Deanna - Physical Therapist Assistant
In the beginning…
Deanna had her application filled out for nursing school. However, Deanna hurt her knee in karate, and had to do physical therapy to recover. After three months of outpatient physical therapy, Deanna decided that physical therapy was what she wanted to do instead of nursing. Her mom agreed, telling her, “that [she] could never see her as a nurse”. Her dream was to do sports medicine.
Twelve years later…
Deanna is a Physical Therapist Assistant and working with the geriatric population and loving it. To this day she has never worked a day in sports medicine and is okay with it. Deanna has worked mostly in skilled nursing facilities.
One of Deanna’s favorite things to do is…
ask patients that have been married over 50 years, for marriage advice. The oldest married couple she had was married for 74 years. They told her, “not to be critical of each other and to enjoy each other.”
Deanna has had…
a couple of favorite patients over years that she will always remember. When Deanna was pregnant, one of her favorite patients wanted to live long enough to see Deanna’s baby be born. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Another patient, was in multiple times, but recently was in for having an external fixator on for many weeks, and being able to get her home was amazing.
One thing they seem to all have in common is…
they are all sarcastic and curse a lot. Working in a skilled nursing facility some of them live a there a long time and she forms a relationship with them. This is really tough because you end up having to say “bye” to them.
When asking Deanna…
if she ever wanted to switch settings, she said, “No. I really enjoy older people and their stories. Love learning things from them.” However, if she had to switch settings, it would be either acute care (hospital setting), vestibular, or pelvic floor therapy. Deanna would like to stay where she is for now because she likes “seeing that you are giving them a better quality of life.”
Do you ever think about changing careers?
“Nope, but if I did, it would be lactation consulting, if [physical] therapy was no longer able to feed my family, but only out of necessity.” Over the 14 years of knowing and going to school with Deanna, she has never lost her passion to be a Physical Therapist Assistant. Happy PT Month.
