Steven Wolf and Sarah Blanton

00:06 My name is Sarah Blanton. I'm 51. It's October 5th. 2016 Moritz Atlanta story Corps base and I'm here with my colleague Steve wolf and I'm Steve wolf. I'm 72 years old. Today's date is October 5/2016. I'm here at the storycorps booth with my colleague Sarah Blain.

00:31 Steve why did you choose physical therapy as a profession that help people my career. I thought about medicine but many of my friends coming back to visit in college after graduating and going to medical school seems remarkably stressed to me and not very happy to individuals. That's not what I was told my teacher So Physical Therapy seems like a logical opportunity haven't talked to several physical therapist and realizing that you have a great deal of one-on-one training opportunity to work with folks in a very intimate way, especially individuals who might have severe disabilities and for whom might be able to make some impact on the quality of their lives.

01:20 What brings you the most Joy from your work?

01:26 Well, you know, I'm a physical therapist of a research from a teacher. I try to do several things in an academic environment within a medical center. As a teacher is The Enlightenment that shines on the face of students when they learn something or discovered knowledge of the first time and if I make any contribution to that that's very fulfilling her patients, especially those who have pretty profound movement limitations.

01:57 The recognition that we developed as you know, novel techniques procedures to help them and seeing the changes and their movements and functional capabilities and recognizing that the ideas that we've had and implementation may not only impact the people that we're trying to help you have a an impact on what other therapists and clinicians do with patients around the world.

02:24 You've been such a strong mentor to so many individuals tell me a little bit more about that role and why you enjoy it so much. Are there any specific memories you would share both of mentoring and being mentored. That's a very good question. I never really intended to be a mentor. I just wouldn't tell people what I thought and how I felt and at times the content made sense to folks who want to learn more from me. And before I knew it. I was in the mentorship roll and the recognition that the sense of Enlightenment of knowledge acquisition discovery on the part of the people who I'm talkin and subsequently fostering their own independence and thought investigation akademiks clinical service. It is what became the defining moments for me is a as a mentor.

03:24 In terms of the mentorship I received that may have influenced me.

03:29 I think it's fair to say that from a professional point of view my doctoral advisor. Some people called the father of electromagnet feedstuff recording the study. What muscles do John destination? I was an inspiration to me and I admired remarkably what this man had accomplished in science and then clinical practice relative movement ethology. And when I met him in Boston and see was moving from Canada to Atlanta, and he encouraged me to apply to work with him.

04:08 In Atlanta is not allowed her to told me whelmed and the realize that perhaps this is a great opportunity and over the course of the several years is a doctoral student the faith. He putting me in this belief that I could achieve up accomplish goals and research science in clinical practice that I didn't think I could I wish it was inspirational. So I was a mentor he was quite quite an influence in my life when I came back to Atlanta after doing postdoctoral studies in Sweden at work with him again. I never realized that he would soon be leaving to go back to Canada.

04:53 And then ask me to assume the work that he had started in Atlanta something that I was not standing at the time and he convinced me that I could do this and Frankie looking back over the last 40 years that opportunity a launch the career for me, which I think it's been fairly successful and it was not for his faith in me. I am probably would not be where I am today. I do have one more Mentor It's Not Unusual won. My first dog Alex the golden retriever who taught me more about sense of loyalty compassion dignity caring.

05:36 The ability to deflect adverse things experiences life that I still carry with me by simply watching his behavior over the 14 years that I had him and the faith he put in me to oversee his state health and safety led to a relationship in an understanding and a teaching that not quite sure if I have acquired from too many humans.

06:03 Do you mind that if you would tell Sarah about how many people if you mentored over the course of your career?

06:15 Iodide happened to it with question is how many people have I actually meant heard if I told told it up in terms of individuals who are now and academic who have independent clinical careers.

06:30 It's got to be somewhere between 50 and 100.

06:35 I've never really given much thought to the total number. I think in terms of the individuals not the totality.

06:45 Thinking about your successes and challenges in life. What are you

06:52 Do you have an instance it felt like your biggest challenge? And what did you learn from it but that's what's up bro question to answer but you know, unfortunately me my father passed away when I was three my parents were immigrants from Germany and being left with a mother with no education and one who had to fend for herself.

