PT Informer Spring/Summer 2023 Edition

Warm Greetings to All,

I hope that this edition of the PT Informer finds you all doing well and enjoying your respective rewarding careers as physical therapists. Here at Daemen College...oops, I mean...Daemen University (old habits die hard), we have been very busy as a department and faculty in teaching, scholarship, service, and practice. The NYS charter change for Daemen to move from a college to a university this past year has been long awaited and we are all very excited about it. I firmly believe that as an institution, we have functioned like a university for many years, and we are now just receiving the recognition for it.

Our PT class student body continues to be the pride and joy of the department faculty and their presence on campus and in the community as ambassadors of our program is nothing short of being richly rewarding to watch and be a part of. You will read about all that the students do around community service and outreach. Thanks to the SPTA and the mentorship of this association by our faculty, Daemen’s PT program continues to support the APTA’s Core Values of altruism and compassion. You will further learn about select students who were recognized at the university’s Annual Excellence Awards Ceremony. Numerous alumni are recognized in this edition and we are so very proud of each of their accomplishments. To all, please share with the department regularly all the great things you each are doing as we would love to include you in future editions.

Drs. Pamela Bartlo, Kira Eimiller, and Colleen Corcoran joined our PT family in the fall of 2022 with Bartlo and Eimiller contributing as core faculty members and Corcoran as Associate Director of Clinical Education. In this issue you will read about all of their highly respected and admired accomplishments to date and what each of them positively brings to our program.

Ongoing scholarly productivity is an important responsibility and priority of our core PT faculty. This issue will highlight current peer-reviewed scholarly disseminations by the faculty as well as our students. As such, these scholarly products are often in combination with our student-based capstone research projects. We hold our ‘Evidence-Based Clinical Research Symposium’ every year on the first Saturday in December whereby the students present a platform of their capstone research project. I highly encourage you to attend as you will be impressed with the caliber of research the students conduct and you also will receive continuing education units (CEU’s) for your PT license renewal for your participation.

I am very proud to report that our graduates continue to perform well on the National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE) as evident by our current two-year average pass rate for DPT graduates at 95%. Additionally, we continue to be able to report 100% job placement for our graduates. If you are looking to add to your rehabilitation team, please send me an email (gford@daemen.edu) with the details of the job opening and I would be happy to share it with the last 3-5 years of our graduates.

In closing, on behalf of the PT faculty at Daemen, we thank you for your continued support of our program and our students. As we regularly analyze and revise our program, your input is extremely important to us. Please reach out at any time and share feedback that you feel may assist us in promoting the most contemporary evidence-based curriculum possible, and the persistence of the 45+ year legacy of graduating expectational entry-level PT’s from our program.

Be Well to Live Well,
Greg
Professor, Chair PT Department & Director of the DPT Program