Go.
A little time-lapse photography.
Oh, very nice.
It's pretty sharp.
Yeah.
It's beautiful here.
Live again from APTA CSM here at Anaheim,
California.
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If you've ever been told...
To look more professional without anyone
defining what that actually means,
this conversation is for you.
I'm looking at you.
Our next guest has spent her career
expanding access to care and challenging
narrow definitions of who gets to belong
in this profession and who doesn't.
Live from Anaheim, Jen Bell,
welcome to the show.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Thanks for taking time here during the,
well, it's a little busy.
A little bit of chaos.
So it's a little bit of an unusual
intro, right?
So how do most PTs define professional?
And where does that fall short?
Yeah, definitely.
Well,
I think a lot of the definition of
professional demeanor,
professional appearance comes from kind of
the classic white male heteronormative
perspective that kind of governed health
professions forever.
And so that's the definition that's been
handed down to us from other healthcare
professions that came before us.
And it's the one that's stuck around.
The problem with that is that it's not
who our patients are.
And the world's changing.
Yeah.
That's not who we're actually have a
mission to get more of into our
profession.
And it's not having to conform to those,
those normatives around professional
behavior and demeanor and appearance burns
people out.
And so these are three big problems that
are professional right now.
How do we connect with patients where they
are to have good patient centered care?
How do we recruit and retain diverse
people to enter our profession and help
them to feel like they belong there?
And then how do we prevent them from
burning out?
Yeah.
It's huge.
World changed.
Not that long ago.
Having a tattoo was like, I mean.
Yeah.
It was sacrilege.
And now,
I don't know if it's a two on
a scale of one to ten,
but sometimes people will react that way.
Having a piercing anywhere but a standard
location was sacrilege.
I worked at a job in rural Alaska
and the email comes out with a reminder
about the dress code.
You're only supposed to have nail polish
that's red or pink.
and like all of these like just archaic
definitions of like what's acceptable and
i'm like in the world decided pink and
red are okay but like blue or orange
isn't like it's just absurd and you said
that was in rural alaska yeah i mean
i gotta be honest when you're that far
away from help like the rules nobody cares
right like what are we what are we
doing what are we dictating
yeah but even as recently as this summer
i had a student tell me that someone
told them like you're not gonna go into
the clinic with your tattoos showing are
you and it's like and the student was
like how would you like me to do
that right and it's like that's not the
world that we live in right now if
we continue to maintain those narrow
definitions we're really gonna run people
away
Right.
You're going to miss treating people and
you're going to miss the people that treat
those people.
Yeah, exactly.
And that make us better SPTs.
Who gets marginalized most by traditional,
I'll use air quotes,
traditional professional norms?
Who does it affect the most?
Yeah, certainly.
Well, I mean,
we're a profession that has a lot of
women in, and that's great.
But I see some of the biggest impacts
are in people of color,
women of color that are coming in,
and then also our gender nonconforming
members of our profession.
They are the ones that are,
how they show up is always appreciated or
respected, right?
And so
You know,
I don't want my students when they're
graduating to have to worry about whether
or not they should put their pronouns on
their CV.
It's like if it's important to you,
you need to put it on your CV.
Right.
And you don't want to work for someone
who isn't going to respect that.
So really thinking about the
underrepresented people in our profession
are the ones that are getting impacted by
these these older, more traditional norms.
Sure.
Yeah.
Why does this matter now?
Well,
we're doing so much stuff to try to
diversify the profession and recruit
people in,
but we have to accept them when they're
here as they are.
And then we have this huge burnout issue.
And so when we're constantly telling
people that you need to code switch in
the workplace,
that you need to not show up as
your authentic self,
you need to dress up to look like
what we expect a PT to look like.
That's adding additional cognitive load.
Layers and barriers and all those things.
Exactly.
And so, of course,
those people are going to burn out faster
because they're not able to fully relax as
their true selves in the workplace.
What do students understand about
authenticity,
which is a word I don't think was
used.
It's being used a lot more now,
especially when you can generate anything
you want with artificial intelligence.
But what do students understand about
authenticity that maybe the profession
doesn't?
forgot.
Yeah, I think the, you know,
most of the students coming through are
those younger generations.
We have some non-traditional students
coming through,
but they see that they can show up
in these diverse ways and be respected.
They're seeing, you know,
people on social media that are medical
professionals,
that are leaders that aren't conforming to
the white male heteronormative
expectations.
And so they're seeing it as
they're coming in and they're expecting us
to welcome them in in that way and
we really only have ourselves that are
going to hold them back right and so
we've got to we've got to open our
eyes we need to do some self-reflection we
need to stop and pause and think about
what is it as for me as a
white woman what are my biases that i
hold i need to figure out what they
are check them think about how i might
be interacting with young people coming in
how am i connecting with my patients to
be able to really um
open up and allow these diverse
individuals to really fully be themselves
in our profession.
All right.
You got a magic wand.
Yeah.
Which belief do PTs need to let go
of first?
And you get to decide.
No pressure.
Because no matter what you say,
you're going to pick the wrong one to
someone.
What do you think?
What do you think they need to let
go of first?
Us, we, we can own it.
Yeah.
No,
I think we need to let go of
our expectations that a couple of things.
Our expectations that PTs are always going
to continue to look the same way.
I'm sorry,
but we've put a lot of our khakis
and polos and sneakers away.
Yeah, we can ban that, right?
Yeah, for sure.
Sorry to my friend Anna who has it
on right now.
And we need to set aside the expectation
that, well,
I had to do it this way.
So you have to do it this way.
Like luckily these younger generations are
coming in and I'm forty four,
so I'm not that old,
but I am that old.
They're coming in with different
expectations of what the workplace means
to them,
how they show up for their patients and
connect.
And we have a ton to learn.
So we need to let go of our
old expectations and learn.
through reflection,
of being curious with people that are
coming in that are different than us so
that we can all make the profession better
and for our patients to get better faster.
Yeah.
All right.
We've got a tradition on the show.
It's called the parting shot.
Yeah.
What's the last,
we're doing fast episodes here,
but what's the last idea you'd want to
leave with the audience,
your mic drop moment or your soapbox
statement?
What do you got?
Oh,
I think it's really important that we're
continuously growing and changing as
professionals,
and that can include the way you look,
the way you talk, the way you dress,
and that there's true value in showing up
authentically for our colleagues and for
our patients.
We're going to be better for it.
Yes.
Right?
Absolutely.
We're going to be better people just in
general, but also better PTs and leaders.
Absolutely.
DE&I is three letters that I don't know
if they were talked about that much ten
years ago.
And when someone's against that,
I guess someone said it way better than
me.
They're like,
so you're okay with the opposite of DE&I,
which is the opposite of diverse is
homogenous.
Right.
right, equitable, inequitable, right,
diversity, equity, inclusion,
you like exclusion?
If anybody, when you put it like that,
it sounds,
Right.
Not great.
No.
And we've got to go that step beyond
that to belonging.
Right.
So not just make it right.
Not just right.
Not just, you know,
bring these folks into the profession,
but to help them to develop that sense
that they belong.
Sure.
In the profession, in the clinic with us,
with their patients and also making sure
our patients feel like they belong with us
and that we can relate and connect with
them.
Exactly.
Jen Bell, where can people find you?
Where would you send people to find you?
Yeah, so my Instagram handle is JenBell,
and I am a professor at Tufts University,
so you can find me on the Tufts
University DBT Phoenix website.
Jen Bell,
appreciate you stopping by here at the
live stream at CSM.
Thanks.