Physics

Do you like physics?

I’ll be honest; I never really enjoyed physics. I tried to but it always ended up being something I just tolerated. I had to take it in high school but wasn’t able to take the AP exam, so I had to take it again in undergrad and made Bs. That wasn’t quite good enough for my application to the DPT program so I got to take it AGAIN to get those As.

I think the reason it was difficult for me to both enjoy and understand physics is because it was almost never applied in a way that I was interested in. There’s a lot about springs and lights and a variety of vehicles and boxes on pulleys and magnets and pretty much everything except biology or chemistry. Even when I asked my professors how a particular concept could be applied to body functions, which was frequent, they didn’t know. It was always very disappointing.

Do you use physics now that you’re in PT school?

YES! I don’t have to get down to the nitty-gritty and do calculations but the concepts of physics are used constantly for understanding why something works the way it does. Some examples:

Pennate muscles - A pennate muscle essentially has a strip or multiple strips of tendon tissue running through it. The muscle fibers can attach to this, rather than having to reach all the way to the end of the muscle. This changes the length and direction of the muscle fibers, which has an effect on which direction the muscle pulls and makes the muscle stronger overall.

"2010-04-20 15.56.44" by skarocket7 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

^This model of a rectus femoris muscle highlights pennation with white “feathering.”

Layers in the vertebral disc - Vertebral discs are the round, rubbery cushions between your vertebrae. They have a squishy center with a tough, thick shell around it. This shell is made of several thin layers of fibrous cartilage. Each layer alternates which direction the fibers lay, which makes the disc more durable because it distributes any stress placed on it. Kind of like using stitches that go multiple directions to strengthen a seam when sewing or taping a box using X shapes instead of straight pieces.

Levers - This one is probably the only example my physics teachers could name but it makes more sense with my current professors teaching it. There are lots of levers in the body but a thorough understanding of where muscles attach really helps to understand where the loads, fulcrums, and efforts are and how each changes with movement.

"Second Class Lever" by sarahmckinnon is marked with CC0 1.0

And there’s so much more in addition to these!

Do other students in the medical field feel this way, too?

I haven’t explicitly discussed this topic with other students but I guarantee they’re out there. I do know that lots of people push these physics concepts to the back of their mind because it seems so irrelevant to their field of interest. It’s frustrating to then start a doctoral level class and have to apply this forgotten knowledge. Frequently.

If you are a physics teacher or professor, please, please, please reach out to physical therapy programs and learn ways to teach biology applied physics! This could be incredibly helpful for students interested in medical careers.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic! Share them below!