#ChoosePT: Why did you become a PT

October is Physical Therapy Month. In honor of this, we asked one of our physical therapists why they chose to become a PT.

Michelle Roller became interested in becoming a PT way back in high school. She was taking a biology course and  was learning about muscles and how they work and Michelle was quite fascinated. Michelle's biology teacher found out about her interest and suggested that she look into physical therapy as a possible career. Michelle had never even heard of it! She did a little research and was hooked, and the rest, as they say, is history!

When Michelle was a student PT and was doing a clinical rotation at Mott Children's Hospital. She had a little girl who was about 8 years old who was in the hospital due to Guillian-barre syndrome. She was very withdrawn and sad, as well as being very debilitated, but it was difficult to get her to participate in PT. One day Michelle went in to her room and grabbed a hospital glove and made a balloon out of it. She began to hit it to her which she really liked. Michelle was then able to convince her to stand and play with her which then progressed to the little girl trying to jump and hit the balloon. Michelle even let her jump on the bed holding her hands a few times which was a great exercise for the little girl but she just thought she was having fun. After that day, the little girl came down asking to play with her PT and proceeded to improved by leaps and bounds.  That's when Michelle knew she was happy to choose the profession that she did.