STEPHANIA BELL PT, OCS, CSCS 

“Don’t let others determine your path.”

What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student or young professional entering the “real world?”

Follow your passion. It may be simple, but this mantra has guided me along my professional path from the moment I left college, perhaps even slightly before. When I was in the final semester of my senior year in college, it seemed as if everyone was heading down one of three primary paths: Wall Street, law school, or medical school (of course there were numerous other options but these three seemed to dominate the choices among graduating seniors). By that point I had decided I would rather pursue physical therapy, but in the “pre-med” counselors’ office, that was not a topic they were prepared to discuss. Although I had taken my pre-med requirements, there were a number of other courses I would need in order to apply to PT school. And while it was not overtly stated, there was a not-so-subtle suggestion that I was somehow failing by not applying to medical school. I tried to explain that my work in the training room throughout college had swayed me towards the rehab aspect of medicine, but I received very little guidance or support for that decision. Intuitively, I knew I would be most successful pursuing a career I loved, even if it was not the one others perceived to be the most lucrative or most prestigious. I followed my passion and spent the following year taking additional courses and working as an aide in a physical therapy clinic. When I enrolled in physical therapy school at the University of Miami a year later, I knew I had made the right choice for me. I never looked back.

Years later, I sensed an opportunity to carve a new path in the world of fantasy football. Despite multiple people telling me there was no way I would actually get paid to talk about injuries in sports, I continued to press forward, pitching my idea of “injury analysis” to anyone and everyone in the business who was willing to hear me out. I saw it as an opportunity to combine my passion for physical therapy and education with my passion for sports. I firmly believe that my determination to pursue a personally meaningful path helped convince others to take a chance on me.

Follow your passion. Those three words will lead to a career that is both fulfilling and rewarding because it is you who are charting the course.

ADRIAAN LOUW PT, PhD 

“Don’t look back and realize you were very busy yet accomplished nothing you set out to do. Let the main thing be the main thing.”

How has failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure?”

My favorite commencement speech to give is about the word NO — which coincidentally is the symbol for nitric oxide (which opens blood vessels and gets people going). My life is about that. I’ve failed on numerous levels, but this has spurred me to keep going. For PT-specific failures, I failed to get into PT school, and only after a last-minute withdrawal, got in. I failed my final PT exam, which required me to study/work for six additional months (remediation) to take the exam again. During this remediation process, I was paired with the spine instructor, which changed my life and taught me an amazing foundation in spinal manual therapy and clinical reasoning. This ultimately drove me to spinal pain, and eventually, chronic pain. I have been rejected on so many levels when it comes to grants, submitted papers, “secret” manual therapy and institutional clubs… but every time it happens, I just do what my parents taught me, keep my head down and keep going.

MICHAEL REINOLD PT, DPT, SCS, ATC, CSCS, C-PS

 “Don't proclaim false expertise. Just share your journey.”

If you could get a message out to all physical therapy or health professional students with regards to any topic, what would it be and why?

We have a bigger impact on quality of life than we often realize. The problem is the general public doesn't necessarily understand this yet, either. The public thinks our profession is there for them after they get injured or after they have a surgery. An important message for us to get out into the world is that physical therapists are just as good for prevention as we are for rehabilitation. Just like you go see your dentist preventively, or you get your car checked routinely to keep it running well, prevention is key. 

SHIRLEY SAHRMANN PT, PhD, FAPTA

“I learned a lot and I learned how to learn.”

What is your favorite or most memorable class/course that comes to mind and why? 

I probably have to say the anatomy course in PT school. It was a dissection course, and in those days, there was little to teach so we had dissection all day Tuesday and Thursday. The instructor was very elegant, strict, and actually became a mentor of mine. She was slowly working on her PhD in anatomy, which is not even possible to obtain anymore. We were in class so much that I thought I would never smell right again and that my hands were permanently preserved because we did not use gloves in those days. Occupational therapists took the course with us, and I ended up teaching them, which was how I learned the material. It was also emotionally challenging because my brother had just been killed, and the dissection part made me think about him and death. I remember calling my mother and saying, “I cannot do this,” and she said, “Yes you can.” My mother was not one for advice, but this time her positive statement made me take hold and deal with the emotional challenges. That course not only provided a background for most of what I needed to know for PT, but also for a pattern of persevering, which was reawakened nine years later in graduate school as I referenced earlier. Because there was very little instruction in actual treatment techniques, anatomy and kinesiology provided the basis upon which I developed treatment programs. That has served me well throughout my career.