07:18 Subsequently having her remarried someone quite older than she with the understanding that I would be sent away to get an education and somewhat segregated from the little family that I had required that I quickly achieve some level of Independence and autonomy that I wasn't prepared for as a 7 and 8 year old and I suppose the recognition that I was to some extent on my own and had to resolve how I could grow in the absence of very strong Parental Guidance in the more profound influences on helping me to shape the character the personality that that I have become.

08:11 He mentioned that

08:14 That Ted Williams was a hero of yours. He share more about the disorder. That's a very funny story when I was 4, I guess by that time we moved from where I was born Chicago, Illinois to New York where my mother's mother lived and if you're looking for housing, I believe I was in a hotel with my mom and she must I must have asked her who these people were standing in the lobby of the hotel you could very well have been because they had similar looking bags some form of identity that was unique to all them they shared and she went up to one gentleman and want to know who they were on my behalf. And in the process must have explained to them that I lost my father. We moving to New York. He reached into a bag to pull out a baseball and signed it and said you should your son might like to have this

09:14 Adam Ted Williams and I kept that ball not having any idea of the time for Ted Williams was and as I grew up by 10 - 5 or 6 and had several friends in the apartment building in which we lived in Manhattan and learned through Ted Williams was I cherish that ball and that's how I became a Red Sox fan little did I realize at the time that he probably arguably maybe neither greatest shooter of all time and had a chance to actually watch him perform through my girly teen teen years. And so I figured that maybe I ought to try to achieve some level of excellence in what I tried to do that is at least somewhat comprable to what he did as a baseball player hand parenthetically unbeknownst to me at the time as an outstanding better than having served both the

10:09 Second world war in the Korean War

10:14 So you are one of the

10:16 Most decorated or are you certainly received a great many awards in the American Physical Therapy Association and and you look back on on those accomplishments in your work. And are there any that you feel like you're most proud of?

10:37 I don't think about that very much. I'm I'm I'm very flattered that I have been given right back Elites up.

10:44 I suppose the one that's the most cherished is Mary McMillan electric ship which is you know is afforded to someone who is deemed to have maze musical contributions outstanding contributions, perhaps to the physical therapy profession and that's given annually and there's an opportunity to make a presentation that is unopposed by any other meeting session is going on at the annual conference. And so everyone who chooses can attend another opportunity allows one.

11:19 How to say what one wishes but hopefully to to lend some thought to where one feels the profession might go add a prospective some sense of experiential knowledge, that could be a guidance because

11:37 That's much like this conversation. We're having those lectures are archived for anyone to review and see it anytime and seizing that opportunity in 2002. I chose to provide a presentation that looked to the Future as to where the profession may be going wide should be going in those directions and offered multiple challenges to us as individuals to accomplish goals that I think the timer not very profoundly appreciated amongst amongst the profession.

12:13 What's the thinking back on that lecturer that I think you're the title as what if and and and you had mentioned back then that one of the questions was what if we consider advancing molecular science and genetics as part of the classroom experience or what if we promoted the study of biomedical engineering is part of the curriculum and I and I think that those certainly are aspects of what we're doing. You know now I'm at Emory. So if you had to think of what would be your current would have questions for the profession what to wear in a transitional phase. I believe that some of those thoughts are being enacted through multiple curriculum my evidence for saying that cuz you cuz you know, we had an extra review of the profession in 2009.

13:05 Buy quite a large number of disciplines in organizations and amongst the recommendations. They made and mind you that this is 7 years at McMillan lecture wasn't need to become better informed and Telehealth genomic Rehabilitation interfaces biosensing Technologies and regenerative Rehabilitation those Continental use subsequently have been explored by our opportunity to create specialty groups of mouth will clinicians scientists and Educators PT's physical therapist and non physical therapist to develop informational Basie's for all of our students faculty and clinicians that is now blossomed as of this year into a council. We came up with the acronym first standing for Frontiers and Rehab science and technology and opportunity to allow all the special.

14:05 Groups within physical therapy to become part of a fact-finding information promoting entity that will lend knowledge to all Educators and clinicians in the way. They can't necessarily be obtained by anyone entity within the profession. So what I see happening in the future is our collaboration with individuals from other disciplines as part of our education there used to be a time and perhaps Still Believe by many individuals.

14:43 That physical therapists is part of their education needs to be siloed that is there in the classroom learning autonomously and independently from other entities.

14:55 I would make the argument in this day and age and henceforth ultimately that kind of behavior is a disservice to the patients that we are intending to syrup.

