Listening Time — 24:42
Words are not enough. Statements opposing racism must be substantiated by actions that drive change throughout physical therapy organizations.
Ndidiamaka Matthews, PT, DPT, and Editor-in-Chief Alan Jette, PT, PhD, FAPTA, discuss the “systemic racism that can be difficult to see without understanding the mechanisms that underlie those systems and that allow those inequities to continue. … As a society we’re pretty able to see overt racism, intentional, obvious, harmful attitudes or behaviors toward racial groups,” explains Matthews, “but we’re not so good at seeing the covert racism that is often found in systemic racism that results — within the health care system — in these huge disparities that we’re seeing across multiple areas … maternal health, cardiovascular care, cerebrovascular disease, pain management,” all of which, she notes, have been well documented by the Institute of Medicine. Matthews delves into why there has been no meaningful progress in the representation of people of color in the physical therapy profession over the past two decades and offers some real-life equity strategies implemented at her institution. Matthews emphasizes that there is no singular answer to a problem this long-standing and complex and suggests that the profession needs to apply the same approaches that are used in research — first, by asking the right questions. “Where are people missing? And why are they missing there? Where are we losing people? And why are we losing people there? What opportunities do we have to change these numbers?”
Our guests
Alan M. Jette, PT, PhD, FAPTA, is editor-in-chief of PTJ: Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Journal.
Ndidiamaka Matthews, PT, DPT, is associate professor of clinical physical therapy, Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy, Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California. She is a board-certified clinical specialist in neurologic physical therapy.
