DPT Portfolios

Professional Goal Statement:

It is my professional goal to work in many different ways to help create a community with improved health and wellness. I will work toward this goal as a physical therapist by being dedicated to staying up-to-date with current best-practice standards and refusing to become too comfortable in practice habits. I will also be active in my professional organizations and in local government to advocate for my patients and my community. I believe that we have the potential to realize a nation with better heath and that I am fortunate to be in a field that is uniquely poised to play a large role in this change. I am focused on the specialty of pelvic health currently because it is an area where I see a huge amount of need and potential to have a large impact. I plan to use this “see a need, fill a need” mentality to help find ways to improve the wellness of the community I live in. I also hope to empower those around me to work together to see this goal achieved on a larger scale.

 

Career Plan:

It is my plan to continue to hone my skills in an outpatient environment working with diverse patient populations while also providing high-quality pelvic health physical therapy. I aim to work in an environment that is supportive of collaboration and out-of the-box thinking that is patient-centered. As I grow in my knowledge and expertise as a therapist I would eventually like to take on more leadership opportunities that will afford me the ability to impact patient care from a larger scale. I am also interested in the potential of teaching opportunities that may arise in any of many different forms.

Career efforts to date:

• Began shadowing and volunteering for physical therapists after graduating high school in 2009.
• Began studying athletic training at the University of West Florida as an honors student.
  • Clinical experiences included:
    • Football coverage at Tate High School
    • Basketball coverage at Pensacola State College
    • Soccer coverage at University of West Florida
    • Clinic experience at PT Solutions
    • Clinic experience rehabilitating postoperative knees and shoulders with Scott Morrison, ATC.
  • Wrote honors thesis on treatment of frozen shoulder syndrome
• Worked in the fitness industry as a yoga instructor, personal trainer, and in customer service and building management from 2010 through 2015.
• Graduated from University of West Florida in May 2013 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Athletic training.
• Attained and have maintained certification as an athletic trainer since 2013.
• Worked as a tech/receptionist in a physical therapy clinic in Seward, AK in 2014.
• Began studies in Physical Therapy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 2015.
  • Clinical experiences included:
    • Outpatient orthopedic- John R Wallace PT in Nags Head, NC
    • Acute care/ICU- Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC
    • Neurological- UNC Center for Rehabilitative Care in Chapel Hill, NC
    • Pelvic Floor- UNC Rex Hospital Outpatient Clinic in Raleigh, NC
  • Elective coursework:
    • Advanced orthopedics
    • Teaching assistant for Gross Anatomy
    • Service learning focusing on social determinants of health, community wellness, and interdisciplinary teams.
  • Tyrrell county service learning trips in 2017 and 2018.
  • UNC Graduate and Professional Student Federation Senator representing the Physical Therapy Program 2016-2017.
  • Herman and Wallace Pelvic Floor I course, October 2017
  • NCPTA Fall Conference, October 2017

 

Self-Assessment: 

Strengths

As a therapist, I believe that my strengths lie in my ability to connect with patients, to listen to what they are expressing as their need, and to do my best to provide interventions that will appropriately address these needs. I am willing to recognize when I am not the most qualified person to help, and I am willing to work cooperatively with whatever network of care providers are or need to be assembled for a given patient’s care. Having exposure to many different regions, cultures, and backgrounds I find that I am able to relate well to many diverse personalities and that I can meet people right where they are. I am also a determined person, who does not give up easily and will attack each challenge as an opportunity to learn something new that may not only help the patient I am treating, but that will likely help others in the future.

Areas for Professional Development

I would like to continue to learn about neurological development and disorders because I know that this information is important for every patient I will treat. The brain is a very complicated but magnificent thing and I want to be able to understand it on an even deeper level because it is the control center. I believe that if we want to truly impact a person’s health we cannot get tunnel vision on any one part of the body and forget the power that the brain has in the healing process of the body. As we live in a nation that has a large problem with chronic pain and abuse of opioid drugs, I would like to understand more about how the nervous system plays a role in pain. I want to use this information to better treat my patients and understand how we can have impact at the community level.

