Domenic Fraboni

This experience will be an incredible opportunity for me to dive in and learn more about my profession, what our professional organization does for us, how I can advocate and make a difference, resources/opportunities that the APTA has available for members, and how to help spread all this information to eager students around the country. As a member of the nominating committee, I will also help to slate an amazing group of candidates to be voted on who will then succeed the current board at the end of our term.

Very excited to be complete my clinical internships for my Doctorate in Physical Therapy Progream back at Mayo Clinic. There are an abundance of brilliant minds in the sports medicine department that have years of knowledge that I can draw and learn from. This setting will allow my to work with orthopedic based patients with a sport specific mindset. It will also provide many opportunity for continued interprofessional work and development on my part.

The Diversity in Education Blog allows students in the Mayo Clinic graduate programs to write about new, interesting topics (somehow relating to diversity) that will educate our readers further about something that may be unfamiliar to them. I have written articles about lack of diversity in Division III athletics and the "It's on US" sexual assault campaign.

I was fortunate to be able to travel to Arizona for a clinical internship in an outpatient setting geared toward orthopedics. Being a general outpatient clinic, I had great opportunity to also work with individuals who had different vestibular and neuro diagnoses as well. This was a great chance for me to work with a very different demographic than I have worked with in the Minnesota/North Dakota area.

I worked at a Physical Therapy Intern at 1-Domitilla as a part of Saint Mary's Hospital's PM&R staff. We rotated though general medicine, orthopedic/trauma, and cardiac/vascular surgery floors.

As chair of this committee I will be tasked with helping our committee increase the overall community service work done by the members of the APTA Student Assembly. We will attempt to do this by working with the APTA to increase our memberships opportunity for, communication about, and publicity of participation in local and national volunteer work. I am excited for the challenge.

During this internship, I spent 12-weeks working full time in a outpatient neurology setting working with patients that had diagnoses across the neurologic spectrum. There was also a very unique opportunity to work in a coordinated clinical setting once per week with many different professionals seeing the same patients in one day. This was an incredible opportunity that allowed me to use interprofessional interaction to further deepen my understanding about how Physical Therapists can act as an integral part of a team.

For my first full time clinical experience I was fortunate to work in Brainerd, MN as a SPT in an acute setting. This experience was amazing. It helped me understand the intricacies of working in a hospital and the plethora of individuals I need to work with and communicate with daily. I was able to sharpen my patient communication and education skills, always having a focus on patient safety. This experience has reinvigorated my love for PT and patient care. I'm so excited to get back to school for another year and then head into an entire year of clinical education following that.

This position gave me great clinical experience before heading off to graduate school for physical therapy. I was able to work directly with patients as a part of a rehab team. I learned what effective communication looked like and how to create an incredible, energetic, fun atmosphere for our patients. This job helped foster my interest and love for the field of physical therapy and makes me hungry to get into my own practice some day.