Transcript
Marla: Welcome Mason. It's such a pleasure to have you here today.
Mason: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Looking forward to it.
Marla: It's very exciting for me because I was looking through the APTA magazine and as we should be doing as physical therapist, and I saw this great award, which was the A PTA 2024 Outstanding Student Award, and it was you
Mason: Yeah, I guess that was me.
Marla: Yeah. So I wanted to know a little bit more about what that award is and if you could tell me a little bit more about the award.
Mason: So yeah, the Outstanding APTA student award. I, it's awarded by the student assembly at the APTA and there's like a application slash nomination process where you write a couple essays and get a couple letters of rec.
And so went through that process. I have some great support system in my corner, whether it be my faculty slash advisors who wrote letters of rec or just family and friends in general, and was almost a byproduct of my support systems was honored to receive that award. And recognition.
Marla: Wow, that's fantastic.
Mason: Thank you. Thank you.
Marla: And what prompted you to want to do that? Was there any personal experience that really wanted you to do that pro bono community service?
Mason: I feel like just giving back to the community was always something I've been passionate about, especially in Columbus, my hometown. Love it. But specific, that specific niche. I was like, I was a tech and undergrad and PT school and there was a neuro wellness program, and then there's a couple health systems in Ohio and Columbus that have neuro wellness programs. They're really good, but they are expensive, so with. Populations that necessarily don't have as much financial resources.
I wanted to create a pro bono version and also provide like accessible spaces, adaptive equipment, and like the physical help which was carried out through some volunteers from Ohio State students. So just saw the great impact that it has from like a healthcare system and wanted to go pro bono with it to try to reduce more barriers to.
Wellness.
Marla: And you said that you had some really good mentorship along the way. Can you tell me more about who or what was the mentorship that guided you to be able to implement this program?
Mason: Yeah. The fellowship. So we, I was in a cohort of five other professional or graduate students and everyone had their own project.
So we would all collaborate and problem solve if we ran into barriers. There was a director who really. Helped us develop like a better understanding of socioeconomic disparities so that we could actively address them. My PT school advisor, Ann Klu legend she also was a big, catalyst in everything and supported me.
So whenever I needed someone to fall back on or anything, she was always available to help support me.
Marla: Great. And you knew you wanted to go into neuro rehab when you went into PT school, or is that something you realized after?
Mason: Like I said, I worked as a tech in. Outpatient neuro, and we did a lot of work with people living with spinal cord injury.
And so I originally, like most PTs, you have your sports injury, you want to go into sports, and then started working in neuro as an undergrad tech, almost as a resume builder and fell in love with it. So I knew going into PT school that I wanted to go into neuro.
Marla: Yeah, it's so rewarded.
I remember my neuro experiences and being able to help those patients that really are in a vulnerable time.
Mason: Definitely. Definitely.
Marla: And what other leadership awards did you hold in school? I assume you probably had a few and any other additional award or not awards, leadership roles that you had in school?
Mason: I was the vice chair of our pro bono physical therapy clinic, so that was like a student ran for uninsured individuals in Columbus that our class would provide services for under like supervision of. Pt.
Marla: So tell me more about the adaptive endeavor. What inspired you to do it? What helped you launch it?
Tell me more about it.
Mason: Yeah, so it was a part of the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, which I was a part of, and we had to do the 200 hours of community service project and I was looking for something, a way to give back to Columbus, my hometown and community. 'cause I went to Ohio State for PT school and.
There were wellness programs through Ohio State and Ohio Health. But they all costed out-of-pocket money. So I wanted to take what they were doing and make it a pro bono. And I'd also volunteered with the Empower SEI program in Missoula, Montana. So I like molded adaptive endeavors to be a fitness version of the rehab that they provide at their program, and expose individuals living with neurologic disabilities to adaptive sports, personalized fitness regimens, education.
Exposure, like mental, he pro bono mental health services and it was all student ran. So the goal was to eliminate like the four biggest barriers to physical activity for individuals living with spinal cord injury originally, which were accessible spaces, adaptive equipment, physical assistance and costs.
So we got rid of costs for physical assistance. I, throughout my year tenure doing it, we had over 26 volunteers that would come and help with hands-on assist during like our. Fitness classes. And then the space. We used a parks and rec space from Columbus that had adaptive equipment and accessible space that a lot of adaptive sports are played at.
