CSM is to PT like Christmas is to Santa Claus – this is OUR TIME. In this special pre-CSM episode, we’re counting down our favorite things about #APTACSM, what you don’t want to miss at the conference, AND how to get your hands on our brand new Oncology Rehab: A Pocket Guide.
Listen now!
I will see you Thursday morning at 8am!
Our session Pediatric Lymphedema: Treating Lymphedema to Improve Mobility will take place on Thursday morning, February 15 at 8am in Meeting Room 104ABC (Meeting Level 1, Boston Convention Center).
This session has literally been 2 years in the making. We were originally supposed to present as a pre-con last year, then it was canceled, so we turned it into a 2 hour session for this year!
We cannot wait to share this information with you, especially as therapists who never pictured ourselves treating this very niche population. But I’ll let you in on a little secret from our session: this population is way bigger than you think.
What are you attending at CSM?
To be completely honest, I haven’t even begun to plan my sessions beyond Thursday at 8am. There are simply too many amazing sessions for my brain to even comprehend. So I’m going to most likely select my sessions while on the flight to Boston tomorrow morning.
And even then, I’ll probably change my mind that morning.
Message me on IG & let me know what you’re attending!
Do NOT sleep on the posters or the platform presentations.
The 2-hour sessions get all the glory, but if you want sessions that are super dynamic, bite-sized, & easily digestible so you can implement their stuff, you will love the platform presentations.
Oncology Physical Therapy Platform 1 takes place on Thursday, February 15 at 3pm.
Oncology Physical Therapy Platform 2 takes place on Friday, February 16 at 11am.
Same goes for posters – plus this is a great way to support clinicians & students who have put a lot of hard work into bringing research to life!
Don’t forget about the SIG & membership meetings
Oncology Residency SIG meeting: Thursday, February 15 @ 12pm
Pediatric Oncology SIG meeting: Thursday, February 15 @ 1pm
Lymphatic Disease SIG meeting: Thursday, February 15 @ 1pm
Immune Systems Disorders SIG meeting: Thursday, February 15 @ 5pm
Student & New Professionals meeting: Friday, February 16 @ 10am
Oncology Specialization & Residency Information session: Friday, February 16 @ 1pm
Academy of Oncologic PT Membership meeting: Friday, February 16 @ 6:30pm
Celebration of Life Reception: Friday, February 16 @ 8pm
Hospice/Palliative Care SIG meeting: Thursday, February 15 @ 10am
Oncology Balance/Falls SIG meeting: Thursday, February 15 @ 1pm
Now for a special surprise!
If you’ve seen my video on social media, you already know, but today marks the official release date of Oncology Rehab: A Pocket Guide.
This pocket-sized guide is your one-stop resource for cancer basics that you can easily consult on the job.
You can now get your copy at TheOncoPT.com/pocketguide
Or you can DM me on Instagram POCKETGUIDE & I’ll send you the link.
Now for the super fun CSM giveaway:
I will be giving away 2 copies of Oncology Rehab: A Pocket Guide each day of CSM (6 total copies). To win a free copy, here’s what you need to do:
- Find me at CSM
- Tell me the super secret passphrase: POCKET GUIDE PLEASE
- Even if you’re not a winner that day, you can still enter the next day.
- Also you can only win once.
- We’ll take a selfie, post it to social media, & tag @TheOncoPT in it with hashtag #POCKETGUIDEPLEASE
- Once CSM is done, I’ll mail you your copy!
IMPORTANT NOTE: I will not start the giveaway until after 11am on Thursday. Let me get through my presentation first 😀
Also, I’m really short. So if you’re looking for me, look down. You’re probably looking over my head.
Want to watch the episode instead?
Watch this week’s episode of TheOncoPT Podcast on our YouTube channel!
Transcript
Hey, OncoPTs and welcome to this very special pre-CSM edition of the OncoPT podcast. My name’s Elise, I’m your host, and we are going to do a very, very quick dive into what is coming up, what we’re super excited about over here at the OncoPT. And I’ve got a very special surprise for you at the end of this episode. You definitely don’t want to miss out on.
