Physical Therapy student Nathan LaRosa recently shadowed GMCF physical therapist Dr. Kerry McCarthy as part of his studies. He provided the following summary of his experiences, reflecting on what he learned. If you’re interested in learning more about GMCF Physical Therapy, visit https://www.gmcfpt.life/
I reached out to you for two reasons: one, I needed an internship for my undergrad capstone experience and two, because I worked out at GMCF during the summer and winter prior, and I thought that it was a good facility to observe in because treatment wouldn’t be limited by the availability of equipment. I don’t think it could’ve worked out any better than it did.
I think that your approach was much more individualized than other PT’s. I noticed that you often would target certain results using different methods for different types of patients. For example, you would find if patients would come to the gym to do their own rehab or if they were going to be more likely to complete it at home. Additionally, you were very attentive to adapting programs to patients’ feedback about which exercises they found to be difficult to motivate themselves to do. This seemed to encourage much more honest and realistic patient feedback than I have seen in other practices. The biggest thing I took away in this aspect was when you said there is often one exercise that a patient doesn’t want to do, that they can do in a different way, that will keep them from doing all the others that they would have otherwise.
Another difference I noticed was your willingness to push patients to do exercises at a challenging intensity. This was most noticeable to me in how quickly people got in and out of needing treatment. In the other clinic I shadowed, patients were often seen multiple times a week for months. The autonomy you give patients coupled with the encouragement to push themselves definitely seemed to accelerate their recoveries.
The last difference was your discussion of pain as information not necessarily a hindrance to progress. The way that you explained pain science to patients reduced their fear about pain and gave them control over their condition. I think that you had a very good balance of embracing and listening to pain without letting it become problematic.
I really enjoyed that you were willing to talk with me in between patients and explain your thought process about each appointment. Throughout the summer this helped me practice recognizing what weakness might be present in a patient, causing a symptom or what might be a treatment exercise to target the problem. Additionally, I think that you do an amazing job transitioning between a wide range of patient needs which was great for me to see in a real introduction to physical therapy.
I want to say thank you for the ability to shadow you this summer. It has given me so much to talk about in my essays in terms of the qualities and habits I want to emulate when I become a PT and has also given me a strong background in the outpatient setting.
