As an OncoPT, it’s easy to underappreciate just how much you know.
What feels “basic” to you—like explaining cancer-related fatigue or fitting a walker—is often life-changing information for someone else.
So here’s your reminder:
👉 Don’t keep your knowledge to yourself. Share it.
Because someone out there needs to hear exactly what you know—and only you can say it the way you do.
Listen now to get started TODAY.
Where to get help for your next steps
Need help? Stay tuned inside The Cancer Rehab Community—we’ve got resources coming to help you build confidence and start sharing your voice with the people who need it most.
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Watch this week’s episode of TheOncoPT Podcast on our YouTube channel!
Transcript
Elise – @TheOncoPT (00:19)
Hey Onco PT and welcome back to this episode of the Onco PT podcast. Now you may know that back in February, I along with Dr. Alexandra Hill and Dr. Kelly Sturm presented at CSM on the topic of social media and cancer rehab. It was a really awesome talk. It was super fun to have this opportunity with these ladies to talk about this topic that we really love to talk about. But one of the things that’s really stuck with me is that this conversation is meant to be
ongoing. This is not a one and done kind of presentation or talk. Like it needs to be talked about more often. In our world of increasing digital access, more and more people have devices, whether that’s phones, computers, etc., where they can access social media. More people are on social media than ever. And especially in light of what is happening currently,
in American politics and health and human services and all the things, as of the time of this recording in late April 2025, it’s more important than ever that our communities have access to accurate and helpful and informative health information, especially when it comes to oncology, especially when it comes to cancer rehab, because there’s not enough of us that are talking about this.
But when I talk about this, when I talk about this topic, when we shared it at CSM, when we share it with others, there’s some resistance and totally understandably so. But what I find is interesting in that more often I get the pushback of, I don’t know what to talk about. Like, okay, maybe I’m interested in social media. I’m not really sure what to talk about. I don’t know what I could say that would really be beneficial.
for people to know about cancer rehab, for example, oncology, physical therapy. And it wasn’t until I watched this actually a TikTok from a fellow content creator, name is nurse, excuse me, Jen Hamilton. She’s a nurse. She’s a labor and delivery nurse. You’ve probably seen her on social media if you’ve ever been on TikTok at some point. And she has a lot of…
entertaining content. She has a lot of educational content. She has the series, Will It Swaddle? Where she literally shows people like one how to swallow, excuse me, swaddle some stuff. ⁓ The first one I ever saw, she was swaddling her pet chicken. I think she’s also done like a cantaloupe before. So anyways, like just fun entertaining things. But on the flip side of that, she also has educational content about
what she does as a labor and delivery nurse and what it looks like to advocate for her patients during this extremely vulnerable time in their lives when they are bringing new life into the world. the other day I was scrolling on social media as I do sometimes when I just need a brain rot and I came across one of her videos. And this video was so interesting to me, not because of what it contained, right?
So the content of this video is that she was demonstrating how to hold a baby. And at first I kind of laughed. I was like, my gosh, this is so silly. And she kind of said the same thing. She says, you know, a lot of people, this is not a big thing, but a lot of the first time parents that I encounter in my job as a labor and delivery nurse,
may not actually know how to hold a baby, especially a very, very small baby, such as what immediately is birthed into the world. And when she said that, it made me actually reflect. Now, I have a little sister. I was a toddler, though, when she was born, so I don’t really have a whole lot of experience I can draw on when it comes to holding a small baby. And it wasn’t until…
A few years ago, we met our goddaughter for the first time and she was eight days old. And I have never seen up close and in person in my adult life, such a small human being before. And frankly, it was terrifying. I did my share of babysitting as a teenager, as a young person, I taught swimming to, you know, as young as two year, two year olds. This is different.
Right? With a two year old, when I was coaching and swimming, like there was something to hold onto, right? There was a toddler that I could hold onto in the water. This tiny little baby that as soon as we walked in the door to our goddaughter’s house, her parents instantly put the baby, our goddaughter into my arms and basically walked off and like, ⁓ here she is. Nice. Like it’s time for you to meet her. It’s time for you to hold her. And the fear.
of, my God, this child, this baby is so small, so fragile, I’m not really sure what I’m doing. And anyways, this video by Jen Hamilton brought all of this back to my brain, like rushing back of this, my gosh, this child is very small. I don’t know how to hold a child this small. I eventually figured it out with some coaching from the parents, which was great. But this concept is actually really familiar.
And while you may not be able to apply specifically the labor and delivery holding a baby example here, this concept is so simple. It’s so simple, in fact, that a lot of people kind of overestimate how, you know, or maybe underestimate how valuable this kind of information is. Because then, when it was my husband’s turn,
to hold our goddaughter, goddaughter, excuse me, he was completely lost. And he, again, he’d never held a baby that small before. He did not have babysitting experience. He does not have pediatrics experience where he’s been holding a lot of children, you know, in this, especially who are so small. And so for him, he probably could have really benefited from that video. Like he figured it out with some coaching. We were good to go. But I bring this up. What a simple concept.
of this video by Jen Hamilton on how to hold a baby.
