Make the World a Little Bit Better

Dr. Teresa Bisson feels she has been called to be a physical therapist.  She also believes she has other callings which include being a teacher, artist, musician, and an actress.  She values volunteering and her coworkers, who are displayed in the picture above.  Teresa is the second to the left in the photo.

Grateful

I'm a physical therapist [and] have been since 2002.  I initially thought I was going to medical school.  I wanted to be a doctor when I was very young.  I started volunteering in my local hospital, shadowing generally in the hospital.  I got a chance to observe physicians, and in that process I stumbled upon the physical therapy department.  [I] started asking questions about what that was and what the difference between physical therapy and medicine [was].  I wanted to really be able to spend time with my patients, [but] it felt like a lot of the physicians didn't get a chance to do that.  So I started shadowing with physical therapy and realized how much time they got to spend with their patients, got to know [them], and follow them through the healing process.  That's the point where I realized I need to shift over in this direction.  Being a physician just didn't fit my personality as much as physical therapy does.  I knew by the time I graduated from high school that I was probably going to go into physical therapy.

I try to provide each person with hope or a piece of information that helps them get to the next step.  Whatever small piece I can be of that hopefully makes the world a little bit better.  And I love that.  There are moments where I think about how grateful I am to be able to do all the things I am able to do.  When you see people struggle through these things that we do without thinking, you learn to appreciate those tiny moments all the more.  I would say that my work has impacted pretty much every area of my life because it just opens your eyes to what you have and reminds you to be grateful for it.

That's Why I Do What I Do

There were moments, even in graduate school, where things got really stressful and challenging and I would question whether or not it was something that I really wanted to do, whether it was worth the work.  Even in my career there have been times where my patients weren't getting well and I was starting to doubt my ability to help them, or I was just burnt out and tired.  Frankly, there were times where I allowed myself to get bored.  You really have to try to get bored as a physical therapist and I think I was trying pretty hard at one point.  But every time I come to that point in my career something happens: an experience with a patient, a colleague, [or] a student, where I'm reminded that no, I can't walk away from this.

[These struggles] taught me to persist even when things are hard.  They've taught me to value the reasons why I [chose] to go into the profession to begin with, and I think they just make you more mature and more able to face the daily challenges of life.  Every profession you go into, there [will] be elements that you don't enjoy or elements that are a struggle.  To expect that your work is going to be completely struggle free, I just don't think is realistic.

On a volunteer trip, Teresa met a a little boy
who couldn't walk, so she was trying to see
if he could move his arms to push a
wheelchair.  She was  playing Simon Says
with him to get him involved in a fun way.

I was at a rehab facility and I started off on the floor that treated patients who had had strokes.  I really enjoyed it, but I was interested in learning about other neurological conditions as well.  I had requested a move up to a floor that treated people who had spinal cord injuries.  It was a lot of fun, but I also knew going into it that there were a lot of challenges.  People warned me it [was] going to be tough because of the nature of the environment at the time.  Sure enough, when I arrived, it didn't seem like anybody on the floor was coming together to work as a team.  In addition, I still had a lot to learn about myself as a therapist and how to interact with my patients.  There was one young man I was working with who had a spinal cord injury from a gunshot wound.  Every day he would be in his bed in his hospital room [with the] sheets over his head.  He just wouldn't come down to therapy.  We made sure he had his wheelchair available so he could come down, but he wouldn't.  Everyday [I] would walk to his room, pull his sheet off his head and say, "I'm not your mom, I'm not gonna beg you.  Get up, let's go.  It's time to go to therapy."  I meant it in a tough-love way, and he understood that, but he was obviously going through a difficult time and dealing with a lot of pain.  He and I battled day in and day out and it was so frustrating.  He did okay in therapy, [but] he didn't go as far as we thought he had the capability to.