So tried to reduce those barriers and had a ton of help from some awesome volunteers. I was mentored through the fellowship, how to address the socioeconomic determinants of health and then actually make an action plan and implement it. My advisor from PT school, Ann Klu, she was always very supportive if I needed any resources or someone to just relay ideas off of if I was stuck.
She was always super supportive. Yeah, that's what I did for the year. And then it is still running. It's, it is, yeah. So it's still up, it's being ran by students at Ohio State still. I think to date it's served around 40 to 50 individuals with neurologic disabilities, and there's been around 50 volunteers or something as well.
I like that aspect of. Giving some students some experience, hands-on experience and also serving the population which it intended to serve.
Marla: It's great to know that something that you built that legend still lives on and you have additional students now being able to take advantage of that and being part of that pro bono community.
Mason: Definitely.
Marla: So great to know it's still going. It was the
Mason: longevity that was the hardest part was how are we gonna it's okay that if I'm doing it for a year, but we had to problem solve how to get people in and out and training and whatnot. So
Marla: yeah, it's
Mason: good to see it still going for sure.
Marla: Great.
Now for our clinic owners out there you are a highly touted individual, right? You are the outstanding student. So love to pick your brain a little bit about that. What are you looking for, or what did you look for into your first role after graduating? PT school? What are you looking for in an Organization to be able to foster all of that passion that you brought as a student.
Mason: Out of PT school, I knew I wanted to develop more as a clinician, so I applied to residencies. I'm currently a neurologic resident at Shirley Ryan Ability Lab and Northwestern University, so I wanted that mentorship and also the clinical experience with complex patients and a.
Big hospital. So So the mentorship was huge for me originally. And then also just having avenues to do things other than patient care. Like I love patient care. I don't wanna leave patient care. But the teaching, mentoring, the research, mentoring, just to have other avenues to. Go on into the future. So I think as I left PT school, I wanted the mentorship and the experience with residency and then following residency and on like just the flexibility in my schedule to partake in teaching and partake in research projects, initiatives.
Also have some patient care time. So probably a lot to ask, but I guess can't hurt to ask. The worst they can say is no.
Marla: Yeah. And how did you end up siding on that residency program? What was it about that residency program that really attracted you?
Mason: I met with. A couple of the directors, like at CSM or at the A NPT conferences, and when I was like, trying to figure out where I wanted to apply, just it's cliche, but everyone's get to know, like you're interviewing the program too.
And I only applied to two programs and I wasn't gonna do a residency necessarily just to do a residency. Like I wanted to actually love the program that I was going to and the facilities that surely the directors even like during interviews, meeting the mentors, which in hindsight, the, I've. Loved all of my mentors.
They've been fantastic. So shout out to all the mentors, but yeah, I just gravitated towards the, and the patient population that they have there.
Marla: Yeah. And I done many research projects recently on burnout and looking at how that affects students and individuals going into the PT program. And it's great to see that there are avenues that you can continue to get mentorship and leadership.
'cause we've seen that to be a very important piece of. Diminishing burnout and letting you grow professionally. So you've shown a really great passion for leadership and as you just said, some nonclinical roles while also keeping patient care in mind. So as you continue to go on and become part of an organization as.
Post-residency program, what are you looking for and what are they gonna have that's gonna help foster that leadership and that drive that you have inside you?
Mason: I think it's like the big triad, the patient care, a hospital system research, and, teaching involvement or education and just having the opportunities to grow.
'cause if you go somewhere that doesn't have them, those are just what I'm interested in. I'm not necessarily super looking to go into management or things like that, but having different avenues to go different ways.
Marla: So are you looking for organizations with a career ladder? How important are those pieces?
And really when you do go to your next role, what are you gonna ask? What kind of questions to make sure that you're finding an organization that's really gonna help you flourish?
Mason: Yeah, moving up into more. Like clinical coordinator roles, like leading kind of standards of care within an organization would be something I'd be interested in.
Like that opportunity to standardize pet care and try to better make better practice within that for whatever population that may be. And, like team leads,
Marla: do you wanna go on to get any additional specialty certifications or what kind of additional education do you wanna receive?
Mason: I'm just focused on the NCS for right now, so we'll see.
I wouldn't completely rule out anything after, but as of now, I'm just content with the NCS, but. Who knows, maybe after a year of just chilling out for a little bit, get a little antsy and go back and get something.
