The exhaustive literature search has been literally ...

The American Physical Therapy Association, Alexandria, VA, put out a press release yesterday detailing the role that therapy professionals and students played in helping victims of the tragic bombing at the Boston Marathon. The release stated: ''A team of 70 members of APTA's Massachusetts Chapter, stationed at the Boston Marathon finish line on ...

I read this article on NPR (National Public Radio) about how people of a certain age, which includes me, are less fit than their counterparts of two decades ago. How can this be? With all the advances in knowledge and availability of information, how can this group of people have missed the boat? Actually, we haven't missed the boat on ...

I'm traveling for work this week, my second ''business'' trip as a physical therapist. My employer is opening a new clinic in northern Wisconsin that also has a rehab staff member onsite, so I'm here finalizing the set-up and training the new staff member. I blogged last fall about my first experience traveling and I'm much more prepared for ...

This morning there was a patient on the floor so the request went out for lifting help. Four people responded, including me, a PTA, a male CNA and the patient's nurse. The patient was a big man, weak and in a narrow space so it wasn't going to be easy. As we were positioning ourselves to lift him the nurse stepped away. She said she didn't lift ...

One thing most people think of my schedule is that I have a very well-balanced work and personal life. Unfortunately, this isn't true. When I think of balance, I think of a controlled environment, even as obstacles get in the way. This is definitely not the case with me. Last week I realized that the week I'm in now would be one of the busiest ...

By now, many people have heard about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's attempt to combat obesity by limiting the size of soft drinks containing sugar. There has been both an aggressive ad campaign and a new ban on beverages over 16 ounces. He has quite a few professional voices backing these decisions. Today, though, a state Supreme ...

The formation of an abstract that's limited to 150 words is quite challenging, especially after performing an exhaustive literature search on several aspects of my patient case report. I'd even refer to the task as exhaustive, and I haven't even started writing the full body of the report. This is surely the most challenging assignment I've ...

Recently I took on another challenge, writing a CEU module. When I agreed to do it, I thought no problem. This is what I teach. I already have an outline and references. I can just fill in the words. After I started writing, I realized something. When I teach, I have lots of material to cover so spend little time on any one thing. The CEU module ...

Numerous case reports and journal articles later, I'm contemplating two separate case reports for my final project in the quest for my DPT. The position I'm in now is trying to decide between two trauma patients and their complicated surgical procedures, and the interesting approach taken to treat them. A while ago I had no idea what case to ...