Recruitment Strategies for Under-Represented Minority Students in Physical Therapy

Recruitment Strategies for Under-Represented Minority Students in Physical Therapy

Deanna Sipes, SPT

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

PHYT 854 Capstone

2019

 

Background

I have always had a passion for diversity and inclusion, with a growing focus in the field of physical therapy since starting my physical therapy education in 2016. I grew up in a multicultural family with above average exposure to diverse populations due to my upbringing in Washington, D.C.. I understand on a personal level the need for more diversity within the profession. My grandmother was working with a Latina physical therapist who was able to truly change the progress of my grandmother’s recovery. If my grandmother would not have had a Spanish speaking PT, who understood my grandmother’s culture and background, I do not believe my grandmother would be able independent like she is now. This exposure of a physical therapist that was able to assist my family and represent a part of who I was, inspired me to become a physical therapist. I am personally aware of the positive benefits of diverse therapist in the field as role models for potential future applicants, as well as the importance for minority patients. I was exposed to physical therapy prior to this experience with sport related injuries but did not see myself in that role until I saw the impact this therapist had on my grandmother and how I was able to see myself in her.

Since beginning the DPT program at UNC, I have had a drive to do something about diversity in the field of physical therapy. Coming from the DC area where I grew up and Baltimore area for college I experienced a culture shock coming to North Carolina and especially within the DPT program at UNC. The majority of my class was Caucasian females, although all of my classmates will make great therapist and have unique things to bring to the profession I was disappointed to not see representation of the general public within my program. Therefore, after some inspiration from the 2017 Annual Minority Health Conference hosted by the Minority Student Caucus and the Gillings School of Global Public Health, I started to be active in promoting diversity within the program. I created a new committee in the UNC Student Physical Therapy Association, the Diversity and Inclusion Committee, to jump start and support the cause and goals I had. I also joined the Allied Health Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Team as a student liaison to be able to share what the committee was doing and collaborate with other Allied Health programs. I have also worked on an interdisciplinary grant this year, Allied Health: Strategies to Promote, Inspire, Recruit, and Educate. This grant facilitated my focus for my capstone project. This past year I also joined the North Carolina Physical Therapy Association (NCPTA) Diversity and Inclusion Task Force to become involved in diversity in a bigger picture than the UNC program. I plan to continue to be involved in promoting diversity and inclusion in the field of physical therapy by continuing my involvement within the APTA.

Purpose

Currently there is a lack of diversity within the physical therapy profession when compared to the public. PTCAS 2012-2013, analysis of applicants and break down indicated 70.9% of applicants were white (non-Hispanic), 12.6% race unknown, 5.8% Asian, 5,8% multi-racial/ethnic, 2.7% African-American/Black (non-Hispanic), 1.8% Hispanic/Latino, 0.2% American Indian/Alaska native, 0.2% Hawaiian/pacific islander.¹ This data does not reflection the  diversity of the U.S population and this lack of diversity in health providers has already been proven to be harmful for patients.² The American Council of Academic Physical Therapy (ACAPT) and the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) are already aware of this discrepancy and created a diversity task force to address this issue.² This task force created a document outlining the goals of the committee, current accomplishments, and recommendations.² The task force found that underrepresented minority students (URM), when compared to Caucasian students, received minimal to no exposure or encouragement of PT as a career choice.²The task force suggests that barriers to this exposure include “lack of recruitment and career resources, lack of access to technology, and few role models”.² Following a survey of current DPT students done by the task force in 2015, they found that exposure to the profession was the most influential factor for URM to choose a career.² As a member of the NCPTA diversity and inclusion task force, we were charged by the APTA’s Diversity and Inclusion task force to “make recommendations to the NCPTA board on how the association can act to (a) increase diversity in membership and leadership, (b) increase awareness of physical therapy as a profession for NC citizens in economic and educationally disadvantaged parts of our state and those of minority backgrounds, (c) increase messaging to citizens in economic and educationally disadvantaged parts of our state about physical therapy as a choice for care”.³ Therefore, I have taken on the challenge of investigate part b of this charge through this project. Having outlined recruitment strategies that are supported by evidence that PT programs and the APTA can utilized, may assist with recruitment of URM students and therefore, improve the diversity of the field of physical therapy.

 

Products

This capstone projection has two major products; literature review and social media campaign.

LITERATURE REVIEW: The first product is a literature review of current recruitment strategies from allied health, medical, dental, and physical therapy programs, complied with evidence to support the top strategies for recruitment of URM. The information from this document will be presented to the NCPTA diversity and inclusion task force at the next meeting this summer and the information will be used as a component of the final report to the APTA diversity and inclusion task force. This document is attached below.