So as of the time of this recording, it is February 13th. It is the day before CSM starts. The pre-cons start tomorrow or like they’re happening tomorrow. The rest of the conference is going to take place starting on Thursday. And I have been waiting for this moment for over two years. So I didn’t go to last year’s CSM. It just didn’t work out with my schedule. And then our session got canceled also, but we are back baby this year and we are leading off CSM with our presentation. More on that here in a bit.
But CSM, if I were Santa Claus, CSM would be my Christmas. This is the time of year that I just come alive. We’ve already got group chats going with a bunch of different PTs, PTAs, and students from across the country who are all converging on Boston, and I’m so, so excited to get to see each and every one of you and to also meet some of you for the first time, which is so stinking cool. I would be remiss if I did not
personally shamelessly plug my own CSM session that is taking place. I am teaming up with two amazing presenters, Andrea and Amber, and we are giving our presentation called Treating… What is it? Oh my God. I will know this at some point. So our session is called Pediatric Lymphedema, Treating Lymphedema to Improve Mobility. And again, that is taking place on Thursday, February 15th at 10.
Elise (02:19.802)
8 a.m. y’all like I said first session we are kicking off CSM with our session. As of now we are scheduled to meet in meeting room 104 ABC. Now apparently per the CSM website this is what I read it is on meeting level one inside of the Boston Convention Center. Now I’m gonna let you know sometimes things change all right they could change up until that morning probably.
But all of that information for both our session and any other session you want to attend at the conference, that is probably gonna be all on the app. I’m in the process of updating my app from a couple years ago, making sure I have the most up-to-date version, because that is going to be my compass for the next three days, and I’m super excited about it. And also I’m a little, you know, I just like to be careful, making sure that I know where I’m going when I’m supposed to be going, because here’s why.
my very first CSM was 2016. It was in Anaheim and I actually went as a student. And I was so, so blessed to be a part of a poster presentation. And I didn’t actually understand how the schedule of CSM worked. So previously when I’ve been to much smaller, like our local, you know, our Texas chapter Physical Therapy Association annual conference,
It felt more like back to back to back to back to back. I don’t know, that’s just what it felt. I don’t know if that’s actually what it was for certain. But CSM is kind of structured differently. Here’s how. The first session goes from eight to 10. There is then an hour break. So from 10 to 11, there’s a break. There’s not going to be any sessions, but there might be meetings, for example. And then from 11 to one, there is the lunchtime session.
where there is another round of those two hour presentations. So then we go from one to three, which is technically like our lunch break, and then there is one final session of the day that goes from three to five. I straight up went to an 8 a.m. session, and I think partially, I think this is, if I’m remembering correctly, I went to a session that had Nicole Stout, who talked about cancer rehab or something to that extent, and I said,
Elise (04:36.91)
Oh my God, where can I get more of this? And I was so excited about it that I went straight from that session to the room of my next session. I completely blew off the people that I was supposed to meet because I thought that I was supposed to go right to the conference session and then I sat there and waited for an hour and I wondered why the session was running late. So what I’m saying is don’t pull in a lease. Look at the schedule, plan out what you’re doing.
And then don’t forget about the breaks in between there because trust me, you are going to need them friend. If you have never been to CSM, you’re in for a treat. If you’re an old pro, you know what I’m talking about. So that’s my little spiel on, don’t forget about kind of the flow of the conference just so you don’t end up like me looking silly arriving an hour early to a session and wondering why everyone else was late. Now back to my own session.
