Dr. Alison McKenzie Honored by California Physical Therapy Association (CPTA)

Recently Dr. Alison McKenzie was honored by the California Physical Therapy Association (CPTA) with the prestigious Royce P. Noland Award of Merit. This top award  was presented to her at CPTA’s  annual conference in Anaheim on September 24th. The award has only been awarded 19 times since it’s inception in 1986. The award celebrates exceptional achievement and service by an individual to the profession of physical therapy.

Dr. Alison McKenzie shares with us her thoughts on this prestigious honor and the DPT profession as a whole. “I am humbled and honored to receive the Royce Noland Award from my colleagues in the California Physical Therapy Association. Early in my academic career at UCSF, I had the good fortune of meeting Royce, who was a strong leader and advocate for PT, so this award is especially meaningful for me. Most of the previous recipients were or are leaders and academics (scholar-teacher-clinicians) in physical therapy and several have been my mentors along the way, so I hope to honor them by continuing to mentor others, too.”

“Our profession continues to grapple with meeting the challenge of flat or declining payment for services, which translates into high productivity demands and less than optimal salaries, relative to the high cost of doctoral education. I believe we need a multi-pronged approach to develop new models of care and payment, while ramping up efforts to educate the public and payers about our value. I would especially like to see more physical therapists included in integrated, inter-professional practices, including those in primary care, as well as creative models for wellness-especially for our aging population.”

“For example, I think it would be fun to develop a practice setting that includes a gym/clinic with adaptive equipment for older adults and those with disabilities and adaptive exercise classes (yoga, Tai Chi, dancing, etc.) that also includes space for a rotating team of providers (physical therapist, optometrist, audiologist, psychologist/MFT, dietician, PCP, speech and language pathologist, occupational therapist, etc.), so that members can have one-stop care for their treatment, prevention, and wellness needs. Adjacent to the gym and clinic space could be a juice bar with organic, healthy treats (maybe even wine!), plus games and crafts to keep brains active and to foster socialization and community. If we could also provide onsite “doggie daycare” and pet therapy and have volunteers available to exercise the pets so that some of the folks who don’t feel safe or able to walk their dogs in their own neighborhoods could benefit, even better!”

“The importance of integrated, inter-professional care, wellness, and prevention services has become even more apparent to me after working with so many great colleagues and graduate students at Chapman in our Interprofessional courses and community outreach programs, such as Stroke Boot Camp, Balanced Families, and Community Exercise Program. Being able to translate what we do so well at Chapman to benefit the broader community is one of my goals for the future, along with continuing to find ways to improve post-stroke recovery.”

Congratulations Dr. McKenzie on this amazing achievement!