Marla: And as, as you said before, you don't really wanna go into management, you wanna stay into clinical care and grow professionally in clinical care.
So how would you, what are you looking for that will help you do that?
Mason: I feel like. Being a part of an institution that will be research, like involved in research and that puts out things for other organizations that makes sense. Like coming to CSM, you see a lot of great names on the presentations and just trying to, whether it's help develop a system that isn't already presenting and try to get their name out there and try to like, promote whatever we're doing in our clinic.
Versus, or just continuing that with the. Systems that do that strongly already.
Marla: And how important are organizations that are gonna support you to give presentations at national conferences, to partake in research studies, and tell me how that comes into play.
Mason: Yeah, absolutely. Want the see you days, the see you support financially.
And then like personally, just allowing you to also have your own personal life as well. Like you've talked about with the burnout, like I still wanna do things outside of pt. Pt, iss fun. It's great, but it's also nice to go hiking in the mountains or do something else as well.
Marla: And if you had a choice between a.
A really high pay job that makes you see a lot more patients and maybe doesn't have. Some of that ability where you could teach and do research or a less paying job that does allow you to foster your clinical professional career, which would you choose?
Mason: I think if you would've asked me graduating, I would've been like, let's make some money.
Let's make some money. But now being in the thick of residency and taking the pay cut to go to residency and the amazing experiences I'm getting at Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, it's like I don't dread going into work. Like it's just fun, it's stimulating. I'm busy running around like a madman all day at work, and it's just so stimulating and like intellectually stimulating the job's fun, which I think is what it's supposed to be.
After being in residency, I'm like, I want. To like what I do every day, and even if it's a little extra work outside of clinic or whatnot it's well worth going into clinic and loving what you do as cliche as that is. But
Marla: no, I love that. I absolutely agree. And we continue to tell clinic owners how important their mission, their vision and what they support professionally for their clinicians to be able to do and to be able to grow in clinician care and how important that is to gaining loyalty and trust and keeping. Your clinicians working there?
Mason: Yeah, definitely. We all care about the patients.
We wanna provide the best care, but you want to be in a system that sets you up to do the best that you can do. Yeah. And not be limited by resources.
Marla: And how important is mentorship? You come outta the residency program. And then you start working. Do you still want and seek out that mentorship or provide.
Mentoring. How important is that to you? I
Mason: think it's both. I'd love to be a mentor in a residency program or take students as a CI or things like that. But at the same time, I don't think I'm gonna graduate from residency, hopefully graduate from residency in September and know everything or take the NCS and know everything.
Like I want to continue to develop, we say lifelong learners all the time, and it's real, I guess we, you have to, or which is why we come to CSM and things like that. But I definitely want to be in, its. Place where there's people I learn from and there's people with their specialties and their niche prac practices and learn from them.
Marla: Do you have any student friends that ended up going into outpatient facilities or any kind of job and decided that it actually wasn't the right fit for them and maybe took a higher pay and didn't get the mentorship? Tell me a little bit about that.
Mason: Yeah, I would say I have some friends from PT school and.
That went different routes whether it be acute care outpatient, seeing three patients a day versus one-to-one. And I think if we've talked about with the burnout, I think I see the burnout through some of my peers from school who are seeing 15, 20 patients a day. And even though they are making a little more money than maybe they.
Even then they thought they got their signing bonus. I don't think, I don't think they're loving it from what they're telling me, but I don't wanna speak for them.
Marla: And where do you see yourself in three, five years, 10 years? What do you wanna do in this profession?
Mason: Three to five years, man, I don't even know.
I'm just, but three I like, I'd like to be a team lead, be. In a leadership position of sorts, but more of a clinical leadership position. Be at least adjunct at a PT program. And yeah, keep been involved in research. I've done some work with blood flow restriction with spinal cord injury. Had a great practicum experience in Las Vegas for that and.
And for my residency research requirement, we're gonna, I'm gonna continue to work on that. So continuing to seek out interventions that I'm passionate about and believe in and see if they work and if they do share them with others.
Marla: What are some key obstacles that you are seeing in the physical therapy field or that you think you may end up facing, and how can you think you can overcome those?
Mason: So I feel like the biggest barrier would be like efficiency with our work from a more. Legislative standpoint, like reimbursement rates are not trending well for us, but I'd still think I like pt. Most people like their job, even though we may or may not be compensated as much as we would like, but I don't think we should be, it should be more efficient.