I’m so, so excited about this because this session has literally been two years in the making. We were actually supposed to present this information as a pre-con last year and it unfortunately got canceled. And so all of our work kind of had to pause and now we’re back this year presenting in a two-hour session, which we are so excited about and we cannot wait to share this information with you. One of the things that we really want…
therapists and potential attendees to take away from this session and Hopefully what draws you into coming to this session is you do not need to be a pediatric therapist To treat this patient population or to come to our session period. You also don’t have to be a lymphedema Therapist to come to our session. We specifically have structured this session to try to get both camps
If you have any indication or any inkling in your soul that you have an interest in treating this patient population or you suspect that you might encounter them, this session is for you. We break it down into what are some of those basics of lymphedema therapy, but then also, what are the basics of working with a child and not an adult, and how do we marry those two together so that no matter where you end up after you leave CSM,
Elise (06:51.498)
You know, if you’re going outpatient, if you’re going inpatient, if you’re going PEDs, if you’re like me and you work predominantly with adult cancer survivors, you’re still going to be able to take something away from this. Because one thing that we have figured out during our time of working on this information as, you know, session co-presenters, but also in our own clinical experiences, this is a lot bigger patient population than what we thought.
I’ll give you an example. So I’ve been working with pediatric lymphedema for a while, but it’s always been elsewhere. Like I’ve been with another organization that is kind of like spearheading this. Whereas in my private practice, I treat adult cancer survivors. Like that is the three word phrase that encompasses my patient population. And I thought I’m good to go, this is what I need. I’m never going to actually encounter a child with lymphedema in the wild.
So imagine my surprise when I get a phone call from a parent back in, gosh, it was summer of 22 or 23. Can’t remember now. And they said, hey, my child has just been diagnosed with lymphedema. I see on your website that you treat lymphedema. How can I make an appointment?
And since then, my eyes have truly been open to just how big of a patient population this is, but perhaps more necessarily, why this is so much more crucial is that nobody is willing to treat this patient population. Even the very prestigious children’s hospital system in my geographic area will not touch children who have lymphedema despite the fact that
I know some of their therapists have been CLTs in the past. And it all boils down to…
Elise (08:51.042)
we’re not comfortable treating these patients. And unfortunately, if you’re not comfortable treating these patients, they fall through the cracks. And so that’s why it is so, so important that we cover this information, why we’re so excited that we are able to bring this information to CSM, and why I really, really hope to see you there, because this is the kind of material that we need to get implemented into our community so that these patients can stop falling through the cracks. All right, that’s enough of my soapbox. You’ll hear more about it on Thursday morning.
8 a.m. on February 15th and I cannot wait to see you there along with Andrea and Amber, which by the way if y’all are listening to this by any chance thank you so much for working with me over the past two years on this presentation. Like we would not have been able to pull it together had y’all not been dragging me along the way so thank you for that. That was amazing and I’m really excited to get to present with you on Thursday. Back to the rest of CSM. I will let you know to be completely honest.
This is the only session that I have definitively confirmed that I am attending. Is my own session because there are simply too many sessions that I want to attend happening all at the same time. I don’t know what the heck I’m going to do. Actually I do kind of know. I’m going to get on a plane tomorrow morning and I’m going to pull up the conference app and I’m probably going to add like three sessions per slot to my calendar and then make a game time decision as to which one I’m actually going to attend.
This is one of the few situations that I do kind of fly by the seat of my pants because I don’t have the technology needed to invent a time turner so that I can go to all of the sessions. So I would love to know because I’m obviously still picking out what I’m going to be attending. What are you attending at CSM? I would love it if you could message me on Instagram and let me know, like, what is one session that you’re really interested and excited about attending?
because I need to narrow down my choices and it’s not going well on my own right now. So message me on Instagram, let me know. I’m super excited about that. I do want to encourage you.
Elise (11:02.678)
because this is something I didn’t realize until a couple years into my first CSM, like several CSMs later, do not sleep on the posters and the platform presentations. The two hour sessions, understandably so, get the glory, right? Those are the big ones, those are where, you know what, draw the huge attendance numbers, ideally, I think, right? But if you want information, that is,
Super dynamic. If you want a session that is like very quick-paced, that is informative, that guarantees that there’s going to be lots of different speakers talking about lots of different things, you need to go to the platform presentations. So the Oncology Physical Therapy Platform number one happens on Thursday, February 15th at 3 p.m. And then the second round, Oncology Physical Therapy Platform two takes place on Friday, February 16th at 11 a.m.
