My Experience at CSM

My Experience at CSM By Kerry Forster '21G

Kerry Forster at CSM

Recently, I attended the American Physical Therapy Association’s (APTA) Combined Sections Meeting (CSM) in Denver, Colorado. This was a fantastic opportunity for me, as the combined sections meeting brings together all of the specialty areas in physical therapy and presenters attend to share their expertise and current research. Over 18,000 physical therapists, physical therapy students, and physical therapist assistants attended this meeting, all coming together to share and learn! I attended three 2-hour educational sessions per day and visited several poster presentations. At the poster sessions, innovative students and their research mentors presented projects that they had spent 1-2 years working on. Some of these presenters were former Nazareth College physical therapy students who shared research that was done in our own PT department!

Kerry Forster and Dr. Linda Riek at CSM

I am thankful that I decided to attend CSM this year, and I would highly recommend it to other students as a valuable investment of time. I was able to become acquainted with other PT students and faculty from different programs and to spend time outside of the classroom with some of my Nazareth professors. I also caught up with former Naz PT students and was encouraged by what they are doing now. Most importantly, however, is the vast amount of new information that I learned during the three days, some of which I was able to come home and immediately apply to my patients in our Nazareth clinics.

It is encouraging to be in a program where our faculty encourage us to attend these types of professional meetings. It is nice to get outside of our own PT community and see what is going on in the rest of the country. It also was nice to remind myself that I won’t be in DPT school forever and there are a lot of great opportunities that await me upon graduation!