MPTA Waves

The APTA House of Delegates is a crucial governing body for our profession, yet we may know very little about how it works. Dr. Kyle Covington [https://dpt.duhs.duke.edu/faculty-staff/core-faculty/j-kyle-covington], associate professor at Duke University and vice-speaker of APTA’s House of Delegates, tells us how it works, how it helps the profession, and even how his students get into the act.

Katharine and Andy were able to finally record together in person! And it was only a little weird! We bring you an audio highlight reel of the APTA Michigan 2021 Fall Conference, held at the Motor City Casino and Hotel in Detroit on October 15-16. It was a blast! We’re already looking forward to the next conference. Waves is hosted by Andy Wicks and Katharine Cline and produced by Andy Wicks. Theme music is by Mark Joesting [https://soundcloud.com/mark-joesting].

We continue our series on gender differences and disparities in the physical therapy profession with an interview with Dr. Karen Litzy, owner ofKaren Litzy Physical Therapy [https://karenlitzy.com/]in New York City, and host of theHealthy, Wealthy, and Smart [http://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com/]podcast, and creator of theWomen in Physical Therapy Summit [https://twitter.com/womeninptsummit?lang=en]. Dr. Litzy talks about her own winding career path, what inspired her to create and innovate, and why she feels it is so important to raise up other women as leaders in the industry. Seriously, it’s a great interview.

Waves returns with a new series discussing some of the differences, discrepancies, and disparities among genders in the physical therapy profession. We begin with a conversation with Dr. Marie Johanson [https://www.emorydpt.org/marie-a-johanson/], interim director of the Division of Physical Therapy at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, talking about her 2007 research article entitled “Sex differences in career expectations of physical therapist students. [https://academic.oup.com/ptj/article/87/9/1199/2742418]“ Music by Mark Joesting [https://soundcloud.com/mark-joesting] and Andy Wicks [https://soundcloud.com/user-921407158].

We conclude our series on physical therapists on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic with the second half of our round table discussion featuring Drs. Evan Haezebrouck, Stephanie Kostsuca, and Courtney Witczak. We talk about the benefit that PTs had in advocating for early mobility of patients that would have previously been considered “too sick for rehab,” the many “non-clinical” roles that PTs took on during the pandemic, and some personal notes about how the pandemic affected us. We hope you enjoy the discussion.