If you’ve never been, it is kind of like a, a round robin-esque of different presenters. So every presenter has 15 ish minutes to present on material. And a lot of times it’s, you know, like an original research project they’ve been working on, but it’s super bite-sized. And I really like it because sometimes when you get to a session, despite best efforts, it’s kind of boring.
And that’s okay, you’re just not gelling with that speaker. So in that case, a lot of times you have to go and like find a different session to attend to. Whereas with the platform sessions, if you don’t like the speaker, just wait 15 minutes and someone else will come and present. Which I think is probably the best deal, especially if you’re like me and you have a really hard time sitting for two hours at a time and paying attention. Again, don’t forget about those posters, those are gonna be in the exhibit hall.
and there are going to be so many. They’re different every day, in case you didn’t know that, because I definitely didn’t know that when I first started this. And this is also a great way to support clinicians and students who have put a lot of hard work to bringing their research and their passion to life. And who knows, you might meet a new PT bestie there. And so I would highly, highly encourage you, definitely don’t forget to check those out. I would also encourage you to check out the different special interest group and membership meetings.
Elise (13:28.818)
I have listed all of the oncology ones in the show notes, so you can check those out. Those are of course, ooh, excuse me, I’m about to sneeze. Woo. All of those meetings are of course in the app and on the CSM programming website, but just a couple that I wanna call your attention to because I personally am excited or affiliated or just like generally enthusiastic about these in some way or another. So in…
special place in my heart, the student and new professional group for oncology is meeting on Friday, February 16th at 10 a.m. That is unopposed time. That means there are no sessions that are taking place during this. And that one.
Elise (14:18.466)
that one is a really, really cool place to be, especially if you’re early in your career or you’re newer to oncology. That’s actually how I interacted with Shai for the very first time, if I’m remembering correctly. So Dr. Shaisul, we both had this interest in, man, wouldn’t it be great if there was something out there for the young clinician who is brand new and enthusiastic and excited about oncology? What if there was something out there like that? And sure enough,
There is now, which is so stinking cool. You might meet a study buddy if you’re looking into ever taking the oncology specialist certification exam. You might just meet a really cool new friend, like I met in Shaisul, which is so, so cool. And now, several years later, we’ve got a special surprise for you. We’re gonna wait until the end to talk about that though. So I’m gonna tease that again and then back out. Other meetings, there is of course the
different SIG groups, there’s oncology residency, pediatric oncology, lymphatic disease, immune system disorder, which is like a newer one, that’s very exciting, hospice palliative care, balance involves for oncology, all those are listed. I do want to make sure if you are interested in any capacity on how the oncology academy is run, or maybe you have an interest in running for a leadership position in the future, or maybe you want to be involved in driving.
the future of the Academy of Oncologic Physical Therapy, then you definitely want to attend the membership meeting, which is Friday, February 16th at 6.30 p.m. I usually try to make that because I like to, again, stay abreast of what’s happening within our academy, and then immediately following that, this is probably one of my favorite parts of CSM. The Academy of Oncologic Physical Therapy does their celebration of life reception.
which is a really great way that we come together as a community and we pause to remember patients who have died over the last year. And then we also get to join in fellowship and community with each other afterwards. This is also kind of where you start to see some of the like big names in oncology, physical therapy, let down their hair a little bit. This is where like you really make those friendships, which are super fun. Highly recommend, highly recommend that.
Elise (16:43.522)
That is at 8 p.m. and I will definitely be seeing you at the celebration of life reception. So if you ever want to say hello, that is definitely a place to see me. So now for the super special fun surprise that I’ve been saving for this for today specifically. If you’ve seen my social media today, you probably already know this, but if you haven’t, here’s what’s going on. Today marks the official release of Oncology Rehab, a pocket guide.
