An Inspiring Day (February 11, 2009)

From Rachael Bloom ‘07…

The excitement of unveiling the new brand for the physical therapy profession Tuesday night continued Wednesday. Leading up to this trip, I must admit I was quite intimidated about the scale of, not only this city, but the convention itself. Even in these past few days, I have started to take ownership of the profession that I’m about to enter.  When wandering through the exhibit hall, we ran into an acquaintance of my mom’s. She’s a physical therapist from Indianapolis and summed up the conference quite well: “It is incredible to be surrounded by so many people who are so passionate and dedicated to their career.”  It’s impossible to not be inspired.  We saw more of the new PT gadgets and technology and experienced some different therapy techniques.

Speaking of technology, Wednesday afternoon I attended a presentation about the use of the Nintendo Wii, other video games, and virtual reality in therapy. This session was very cool. Even though I had heard of a Wii being used, it presented what we need to know to actually use it with patients.  Overall, Wednesday was a lot different than Tuesday. Our group split up more to tackle the issues that interest us individually. It was fun reuniting and sharing what we had learned. I hope this feeling of collaboration is something that we can continue to apply throughout the rest of our program.

For dinner, we found an early two-for-one buffet and paired up for some “student-friendly-priced” food.  Now off to more sightseeing and walking, then resting up for our last day in Vegas!