Steady Through the Storm

In a 2003 Position paper published in the Journal of Physical Therapy Education (JoPTE) detailing the history of physical therapy practice in the United States, Moffat1 concluded that the physical therapy profession always has and always will be subjected to external forces but reminded us that our resilience and professional dedication allow us to shape our profession and keep focus on our primary aim—“to improve the lives of those we serve.” (p 24) Education and health care have always been subject to external forces—both negative and positive. However, even negative external forces and events can compel us to reflect on our professional roles as clinicians, researchers, and educators and revisit what society needs from us. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the spotlight on systemic racism, Nordstrom et al,2 in their 2022 perspective, emphasized that society needed physical therapy education to produce “graduates who accept their social and moral responsibilities as agents and advocates who act to improve health and health care.”(p 1) The authors positioned these crises as crucibles for change in physical therapy education but highlighted that the courage to act is the key to making changes, enacting justice, and looking outward. While thinking about external forces and their ability to either force change or halt progress, I read that this week the eternal flame at the Martin Luther King Jr’s Atlanta burial site was vandalized. I was struck by the statement put out by the King Center that ended with the words “The dream lives on.” Those 4 powerful words inspired me to relisten to “I have a dream”3 and reflect on the suffering and fight for freedom that led to the Civil Rights Act and why it is critical that we continue to work toward equity and justice in health care and education.4,5 Brown and Edmonds also call for moral courage as we face headwinds that threaten to the reverse the progress made toward more inclusive learning environments for students and faculty. In the December issue of JoPTE, Brown and Edmonds6 call on faculty to continue to promote inclusive excellence despite restrictions placed on the language we can use when engaging in critical dialogue with learners and colleagues about what it means to care for society's most vulnerable. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a newer external force with the potential to shape physical therapy education, research, and practice—I suspect in both positive and negative ways. In this issue, you will find helpful resources from authors Holland, Borstad, and Smith, exploring and providing guidance for the use of AI in physical therapy education and research. Ultimately, however, we decide how these external forces shape our profession. Competency-based education (CBE) is one such example of responding to what society asks of us and the conversation around CBE continues in the December issue as well. What's next for JoPTE? We welcome 2 new board members: Dr. Derek Luizzo and Dr. Carmen Capo Lugo. Dr. Capo Lugo gave one of the Ignite Speeches, sponsored by the Physical Therapy Learning Institute,7 at the Education Leadership Conference in 2024. Dr. Capo Lugo's speech entitled “Transformation Does Not Come From Comfort—It Comes From the Courage to Disrupt” was the guest editorial in the March issue of JoPTE.8 If you have not yet read it, I encourage you to do so. It is even more relevant today, which is why JoPTE will continue highlight work around creating courageous spaces where learners and educators seek to advance care and work collaboratively toward educational and health equity. The dream for a just society must live on.