Like documentation should be more efficient. It should be more streamlined. If we're scheduled eight 30 to nine or eight 30 to nine, nine to five, hopefully try to actually be in and out of those hours. 'cause I feel as a profession, it's been normalized that we get there early and we stay a little late or we're taking work home to document and streamlining those things.
Yeah.
Marla: So you're saying you don't wanna take documentation home, huh? Yeah,
Mason: believe it or not, believe it or not.
Marla: Yeah, absolutely. Are you thinking about innovative ways that you can help decrease that documentation? Is that something that matters to you in looking for a job? What EMR they're using or what kind of AI tools?
Mason: Yeah. As a student and now, 'cause I am also employed, PRN in Columbus still. So if I'm home for an extended amount of time, I can try to pick up like a holiday or something. So using different documentations at Shirley Ryan and Ohio Health. And Epic, or having smart phase phrases. Those things are huge.
And just your efficiency and your efficacy, like how effective your documentation is. 'cause when I have to type it out every time, or don't get to use like a specific smart phrase, maybe it's not as representative of. What actually is occurring and supports the patient from an insurance standpoint at home in Columbus, my managers started to integrate AI or not integrate it into Epic, but started to take the first steps of how whatever that's gonna look like, when it hopefully inevitably makes it into patient care to help streamline documentation and make it more efficient.
Marla: Great. What are your thoughts on ai?
Mason: We'll see, I don't know. We don't, it's not. We're not using it yet. So
Marla: if there was a clinic that was using more advanced technology tools and ai would that be more attractive to you as a employee? I think
Mason: it's either or. If it, if they could train me on it and how to use it, I don't think I'm necessarily an expert on it by any means.
If they could train me how to use it and it makes our life and job easier and it doesn't affect our. Co. Like it's not too costly in that realm, then sure. Let's do it like,
Marla: and what advice can you give to organizations out there, clinic owners? I know right now hiring and retention is a hot topic and something that they are all kind of fighting for.
So what is your advice to them about how they get somebody like you, who is a really outstanding student who's doing a residency program, who wants to grow professionally? What's your advice to them?
Mason: Yeah. Retention's huge. I feel like. There's growth, there's a lot of systems that have great growth opportunities and positions to move up and, but I feel like maybe they don't get compensated as well.
It's, yeah, we want to do more work or I wanna do more work, but I'd also like to get paid more. To do more work, which I don't think that's necessarily a standard in our profession at the moment.
Marla: Got it. So pay mentorship, as you mentioned earlier.
Mason: And the flexibility, again, like we want to grow, let us grow or.
Give us some time and let us go to CSM. Let us go to the A NPT meetings. Let us. And support it. Not even just let us, but help facilitate it and help us bring back the best that we can be for the clinic.
Marla: So what advice do you have for students in terms of exploring all the different areas within PT and being set on one's particular discipline, but then seeing if they do change to another one?
What advice do you have for them?
Mason: Just try to go in with an open mind. You never know what you're gonna find from a. Rotation or a volunteer experience or whatnot. Like when I thought I was gonna be a sports PT in undergrad, I didn't even know neuro PT existed. Like I didn't realize it was a thing.
I just was un uneducated in that regard. And then obviously you get to PT school, you learn, oh, there's acute care and other realms of physical therapy and. Just be open to the experience. 'cause I liked a lot of my rotations that weren't neuro a lot more than I liked them than I thought I would like them.
And had classmates who they were so bent or they were so driven on one specific experience that, and then it fell through and they ended up going to a different type of setting and they. Are practicing currently in the setting that they originally didn't want to go to. So just being open. 'cause you don't know what's gonna happen when you go there, especially if you get a good clinical instructor and you like your experience.
Yeah.
Marla: Tell me more about your clinical affiliations. I'd love to hear that. What helped you choose a clinical affiliation? Like how did you decide, I know a lot of times it comes up to the school, but you do have some options. Yourself as well. So how did you actually choose your clinical affiliations?
Mason: Like how did Ohio State place us or how do we rank or
Marla: Yeah, how did you rank or what did I look for? What were you looking for?
Mason: In my clinical rotations, I knew I wanted to do a residency, so I wanted some strong rotations with complex patients and some well-known hospital systems. So I did one at Cleveland Clinic in the sicu.