 

Objectives:

• Graduate from UNC DPT program August 2018
• Pass the Federation of State Board Physical Therapy Examination October 2018
• Begin working in an outpatient clinic in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area where I can practice pelvic health and orthopedic physical therapy November 2018
• Become an APTA women’s health board specialist within 3 years
• Become an APTA credentialed clinical instructor within 5 years
• Become certified in dry needling within 5 years
• Take on leadership roles within my practice or within my professional organization on a local level within 10 years.
• Focus a portion of my energy on education at the local, state, national or international level based on need and opportunity within 20 years of practice.

Specific Strategies:

• Review program information in a comprehensive fashion and focus study efforts on areas of weakness in order to pass board exams on the first attempt.
• Use networking and research to find a position in my area and highlight my qualifications for the position through applications and interviewing.
• Take Herman and Wallace Pelvic floor 2a and 2b to further expertise in pelvic health.
• Maintain a full-time caseload made up of at least 50% pelvic health cases.
• Take credentialing course through the APTA to become a credentialed clinical instructor.
• Take Dr. Mao’s Dry Needling Foundations course.
• I will determine what leadership opportunities are available and appropriate based on the need of my community and take the appropriate steps to demonstrate my value for said position by going above and beyond on a regular basis.
• There is value in education at all levels and I do not know at this time what opportunity will make the most impact 20 years from now, but I will keep my ears open for opportunities to apply my passion for educating to a larger audience than just my patients.

 

Work Samples:

• Along with my classmate, Natalie Stein, I created a business plan for a hypothetical small outpatient clinic that would focus on a holistic approach to orthopedic care and included pelvic floor physical therapy services. I believe this project is an example of my goals and values in patient care.

Business Plan: BlueRidgePhysicalHealthAlliance

• My capstone project is in the form of an interactive website aimed at educating about current and relevant health-care related topics. It is also a forum for patients to have a voice in the conversation about care standards and reform.

Capstone: https://dptcapstone.web.unc.edu/category/current-students-spring-of-2018/entry-level-dpt/tritz-keeli/

 

Reflective statement:

My dream to become a physical therapist started in 2008 when I was still in high-school. As I sit here reflecting on the journey that the last ten years have been to reach this point, I am so very grateful. I am grateful to my high-school teachers who made me believe that I could attain any goal I put my mind to. I am grateful that I chose to study athletic training at the University of West Florida and for all of the knowledge I gained there that I will use in my career as a physical therapist. I am also so completely grateful that I am one of the lucky few to be able to say that I learned how to be a physical therapist at the University on North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

The faculty and staff at UNC have challenged me to look at PT in a way which I did not before. I have been unwavering over the last 10 years in my goal to help people attain better health but was not aware of how many different ways I could achieve that goal within the context of the profession I have chosen. UNC gave me a new appreciation for my profession. It taught me that I am a part of a powerful organization that is willing to use our numbers to advocate for members of our communities. It has taught me that physical wellness is not achieved without treating a person rather than just a diagnosis. It taught me that there are so many different ways to help people and that education and empowerment are great tools that we can give people. UNC taught me to value the importance of research and working with other disciplines.

When beginning this program I viewed the difference between an athletic trainer and a physical therapist as simply the difference between being capable of treating athletes for athletic injuries vs being able to treat patients with a variety of different diagnoses and different activity levels. While I still have a huge amount of respect for what athletic trainers do, I now understand that my doctoral level of education allows me more than just the opportunity to effectively rehabilitate a broader variety of patients. I now understand that we are prepared to be the initial point of contact for a variety of physical ailments and that when we are effective, we can help improve long-term health outcomes. I understand that we are responsible for helping to gather evidence about the effectiveness of our interventions so they can be easily accessed by everyone. Finally, I understand that we must help lead the movement of preventative rather than responsive care in order to help improve the health of our nation as a whole. I see myself taking these lessons and using them to play whatever part I am able in the movement toward better healthcare for all. I will always want to treat patients, but I will also use other outlets such as the website I designed for my capstone to work toward the “big picture” goal in the best way I can.

 

 

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