Edwin Porras, SPT | 2nd Year DPT Student @ University of Saint Mary

After publishing a story about an experience a friend encountered, Edwin pursued his idea of creating a blog. Through his online platform, he hopes to encourage dialogue between student-healthcare providers and patients of the healthcare system. Read below about why he was chosen as an SPT Spotlight!
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My blog, “Patient Theory” initially began as a generic “student blog” because 1) I didn’t know where to go with it and 2) I had already written a few times about healthcare before a blog was even an idea. I started by documenting experiences in my own life with health care providers, which lead to later publishing a story about an incident my friend went through in the ED.

The blog came from the encouraging response from other students and clinicians via a mentorship group I’m a part of. Although I was concerned about being judged, the idea that if just one person reads a patient’s perspective that planted a seed of compassion, it would be worth it. Inspirations from people like Jerry Durham, Jeff Moore, and other giants in our profession deserve the nod of acknowledgement. Any thoughts or perspectives I share are simply my own spin on their idea; therefore, I don’t consider myself a thought leader. I just want to spark a conversation to move us forward. With all that said, my priority is not necessarily “to grow a following” as much as it is to raise awareness that we really can do better in terms of empathetic patient care. Questionable (at best) treatment of patients is not in a distant world because we don’t see it daily, as I have observed it myself.
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Social media and online content sharing isn’t the way of the future. Frankly it’s the way of now. Check out Physical Therapy 2.0: Leveraging Social Media to Engage Patients in Rehabilitation and Health Promotion by Knight et.al. If we don’t have a virtual presence as a profession, then we are genuinely doing a disservice to the people we serve. We must “go where the people are” as Mike Eisenhart, PT says. A summary of Patient Theory’s purpose is to bridge the gap of communication among patients and students in health professions.
(You can check out Edwin's blog at https://patienttheory.wordpress.com/)