I did one at Ohio State's inpatient rehab hospital. I did outpatient neuro at Ohio Health, and I just looked for. Experiences that would be diversify my experience and help me develop in different realms that also look good for residency. And then at the end we get to do a practicum where we do a real niche project.
And that's where my blood flow restriction experience started with. My mentor Doug Eck out in Las Vegas at Dignity Health. And so for six weeks we really get to specialize and pick what we want to do. So for six weeks I only treated spinal cord injury and then when I wasn't treating spinal cord injury, just worked on like lit reviews and developing protocols for BFR implementation in neuro.
So that was probably my most rewarding experience just 'cause it was so specialized. And that's set up. Where I want to go in the next five years.
Marla: Great. So that was your favorite clinical affiliation?
Mason: I wouldn't say I have a favorite. I loved. Ohio Health, shout out B side. And I could see myself going back to any of them, honestly, after residency, Ohio Health or Ohio State, or there's great people at both, and it's always, Columbus has always been home, and I just like the camaraderie there, not that I, yeah.
Marla: And tell me more about what potentially it was that made you feel connected to a clinical affiliation, or really it created that really great experience.
Mason: First it's the patients getting some fun, exciting patients, but from a more of a health system slash placement perspective, I felt like the clinical instructor played a huge role regardless of if it's like a.
Setting you want to go into, or not the clinical instructor, them being like a good match personality wise and having a good understanding of each other's expectations. And also just having the availability and having as many spots as you can have. Like we had to rank our preferences and not everybody always got their first preference.
And yeah, having more opportunities. The more clinical sites you can have, the better. I think that was the most surprising part of PT school was which I've talked to friends from other programs as well, is underestimate or overestimating the amount of clinical options that you have.
Marla: There was recently a research study that came out looking at students and their experience at clinical affiliations and actually what.
Ended up being a clinical affiliation that was the most impactful to a lot of the students. Was ones where their CIS and the rest of the clinic invited them to lunch Yeah. And ate with them and took them out afterwards to cultural events. Like part of the team. Yeah. So I would love to know on your clinical affiliations, was that a factor?
Mason: I don't think I've ever like consciously considered it, but looking back, the clinicals I feel more fondly of are the ones that felt built that friendship slash family feeling inside of clinic and even outside of clinic. Whether it was in Las Vegas or at Ohio Health, those clinicians, like they became a second family.
And. Yeah. And those were rewarding experiences for sure. To feel like not just like a student, and not feel like you have to be on your toes all the time, but feel like, and it just helps you get comfortable and then you perform better as a student.
Marla: Yeah, absolutely. I, it's just like treating patients.
You wanna get to know them. You wanna connect with them. You wanna create that therapeutic alliance. Very similar with your ci.
Mason: Yeah. We try to meet patients where they're at. When your CI meets you, where you're at, that's. That's, it's hard. It's good.
Marla: So what advice do you have for clinicians who are cis or organizations that are training their cis?
Any advice for those cis to really create that phenomenal experience?
Mason: Yeah. Welcome the student. Like they're gonna be there for 10 weeks or whatever it may be. Wherever you are, they're maybe relocating. Have to find housing, have things going on outside. Of the clinic and their personal lives. Most students are there with good intentions where we want to get better.
We're trying, and, but some days you're not at your best. Some days you will be at your best and just meet the, meet meeting us where we're at as students basically, so that we feel more comfortable in our best head space to perform.
Marla: What advice would you have for other students or young professionals that wanna follow your footsteps?
Mason: Follow my footsteps. That's just funny to think about in general, but if you want to get. Involved in residency and try to develop professionally, get involved in education leadership positions especially in a neurological realm, I feel like just. Sign up for things. Try not to say no to opportunities, whether it's volunteering work, especially within the neurologic population, because non-disabled people don't know what it's like to be disabled.
So just trying to engulf yourself in as much experience as you can to get a better understanding of what that life is like, and so that in clinic you can meet people where they're at.
Marla: Well, Mason, it was a pleasure to have you on our show today. Thank you so much. We appreciate you being here and educating the rest of students and clinic owners and even clinicians about what's important and impactful to someone like you who is a high performer and somebody who continues, wants to excel in clinical care.
Well,
Mason: thank you guys for having me. You guys flattered me. You guys are so nice. Thank you so much.