Hey classmates,
I want to do 3 things with this post today. First, I want to educate. I don’t think many PT students think about advocacy for our profession until we get out if school (if ever). The second, I want to encourage advocacy, not by telling you to do things, because that doesn’t work, but by showing you what it does for you as a professional. Third, I want to create discussion. I am new to the PT social media world and I am not in school yet so I want to bring in the big hitters that have been fighting for our profession for a long time. With these 3 points I hope to provide a sweeping answer to the question Why should We care?

Educate:
What is advocacy? How can I be a part? Advocacy is the act of pleading for, supporting or recommending something. In the physical therapy world that something could be one of many hot topics: direct access, fair reimbursement, patient rights, or just a different way to think.

How can we be a part of it?
To answer thus question we have to first answer the question of who are we pleading to, what are we supporting and what are we recommending?. We are pleading with legislatures, our friends, families, fellow classmates and one day our patients. We are supporting the freedom of the best possible healthcare for the patient, which as physical therapy students means that we must believe that our care is both cost effective and beneficial for the patient.
Knowing that we are dealing with not only legislature but regular people in our everyday loves means that there are multiple ways to advocate. Just like you might advocate for your favorite restaurant or the gym you workout at, you tell the people around you in everyday conversation the benefits, perks…selling it. This is what we can do as students, sell our profession to our friends and family.
We can also do the obvious and get involved on a state and national level by sending letters and attending conferences.

So why do we care?
Why not just get a fun job and punch the clock and go home, why pay attention to the news, social media, legislation? This is not just a question for the physical therapist but a relevant one for any profession. Why are we going through school? Because we love physical therapy! We love helping people, seeing results, getting people mobile and back to life! That’s why! And because we are going into healthcare if we want to do that we need to advocate for our profession or we will get trampled by insurance companies, physician owned PT practices..the list goes on.
We care for our friends and patients who want to get better, for our communities and honestly for our country’s healthcare.

We as PT students are in an awesome position to take a lead in this. When the youngest kid in the family starts getting passionate and organizing with his older brothers and sister to go to Disney Land, the whole family feels that..

I’m not telling you to do anything, I think that happens to much, I’m hear to say if we really care about what we love then we will fight for it.

Discuss:
Let’s talk, leave a comment or tweet at me@zduhammy

Hope this is helpful 🙂