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“Simple Actions Can Be Life Changing”
In 1980, I was working in Buffalo, NY to pay my school bills. I had little money. I was 25 years old and wanted to touch people with vulnerabilities in a powerful way. I had been a physical therapy aide at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (now called Shirley Ryan Ability Lab) and felt a call to help those with physical problems.
I had been working for a private practice (owned by three physical therapists), and thought it was great learning while I paid my bills and was going to school for physical therapy. I thought I was way ahead of my classmates. They were younger, and didn’t need to work to pay for their schooling.
Lucky or unlucky for me, one weekend, while attending a required seminar, I heard a physical therapist talk about treating the spine. Her examinations and treatments were the complete opposite approach of what I was learning in school and at the clinic where I was working. Who was this physical therapist and how could she be on a completely different page than everyone I had so far encountered?
I went up to speak to her during a break, and this simple action changed my life and my commitment to care, overnight! I asked her where she worked and if I could see her work. The semester was to end in 4 weeks. I, typically, went back to Long Island in the summers to dig clams and work on fishing boats to pay my bills, but I knew I could postpone this and decided to stay up in Buffalo and work with Beverly Stewart, PT, for 2 weeks.
Watching her evaluate and commit to each patient she met was new to me. I thought I knew what good care was, since I had been working in a private practice, (which she also had), but I was wrong! Until I saw this therapist evaluate, and commit to finding every way possible to help her patients, I had been actually learning to be just an average practitioner without even knowing that there was a difference!
Beverly Stewart asked me after these 2 weeks to work for her. (She actually re-arranged her schedule so I could work with her the mornings and afternoons I was available.) These actions, both on her part and my part, changed my life and eventually, helped make me the physical therapist I am. Her training and mentorship contributed to my starting our private practice 18 years later in the Michiana Community that I have learned to call home.
A physical therapist who has been in this community a long time and is knowledgeable in the physical therapy world, asked me once, “What is real and what is just “urban legend”? This surprised me. Apparently, he had been hearing stories about our care and some of the results that he didn’t think could be true. How could we have saved patients with excruciating back and leg pain and weakness, from surgery? How could we expect and typically achieve getting a patient with a frozen shoulder relief and full motion, on average, within 3 months? How could we take most athletes and get them back to playing as quickly as we do? He thought that these stories, though they have been told for over 36 years, could not have been true. Or could they have?
My mentor years ago opened my mind to the importance of continuous learning and caring for each patient. She opened my mind to teach each physical therapist in my practice the importance of this unusual system. She is still alive today. I continually try to look at each patient in the way she taught me, approximately 44 years ago.
I think many people don’t know that there can be a difference in how they are evaluated and treated. I, myself, hadn’t known that until I had met Bev. I am glad that we have not sold out to corporate physical therapy or hospitals, and that we are still treating our patients in the way that Bev taught me.
Are these challenging times for the small businesses and especially, physical therapy private practices? Absolutely. Nevertheless, I believe, though it may go unnoticed, that there is a difference in our care!
If you think or feel that you are not being treated as you would like or if your gut is telling you that you deserve better, feel free to call and find out how different our care is from the one you may have been dealing with. I promise you that our care is real and is not an “urban legend.”
Enjoy the journey,
Fran McDonald President/CEO
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