This is the pocket guide resource that Shai Sewell and I have been working on for the past two years to take the basics of cancer rehab and make them into an easily accessible, easily stored in your pocket resource guide. It’s here, it is earth side. I actually have my physical copy sitting in my suitcase just off camera here.
This is your one-stop resource for all things cancer rehab that you can easily take with you and consult on the job. Like, you got a patient, flip it open and see what you need to know about that particular stuff. You can now get your own copy at the oncopt.com slash pocket guide, or you can also message me on Instagram, pocket guide, and I will send you the link so that you can get your own copy. And for CSM,
because like I said, it is my Christmas. We’re doing a super special giveaway. Here’s how this is gonna go down. Every day of the conference, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I will be giving away two copies of Oncology Rehab, A Pocket Guide. So two on Thursday, two on Friday, two on Saturday, total of six. So to win,
one of these free copies that I will then mail to you after the conference. You are going to find me at CSM. You are going to tell me the super secret passphrase, which is pocket guide, please. I know super secret, super, um, creative and very furtive in nature. Right? So you’re going to tell me the super secret pass, passphrase, and then we’re going to take a selfie, you’re going to post it to social media and you’re going to tag me in it.
Elise (19:05.866)
and put the hashtag pocket guide please. This is going to help me actually track after the fact that yep, that was the person that I need to, that I need to send that pocket guide to, okay? Once CSM is done, I will then mail you your own copy, okay? Right now I have one copy and that’s going to be traveling around with me at CSM, so you can’t take my copy, but I’ll send you your own, okay? Now here’s a couple rules that I want you to pay attention to.
Even if you are not a winner that day, try again the next day. Okay. Say you find me, it was, you know, the, the copies have already been claimed. Come back and find me on Friday. Right. Et cetera, et cetera. You can only win once. So you cannot come back. If you won on Thursday, you can’t come back and try to get another copy on Friday or Saturday. Okay. Not doing that. You can only win once. And last rule. I will not be starting this giveaway until.
after I complete my presentation on Thursday morning. Okay, so once 10 a.m. rolls around on Thursday morning, February 15th, the contest opens. But I need to get through my presentation first before I start trying to do the giveaway, okay? So once 10 a.m. on Thursday starts, that’s when you can come find me.
and then potentially win your free copy, okay? Remember, I’m giving away two a day, and even if you’re not a winner, maybe I’ll have a little special surprise gift for you anyways. We’ll see. So I guess you’ll just have to come and find me. One last note. I am really short. Like really short. And if you are looking for me at CSM, look down.
because you are probably looking over my head. Case in point, this is not an exaggeration, this is real life. At CSM 2020, wah, two, which was in San Antonio, I was trying to meet up with my friend and friend of the podcast, Andrew Chongue. Now, Andrew is a fairly tall dude, and he’s definitely taller than I am, no surprise. And I saw Andrew way before he saw me.
Elise (21:32.702)
and I could literally see his eyes scanning the top of the crowd. I’m a solid foot under the top of the crowd, if not more y’all. So if you’re looking for me, look down because that’s where I am. This is not a joke. This is not a drill. I’m actually like five foot. One on a good day. So look down. I’m probably closer to the ground than what you’re giving me credit for. Don’t miss me because of that. I will be wearing my hair kind of this like
curly all of the conference. So if that helps, look down for a little curly haired brown haired person, okay?
With all that said, I’m so, so excited for CSM. It’s been two years. I am so excited to return. I’m really excited to be giving my first presentation at CSM. And I’m really excited that I’ve been blessed to do so alongside an amazing team who have really made this project come to life. And I’m so, so happy. I’m so excited for you to get to meet Andrea and Amber. They are going to crush it. And I’m really excited to get to stand up on stage next to them. Don’t forget to
to win your copy of the Pocket Guide. And if you can’t make it to CSM, that’s okay, friend. You can always get your copy at theoncopt.com slash Pocket Guide. So until next time, this is Elise with the Onco PT. And remember, you are exactly the physical therapist that your patients with cancer need. So let’s get to work.