15:06 So is you know, we do it every do some clever ations with the folks at Georgia Tech and now actually run courses that engage bioengineering students and Doctor Physical Therapy students in the same classroom at the same time learning from one another and problem solving.

15:27 Given the Advent of high-level technology and the fact that today is Generations it all that follow our future present future patients will expect these kinds of interfaces as part of their training part of their education card The Clinical Services that we provide whether they be in the clinical environment or from their home. So biosensing technology used regenerative Rehabilitation opportunities communication through Telehealth, they all tend to come together. So it's not far-fetched that will be training patients in their home environments and actually monitoring their behaviors.

16:08 Adapting mirror movie 2004 just kind of what we try to do from afar in a way that's never been done before and this will become a new more Norm if not the expectation up today and tomorrow.

16:22 I think that I hear new reflect on that. It reminds me of just one of the biggest lessons that I think that I have learned from you. Is it remember sitting in a faculty meeting and we were doing our

16:41 Annual review of curriculum and we were for looking back in a reactive manner about how to change things and you had said, you know you soon as I stop and and thank what is the question really is more of where do we want our profession to be in the next 10 to 20 years? And then what do we need to do to change about the curriculum to educate our students to leave the profession there? And and so I think in that forward-thinking man are in a proactive way. I think that you have made such an impact this individual and all the profession. That's how we

17:26 A picture of work. So since we're documenting this conversation, I think it's some important to him. Perhaps letting some philosophy to the comment you just made

17:40 If you will know when we try to get a group of folks together to to delve into the future and come up with something that's creative. We so often are pronouns talking about what cannot be done the negativity.

17:54 But if people take the time to engage in Creative conversation with a ground rule that fundamentally says anyone can offer opinion conceptualization, but no one can say anything that it's not a question. I can't do it. The question is how do we get something done? And

18:17 With that attitude

18:19 After exploration in discussion inevitably someone preferably maybe even odd ones on discipline. May wind up saying something that the rest of the group responds to buy saying you don't I never looked at it that way and soon as you can get a perspective, but you never thought of yourself. I think that is the spark for creativity and change it so we can leave something behind in this dialogue that you and I are having grass that notion that it is.

18:52 Unrestricted achievement that can be bought.

18:59 From being willing to listen and talk openly without negativity.

19:06 We think about it.

19:09 Before one says something that is positive but it really needs to think about what they're saying. So we wind up with a very constructed mode and construct is the driver of our future destruction to distract identity consideration behaviors that we experience every day in our local Ladson. Globally anything that we can impart that's positive that can heal productivity in a collaborative mode. I think will bode well for us and that that's the last thing I think we're trying to encourage as we engage in Discovery and promotion of what's best for our patients in in in the area of movement pathology, which is fundamentally, but we try to overcome in one form or another and others as physical therapist.

19:57 Brighthouse open now. Are you going to share that story?

20:04 Who is you?

20:07 Reflect on your own personal growth they through your career and your life.

20:15 I guess we always we all have that challenge of a work-life balance. How do you feel like you are how do you juggle demands and responsibilities of those different roles in your profession and also a father and a husband son grandfather while I hid the fact I have achieved a lot in the last

20:44 30 + years I could not have done it without incredible wife. My wife Louis is quite an autonomous independent woman herself has given me the luxury of seeking my own destiny being very supportive in the process and asking for very little in return but we tried to do together. If The Fosters sense of purpose achievement Integrity most our sons and I think that's pretty well once a position the other is so a businessman and our hope is it if we have instilled positivity in their lives of that will be manifest in what they contribute to humanity as well.

21:29 Sao Paulo to ask me what I'm most proud of in my life. It's my wife and my children and

21:39 So from my point of view what I may have been perceived as accomplishing pales in comparison to where I see my my family and their lives right now and that's incredible pride and joy.

21:59 Do you have any what advice would you give a new Rehabilitation professional somebody just starting out on their career?

22:09 Past weekend. I was giving you a electric to the physical therapist of Georgia and Tennessee in that question was actually raised from the audience and I told them with some pride that amongst my accomplishments was the distinction of having been thrown out of PT School Columbia many years ago were asking too many questions and so subtly reinstated, but it was a time where that was not that kind of behavior is not encouraged by told folks. What I would encourage people to do is never stop seeking answers asking questions and not yielding to a difference for the demands that the Healthcare System places upon one for productivity and figuring out ways in which you can honor and respect your profession on the one hand without sacrificing a purse.