Then several months later, I was crossing the hallway to go into a team meeting, I heard someone say, "HEY!" from down the hallway.  I looked up and it was him in his chair.  He had already been discharged from the hospital several months before that.  I started walking towards him and he said, "No, no, no, stop."  And he locked the wheelchair brakes, he scooted himself forward, he stood up, and he walked to me.  When he got to me he gave me a big hug and said, "I could never have done this without you."  That was one of those moments that just... makes your year.  He overcame all this pain that he was having.  He wasn't able to walk when he left us but we knew he potentially could.  The fact that he took that encouragement when he left and was able to get to that point: that's why.  That's why I do what I do.  He taught me about perseverance, about compassion, and I'm forever grateful for those lessons.  Those are the moments that get you through all the tough times and all the times when you doubt yourself or you're not sure that this is actually what you're supposed to be doing.

Educating the Future

When I first became a clinician I never thought I [would] be a teacher, so this is a complete 180 from where I thought my career was going to go.  I just figured I would get my [physical therapy] license, start practicing, and maybe own my own clinic someday.  I worked for a private practice for a while, thinking that might help me move towards opening my own clinic, but it actually did the exact opposite and made me realize that that's not what I wanted to do with that aspect of my career.  So I went back to public medicine.

Then I was asked to give one lecture to a class of physical therapy students.  And I had a lot of fun.  It was really exciting [because it] made me do my research and be ready to answer questions.  After that my colleague approached me and said, "We need a lab assistant for this semester course.  Would you come help out?"  I said, "Sure, I want to try that."  So I did that and that was the moment I met my mentor who saw potential in me for teaching.  She said, "Okay, now you're lab assisting.  Do you want to co-teach this lecture?  Now, how about you take this lecture by yourself?"  It just kept going until I realized, "Wow, I really like this."  Eventually, three of us were co-teaching [a] class together, and I realized that I found the next step of my career: teaching.  It was completely unexpected, but I got there gradually by getting little bits of experience and then realizing that this is what I want to do now.

One of my absolute favorite things [about teaching] is to work with students.  [I love] to be able to contribute to advancing knowledge, watch them learn and ask questions, grow and develop their skills, and hear back from them after they've gone through the program.  It's a really wonderful experience to be able to contribute to that and to know that hopefully somebody's or many people's lives in the future will be that much better because I helped to educate the future of our profession.  It's fun to be kept on my toes.  Students ask me questions that I never would've thought of all the time.  It's an amazing and humbling experience to be a teacher.

Just Go Do It

Don't wait to do things with your life.  I hear that constantly from my patients, and it's really something that I've tried to live in my own life because so many of them will say "I never thought I would get in a car accident" or "I never thought I'd have a stroke."  They [also say], "I always wanted to do things that I just never did and I always put them off."  So, my advice would be: don't do that.  Find what it is that you want to do and pursue it and work hard.  Don't hold back because you're afraid or because you think it won't work out.  I could only hear my patients say that so many times before I started to listen.  My recent trip to Australia, perfect example, was one that came up last minute and was a unique opportunity to celebrate a major event in our friends' lives.  [It] probably [wasn't] the smartest thing to do financially, [but] we love to travel so we thought, "Let's just do it because this is never going to come around again."  And one of the reasons I finally said, "Let's do it" was because I was hearing my patients voices in my head saying, "If there's something you love to do, just go do it."

Teresa and her husband on their trip to Australia.

I would also advise [to] give yourself time.  People don't feel like it's okay that they don't know what they want to do with their lives.  If you have a calling, listen to that, follow that, pursue that.  But some people just don't have that and that's okay.  Some people find their happiness in other ways.  Maybe it's not one singular passion or calling for them, maybe it's something else.  So I would say if you feel like you have a calling or passion that you really want to pursue, then pursue it and don't let anybody stop you.  For me, I feel like I have more than one [calling], and I try to do something to work towards each of them every day.  Whatever it is that lights you up, figure out a way to go for it.

Story Facilitators: Val Larson, Tim McDonnell, Feiyan Feng