 Recruitment Strategies for Under Represented Minority Students in Physical Therapy

SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN: The second product is a social media campaign trial recruitment strategy. The purpose of the social media trial is to show showcase diversity within PT, including settings (ie. wound care, pelvic floor, hippotherapy, etc.) and actual therapist (racial/ethnic, abilities, 1st generation, LGBTQIA, sex/gender, etc). The goal of this campaign is to have an medium to show the next generation of potential URM PT school applicants that there are PTs that look like them and that PT is more than just outpatient ortho/sports. This product will be an continuous project that I will continue to manage. Currently, there are 205 twitter followers and 142 instagram followers. The Twitter world seems to be very  interest in the project, I have been included, and interacting with other PTs interested in improving diversity and inclusion. I even had Sharon Dunn, APTA president, follow the account on Twitter! I have noticed I have some URM followers who have “pre-PT” listed in their bios, which is a great start to reaching the target audience. I have made great connections with followers who are interested in being a part of the project. I am hoping to improve exposure to younger audience by advertising the page on undergraduate pages and at middle and high school level. So far, it has been super fun to see the support the project has already gotten and I am excited to see how it grows!

INSTAGRAM– https://www.instagram.com/ptlookslikeme/?hl=en

TWITTER– https://twitter.com/PTLooksLikeMe

 

 

Evaluation

Based on committee and peer review, I altered formatting of the paper to ensure the literature review presented the recruitment strategies in a way that is useful for DPT programs and others who read it. I have plans to continue following this information by working with the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force to make sure this information is utilized and evaluate the effectiveness of the strategies for DPT programs that utilize them.

I have had a lot of peer and self evaluation of the social media sites. Therapist that followed the page gave me a lot of feedback at the beginning. The original title was DPT Looks like Me but I received a lot of feedback from the Twitter community about making sure to highlight therapist that aren’t DPTs and PTAs therefore, I made the change to PT Looks Like Me to represent the whole profession of Physical Therapy and not just the Doctorate level therapist. I have also gotten feedback from other accounts with similar goals and from classmates to ensure that I was adding to this campaign and not adding the same type of page that already existed. To ensure this, the PT Looks Like Me page highlights diversity in a wider light including abilities, settings, and other characteristics listed above, to come more in future post. It has been a learning process with the social media site and I plan to continue evaluating and updating it. My biggest goal is reaching younger followers, it has been easy to get current PTs and SPTs involved in the page but I will begin more advertising to younger population by creating business cards and flyers that have the information on how to reach the site with intention to share this at career day events.

 

Self-Assessment/Reflection

This project has been an eye opening experience for me. It was difficult at first for me to decide what part of diversity I wanted to focus on for my capstone. I knew diversity would be the focus but had so many areas I was interested in that I was overwhelmed. However, getting to look at the barriers that are in place to attain a PT degree for URMs was a great experience. These barriers are difficult to overcome due to the ties with society but I believe that with effort can be overcome. Recruitment strategies and more long term efforts are necessary. Right now not many URMs are even applying to PT schools, so no matter the energy put into accepting URMs, the applicant pool will still not represent the diversity of the population. Therefore, recruitment needs to play a role to make this change. PT programs and the field of physical therapy need to make a major shift toward promoting diversity within the field. One way to do this is recruitment.

 

Acknowledgments

To start I would like to thank Dr. Heather Logghe, founder of #ILookLikeASurgeon and the podcast Behind the Knife, episode #23:  #ILookLikeASurgeon: Thoughts on Diversity in Medicine from Leading Surgeons for the inspiration for the social media site. I would also like to thank my former classmate, Dr. Jennell McIntosh PT, DPT, who was the creator of the name of the hashtag and who helped me start up the social media project. She has also been a great role model for me within the UNC DPT program, she is passionate about diversity and has was a major teammate when working on diversity within the UNC DPT program. I would like to thank the support I have received from social media sites like “PTs of Color” and other people I have met online through this project. I would also like to express my thankfulness to all the therapist featured on the social media site. It is so important to show URMs students role models in the field that look like them. Thank you so much for sharing your story and supporting diversity within the field!

I would like to give a huge thank you to my friend, future Dr. Larysa Petrenko, who without I would not have had as much success in this social media project. Thank you for listening to me talk about the project, helping me get connected to therapist who have helped with the project, editing my emails and post, and just being a wonderful friend! I would also like to thank all of my other classmates for listening to me talk about diversity, an issue I am passionate about, for the last three years. I would also like to thank my family, my dad and step mom for editing and supporting and my mom and dad for making sure I was exposed to diversity and culture my whole life. 

I would also like to thank my AH:SPIRE team for also helping with the inspiration of the project, especially the literature review. I would like to thank the NCPTA Diversity and Inclusion Task Force for the support and taking the time from my project. Lastly, I would like to thank my committee members Dr. Deborah Thorpe, PT, PhD, Dr Laurie Ray, MPT, PhD, and Eileen Carter, PT.  

 

References

1. Demographics in Physical Therapy School Admissions – Physical Therapy Graduate. Available at: http://physicaltherapygraduate.com/demographcis-in-physical-therapy-school-admissions/#.XEskBVxKjIV. Accessed January 25, 2019.

2. Ross L, Meadows J, Rossi S. Board Report: Diversity Task Force. American Council of Academic Physical Therapy 2016.

3. Dickens L. Diversity and Inclusion Task Force Charge