23:09 And consciously seeking a balance for learning but experiencing the joys of Life which one of the show running continuously. It's not a spurious phenomenon that

23:25 To dissipate with time is some of the demands we have on us as clinicians make us less willing to explore obtain new knowledge who can allow that to happen, especially at a time when

23:40 The services that we render and the economics underline them are I put to the test the only way we can hold our own and itchy for our futures and those are the folks to follow us here to demonstrate that we have acquired evidence. What we do that we can make a change in people's lives can be done cost-effectively and all those elements come together to the inquiry process in the in this is a collective effort is not the responsibility of any one person or subset of therapist, but the entire the entire profession and when we commit to a series of Oats that we take a physical therapist while it is not explicitly stated.

24:25 The need to continuously question and acquire new knowledge is absolutely essential. It's a foundation for honoring and committing to all of the other principles underlie the Oaths that we take.

24:46 He's always been very supportive of the work that were trying to do with a journal of humanities Rehabilitation.

24:54 Why do you think the humanities are important in our work?

25:01 I think support throughout all of medicine, but where is physical therapist and Rehabilitation? It's in a very unique position because it's a we if we look at the distribution of time so we can spend with our patients that time is becoming more and more constrained because of so many demands placed upon us to achieve and to generate Revenue in the context of our profession.

25:26 You can't lose sight of is the impact that we have on the lives of the people.

25:31 Who's Health? Who's?

25:34 Moving pathologies are entrusted to us and by nature of the kind of work that we do which requires Hands-On interfaces with new technologies the ability for patients to to understand those Technologies for us to be sensitive to the frailties that underlie a major pathology that affects the lives of not only the Patient Care Partners and others

26:02 I think the need for us to be more sensitive.

26:07 Train to enhance our sensitivities to those needs something that isn't explicitly taught in most educational programs and is not always an inherent part of everyone's Behavior are are critical essential and I think those characteristics to find in my mind at least a great deal of what is uman about us that needs further clarification and expression to one another as professionals and to our patients. And so does notion of blending the concepts underlying Rehabilitation with the humanists of who we are and who we can be defined in my mind this notion of Rehabilitation in humanities.

26:52 So there levels of sensitivity of behaviors that are sometimes not appreciated. Sometimes not take it for granted but took to bring the humanities to light in front of us at the very least makes us conscious of the importance of our behaviors and how they impact others and she might just might train us to be more sensitive in the way that we might not have experienced to the formality of Education or through our own life experiences for their families and friends.

27:32 I work so.

27:37 Please take back on your life anytime that you feel like.

27:45 Challenging part of your work where I'm going to start over again soap.

27:51 Failure can be at times and impetus for Change and people who are successful. So would you share a personal perception your perception of what it would mean to fail and it's maybe a specific situation when she thought you did fail and what your motivations were for moving forward with the process. What I didn't mention is after coming back from Sweden and having done a postdoctoral experienced The karolinska Institute. I wasn't quite sure whether I should do another postdoc or take a faculty position at the University.

28:34 Came back, and I interviewed at the NIH in a very prestigious laboratory that involved recording from nerve cells of monkeys that related to how well they move and how they move differently under pathological condition such a stroke.

28:51 And it means the process I was asked to give a seminar about the work. I was doing Sweden which involved making recordings in live people conscious people from their nerves at running their arms and then able to identify very specific nerve fibers and what their functions are some people refer to this is psychobiology a psycho physiology and this is this concept of micro neurography taking microelectrodes and recording from the roots in real life people who were not

29:25 Put under was exciting to me and I thought of our a really neat way in which we can actually tap into the nervous system and understand how are patients for example respond to hot and cold stimulus that they have an abnormal motor system nervous system and much to my utter amazement. I was criticized sharply mostly by visit turned out postdocs postdoctoral students in the laboratory of this very famous scientist and ridiculing the work by learned as being ridiculous nonsensical doing nothing to advance science or clinical practice is Relentless of browbeating and cruel quite frankly.

30:15 I don't mind saying that I left that meeting before I got on the bus to go back to the airport. And when is the bathroom and start crying like a child and ask myself that this really what I've studied for this the kind of interaction that I will experience in the future. And if so have I made the wrong choices.

