As her clinical rotation with FOX comes to an end, Gianna Sabo, SPT, takes a look back at the things she has learned with FOX as a student of physical therapy.

FOX clinicians—disciplined in physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, and exercise physiology—treat older adult patients. This is a chance for a student to work within the specialty of geriatrics.

In her time with FOX, Gianna developed a love for working with the older adult population and was surprised by how much progress could be made when patients were properly dosed with the exercise they needed. Gianna speaks highly of her mentor, Caitlin Brady, PT, DPT, the importance of inter-professional collaboration, and the potential you can achieve with patients when you realize that age is just a number!

Jim: Welcome to The FOX Five, the series that explores the world of FOX Rehabilitation through an original list created by a FOX colleague, although today it is a little bit different. We have an original list created by a student who is on clinical rotation with FOX Rehabilitation. Please welcome to The FOX Five, Gianna Sabo.

Gianna: Thank you for having me.

Jim: Thank you for coming. So, Gianna, what school do you go to?

Gianna: Right now I'm going to Tufts University in Boston and I graduate in December. I'm almost done.

Jim: Is your clinical rotation with FOX done?

Gianna: No, I graduate from FOX next week.

Jim: Okay. Gianna, I was really excited to do this episode, because we speak with colleagues and clinicians, but I would love to get a student's perspective of what it's like to work with FOX.

Gianna: Yeah, I think it's awesome. It is a good reflection to do

Jim: Yeah, and I kind of gave away your FOX Five, but officially Gianna what is your FOX Five?

Gianna: So My FOX Five is the 5 Things That I Learned with FOX Rehabilitation as a PT Student.

Jim: Alright, so let's begin with number one.

Gianna: So, my number one is: you could do more than seated exercise and gait training. Basically, I came into doing geriatric home health thinking that all the patients wouldn't be able to do as much and that was a poor preconceived notion.

Jim: You didn’t know.

Gianna: I didn’t know, I had no clue and now I'm here thinking of exercises that I do on myself and altering it to patients. It's pretty insane what a 93, 95, 87-year-old can do. They can do much more than just sitting and walking around.

Jim: All I have to say is if our founder, Dr. Tim Fox, is watching this right now, he has a huge smile on his face, because he has stressed that for years. Gianna, what is number two on your FOX Five?

Gianna: Number two is interprofessional collaboration is key. You pretty much learn all of that in school, but FOX really lays emphasis on talking to nurses and families and getting everybody involved, and the process of being mentored by Caitlin [Brady] was seamless, so I couldn't be more thankful for that.

Jim: Caitlin's been on The FOX Five before.

Gianna: Yeah, she's a good one.

Jim: As well as the Live Better Longer podcast.

Gianna: Yes.

Jim: She was actually on the first episode where we talked about interdisciplinary collaboration.

Gianna: See, I got lucky.

Jim: It was it was meant to be!

Gianna: Yeah.

Jim: Gianna, what is number three on your FOX Five?

Gianna: Three is going to be evidence-based care is pretty easy. Being a FOX student—so you learn in school, research using the top functional outcome measures—and FOX's EMR system has it so nicely in place that I can do whatever outcome measure I want and make sure I'm objectively and subjectively kind of tracking my patients, which is what I wanted the most out of this experience.

Jim: Nice, and that brings us to number four on your FOX Five.

Gianna: Number four is therapy can still be fun if the complexity is high. So I see some super complex patients all day long and instead of just, you know, freaking out as a student thinking, “Where am I going to even go first?” I was pretty much taught to go back to the basics and make it fun for everybody.

Jim: And that brings us to number five.

Gianna: Age is just a number.

Jim: Yeah, yeah!

Gianna: So, we see a 94-year-old right now and I have him doing wall-ball squats with five-pound weights. We're walking a half a mile, it's insane what they can do. I don't even check their ages now when I'm trying to base what I'm going do with them. I meet them where they are, and then the age is like an added bonus for the stories that I get to hear from them.

Jim: Alright, that was an excellent FOX Five! Gianna, you graduate in December.

Gianna: Yes.

Jim: What are you planning to do? Do we know? I don’t want to twist your arm.

Gianna: I’m fine. What do I want to do next? I knew coming into this that I kind of loved geriatric patients, but my whole heart is with the geriatric community, so hopefully I end up in that route.

Jim: This feels like when an athlete announces where they're going to go next, so maybe we'll have some type of press conference in the future. We’ll see.

Gianna: We’ll see, we’ll leave it up in the air.

Jim: Gianna thank you for doing this, and good luck with the rest of your clinical rotation.

Gianna: Thank you so much for having me, it was really nice.