Being a Motivator
“The biggest thing I want to instill in my students is the understanding of what an individual is going through.”
I see these miraculous things occur, but I know that it's not something that just happened with a snap of the fingers. It's something that happened with a person's positive attitude, a dedication to their process, a belief that they can pull it off. If they're not feeling positive, if they're not engaged, then they won't be able to participate in a meaningful way. It's really about having the compassion or the holistic understanding of a person, understanding not just how this injury is affecting their movement, but how it's affecting their life as a whole.
The biggest thing that I want to instill in my students is really the understanding of what an individual is going through, the compassion and the empathy of what they're going through. And by doing that, I think that will give the students the tools to be able to look at the big picture, look at the whole picture, and overall make that individual's life better.
Most people in the medical field have gotten here because we want to impact a person's life. We want to help them. And to be able to see a person light up when they realize they can do something that they couldn't do before, is probably the highest level of satisfaction you can have.
Recovering from an injury is about more than healing wounds or mending broken bones. Robert Schreyer, a professor of Physical Therapy at Touro College’s School of Health Sciences, views the rehabilitation process in holistic terms. To Schreyer, physical therapy necessitates knowing your patient and appreciating how their pain is affecting overall quality of life. It’s about empathizing with the person you’re treating and feeling passionate about empowering them to feel better in body and mind.
“To be able to see a person light up when they realize they can do something that they couldn’t do before is probably the highest level of satisfaction you can have,” Schreyer says.
Professor Schreyer wants all of his students to share that satisfaction, and it’s why he’s such a valued member of the Touro family and faculty.
