Page 16 - Mobility Management, May 2017

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Perspectives
The Next Generation: A Conversation with Tyler Stephenson
A common question in the complex rehab technology (CRT) industry is “Where will the next generation of rehab professionals come from?” Plenty of students study occu- pational (OT) or physical therapy (PT), but they typically receive only a few hours of education on seating and
mobility. Relatively few universities in North America offer special- izations in rehabilita- tion engineering (see resna.org for a list).
Ask ATPs and seating/mobility clinicians how they arrived here, and you’ll likely hear that a family member or friend used CRT, or a similar story of happenstance.
That may still be the case for the industry’s next professional generation,
including a future PT preparing to start graduate school.
A Rehab Connection
Tyler Stephenson is the son of Jim Stephenson, Invacare Corp.’s rehab reimbursement and coding manager who’s worked on the funding side of CRT for decades. As Mobility Management spoke to Tyler in February, he was finishing up his bachelor’s degree and looking forward to grad school.
“My major is psychology with a pre-physical therapy emphasis,” Tyler said. “So basically, I’m going to be receiving my bachelor of arts degree in psychology, and the courses they required me to take prepared me to go to PT school. I got accepted into Walsh University’s phys- ical therapy program, so I will start that in the fall. In the spring of 2020, I will have my doctor of physical therapy (DPT). It is required for a licensed physical therapist to have their doctorate degree.”
The first college he attended, Tyler explained, offered just one coursework path to a DPT — via an undergrad- uate degree in psychology. Upon transferring to Walsh after his sophomore year, Tyler decided to remain a psychology major for his undergrad degree, and says
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the coursework has been helpful to his overall goal.
“I think it makes a world of difference,” he said. “I’ve
learned how to be a little more understanding of people, so I think that’s going to help me be more understanding of a difficult patient or just to be able to create a better relationship with them. I’ve studied the social norms,
and I’ve studied how people think and even down to the physiology of how people perceive things. I think that’s all going to help me connect better to a patient.”
Jim, coincidentally, also majored in psychology, though his career has centered on healthcare funding and finance. As he was growing up, Tyler said of his dad, “I knew he traveled a lot and talked to a lot of people. I knew he worked a lot with the insurance side of things. Now I see it’s much more than just that. I see that it’s educating people and making sure not only that they get paid, but that everybody knows what they’re doing. He’s an educator in my mind.”
Tyler initially wanted to be a teacher. He’d changed his mind by the time he graduated high school, but still longed for a career that would enable him to influence lives the way several teachers had impacted him.
“So I found physical therapy,” he said.
An Introduction to the Industry
A former athlete himself, Tyler is thinking about sports medicine as a possible specialty.
“Sports med would be awesome; that has been my goal since I’ve started,” he said. “Once I chose to be a physical therapist, I wanted to work with athletes. I think it would be great to be able to rehabilitate them and that population. However, orthopaedics has crossed my mind; that’s very similar to sports med. Pediatrics has crossed my mind, and neuro, the industry that \[my dad\] is in, has definitely struck my interest.”
Tyler interned at Invacare for three months last summer.
“That really opened my eyes to that side of things, so that would be something to pursue as well,” he said. “It was interesting. I have shadowed other physical thera- pists and at other physical therapy places, and there was no emphasis or education on complex seating or rehab equipment. It was all about the patient, getting them better movement. I didn’t realize how important
Tyler Stephenson
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