30:41 Do I change the conclusion when I left that bathroom that this is not going to happen to me again and two things are required me one is to be very sure of the information that I'm conveying and secondly not allowing myself to be talked down to by anyone yet figuring out ways in which I can constructively respond to criticism. So that failure I didn't obviously did not get the opportunity in NIH but it but it did teach me is that I can figure out ways in which I can confront what might be perceived does adversity and move forward favorably and constructively.

31:35 Stepping back at you had shared up the story of your folks coming from Germany and

31:44 Do you mind talking a little bit about that? I am Jewish by birth. My parents are both born in Frankfurt Germany. My father worked in Industry. My mother never had an education. She went to was called finishing school where she learned to cook and so my father primary job has his wine merchant some people know.

32:15 In November 1938 the night call Crystal knocking because so many of the store windows were broken Hitler had decreed that whoever wrote choose anything didn't have to pay them until it was the beginning of the securing and deportation.

32:35 Hug juice, my mother sensing. This is happening set. My father to America man. Spoke no English on the pretext of selling Wines in NYC United States and while he was away. She sold everything they owned.

32:53 She was

32:55 26 time Upon returning my father was outraged. My mother would dare do this because he's so harsh and she said why don't you get what your clients owe you my father was very trusting of his his clients who can be delivered wines.

33:16 And in the process of doing this the reality that those people who were collaborating in some capacity with Jews no longer owe them anything. If in fact there were Jets beat up my father who woke up with a ruptured kidney and whatever residual money is my parents had to escape from Germany were spent in getting an ambulance to take my parents to Bremen Germany where they subsequently were able to boil a whole chicken make their way to the United States many years later and they sell in Chicago. My mother would cook baked food put in a icebox window across the street and make sandwich people going to walk work during the War years my father sold spoiled Brewing chocolate truffles.

34:16 In a car that the company that's the Chocolate Company rented to him when he was not on bed rest because there was no man to have attention medication at the time and he requires a lot of bed rest in a lot of fluids. They were not expecting to have a child and kind of given up on that and I was born and subsequent to that. My father had a fairly massive cerebral hemorrhage that has to be in and passed away and my mother mom tried to do the best that she could them two of them to raise me and try to make a living for us and come that she worked as a waitress at night to people into our apartment buildings apartment House 2

35:00 Testicular me at night in return for free rental for a room and while she worked and she would occasionally bring me home some residual leftover food that they gave her to take home in their time quick Brantley where we have enough money to to be fed. But at the same time the clientele who told it was a delicatessen what you worked starting to teach her they pretended her and they're teaching her this concept of the stock market and how is possible to him to make money by investing and newly-formed Corporation companies and she would start to take her earnings and invest in the stock market and learn more and more about it. This is a woman with no education and subsequently became proficient enough to become literally self-sustaining for the rest of her life, which lasted from that point on another 60 years.

36:01 She's really amazing woman.

36:05 How would you like to be remembered?

36:11 I think I would like to be remembered as someone who try to do the best they could to.

36:19 Embrace the family to make the world a little bit better placed and to leave behind a legacy of cherishing education promoting excellence and contributing to the betterment of the lives of other individuals.

36:38 Thank you. Thank you.

36:43 Come see me. If you don't mind if you could look at Sarah and just what is your definition of physical therapy?

36:52 My my definition of physical therapy is the science and art of providing care to improve moving pathologies among individuals.

37:05 Those moving style cheese can range from musculoskeletal move invitations to a movie limitations to bounce.

37:16 Any postural deficit which lead lends itself to instability or uncertainty in being able to control bowel movements in motion?

37:26 Adjust my toner over the course of your career has your definition of physical therapy changed and if so, how

37:35 The definition in the perception Physical Therapy has changed over the years because a role in how we Define our roles changed the call of it for 50 years ago. When I first started as a therapist, we were treated as technicians and Rose provide to us was or prescriptions from Physicians that we had the following often. Not not even question that has evolved over the years as we've Acquired and contributed to underlying signs.

38:10 And new techniques and procedures to overcome moving pathology to high degree of autonomy Independence where we can evaluate patients on her own and then offer what constitutes the best evidence-based treatment. So headed there has been this evolution of rolls from being passive and responsive to proactive and creative always focused and centered around the notion of improving moving. Mm.