Doctor of Physical Therapy faculty from Boston program to represent Tufts University in the most prominent physical therapy conference of the year

Five Tufts DPT-Boston program faculty will represent the program at the upcoming American Physical Therapy Association’s Combined Sections Meeting (CSM) hosted in San Antonio, TX, on February 3-6, 2022. The faculty—which include Brandon Ness, PT, DPT, PhD, SCS, Alicia O’Hara, PT, DPT, Neeti Pathare, PT, PhD, Carla Sabus, PT, PhD, and Craig Wassinger, PT, PhD—have a combined 12 different peer-reviewed educational or research sessions being presented.

“This is an annual national conference with over 20,000 attendees each year,” said Pathare, whose research about multisystem physical therapy interventions for an individual post COVID symptoms will be presented at the meeting. “As a profession, we advocate and are passionate about lifelong learning. Presenting at this conference aligns with our program’s commitment to contributing to the physical therapy field. Presenting at CSM is a privilege as it offers an opportunity to disseminate work to a diverse group of clinicians, researchers, and students. In addition, it allows one to receive feedback to further your research. Most importantly, this conference offers an unparalleled opportunity to broaden one’s professional network and development.”

Carla Sabus will host an educational breakout session titled “Courageous Feedback: Saying What Needs to be Said for Personal and Organizational Learning,” where speakers will present and offer the opportunity to practice strategies and frameworks for feedback in planned educational settings.

“Feedback is an area of interest for me,” said Sabus. “I think this is an important topic in the educational and clinical formation of students and for organizations that are striving for improvement through a culture of feedback and learning.”

Wassinger will contribute to three different educational sessions related to his primary scholarly themes, pain science and the promotion of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs).

“I am fortunate to contribute with four other authors to describe how we use and promote CPGs in our teaching,” said Wassinger. “In two of the sessions, we will present our philosophies and approaches for the use of CPGs across several clinical practice areas within entry-level and residency training. Lastly, I am part of a team promoting a newly published ‘Pain Education Manual’ for physical therapist educators. This is a one-day train the trainer type workshop to help educators implement pain science in physical therapist education.”

Ness’ education session will be on “Knee Strength Outcomes in Adolescents,” and O’Hara’s poster presentation is titled, “Knowledge Translation of the Core Outcomes CPG Across Physical Therapy Settings: A Collaborative Approach.”

“Our program just completed our first year, and our faculty have dedicated so much time and focus on building this program—seeing our Tufts DPT-Boston faculty’s research being represented at CSM is an impressive feat,” said Megan Donaldson, DPT-Boston program director. “CSM is the biggest physical therapy conference in the country. Many of the Tufts DPT-Boston faculty, as well as several Tufts DPT students, will be in attendance for this conference.”