Maybe it’s really common knowledge to you. Maybe you have a lot of experience holding babies. Maybe you’ve held a ton of babies in your lifetime. And you might be thinking, ⁓ everybody knows how to hold a baby. Here’s what I’m gonna push back on you, friend. That is not the case. I’m a great example of this. My husband, also a very, very good example of this. We only think, or you only think that holding a baby is obvious if you have held.
babies previously, if you have a lot of experience holding babies. And the reason that we’re talking about this today, we only think that something is obvious or it’s common knowledge or everybody knows that because of our training, our education, our knowledge and our lived experience. And the same goes for you as an oncology physical therapist. You know so much information.
because you have been educated in this, you have trained in this, you have done the reading, you have done the researching to have this very significant knowledge base in your brain that you use every single day with your patients to now the fact it’s practically second nature, right? If I were to ask you, know, what are the side effects of blah, blah treatment, you would be able to tell me very confidently and then be able to formulate a plan on what do I do with a patient who has this.
because you have been training in this. You have the experience, you have the exposure to this information on a regular basis. But to everybody else, including to your patients, this is not commonplace. For a lot of our patients, this is their first experience with cancer. Hopefully their only experience with cancer ever. This is not common knowledge. In fact, sometimes it’s a bit of a mystery, not because our patients are not
you know, smart or well-educated or well, you know, informed. We learn this information because we spend time with it day in and day out. Your patients, your communities are not likely doing this. And this is what I wanted to talk about today because what you think is obvious is likely gold to someone else. As oncology rehab professionals, we forget a lot of times just how much we know.
Again, you’re really, really smart. You have a lot of information in your brain. We’ve spent years studying and preparing for our patients with these conditions, and we have so many experiences that help to inform this. So when a friend asks you about their aunt, for example, who’s going through chemotherapy, and says something along the lines of, you know, she’s been feeling really, really tired, and is this normal? Is this what she’s supposed to be doing?
You might think, because again, you know, ⁓ it’s cancer-related fatigue. Yes, this happens in upwards of 80 to 100 % of people diagnosed with cancer at some point. Here’s what’s going on. Here’s what you can do about it. But to them, again, you know this. This is just common knowledge floating around in your brain. This is mind-blowing information to that friend, to that colleague, to that patient that you’re working with. It’s not basic. It is mind.
blowing life-changing information that can help them do infinitely more things better in their own life. This is helping people make sense of what is happening to them, what is happening within their bodies, and ultimately, what can they do about it? What can, you know, is this something they can get help for? Where can they get help for this? How do they know if this help is going to work, for example?
All this to say you have an expertise that your patients and your communities need desperately. And I really, really want you to sit with this kind of uncomfortable truth here. There are patients out there who are scared, confused, overwhelmed, and feeling alone because no one has ever explained the things that you can in the way that you can.
There are patients out there, there are caregivers out there who are going to connect with you and your message and how you share that message because you are their people, right? You just get it. You just connect with people. We all have those patients that you just like gel with. Instant connection. It’s like your brains are on the same wavelength and you just get it or you have those breakthroughs, right?
where you’re talking about something and you explain it in a way that this patient just, it’s like a lightning bolt from the sky of, my God, this makes so much sense now. I’ve never heard it this way before. I’ve never thought about it that way before. my gosh, there’s hope for me as I’m experiencing this stuff. There are new grads. There are…
PT students, there are even other seasoned clinicians out there in other settings who want to be better, but they don’t know what they don’t know. And if you don’t say something, if you don’t share what you know, then they are likely going to stay in the dark for longer than they need to, if not, unfortunately, like forever. I think we’ve all had a patient, or maybe even a colleague, right? We’ve all had someone who has come to us with a problem, with a question.
And they said, I wish I knew this sooner. You know, I had a patient who, gosh, this was a few years ago when I was seeing her. And she developed lymphedema for the first time about eight years after she originally went through breast cancer treatment. And it was, first of all, very confusing of like, what the heck is going on with my body when she started experiencing that swelling.
And then when she was finally connected with me, who was her lymphedema therapist, it was a, I wish I had known this sooner. I wish I had known about lymphedema sooner. I wish I had known what I could have done to maybe prevent or minimize my risk of developing lymphedema. I wish I would have known what to do if I started to show this swelling and other signs and symptoms of lymphedema sooner. Right? I wish I would have known this sooner. And that’s unfortunately what happens
when we keep our knowledge to ourselves, when we are not sharing this information with our patients, with our communities, so that people know where to go and what to do when they need help sooner.
And frankly, this is unacceptable. There’s no reason in 2025 when we have literally an information superhighway in our phone at our fingertips, right? That we should be dealing, we should be having people in our community who are saying, I wish I would have known this sooner. I wish I would have known this years ago instead of, ⁓ I was able to look this up and get this information and then find my local Onco PT to help me with this stuff. So what this means.
I know you do a lot of patient education and caregiver education all day, every day in your communities. And that’s awesome. But a lot of times this is on a one-to-one or like one to a few kind of situation, right? You’re sitting with your patient, you’re having this conversation, you’re having this discussion on whatever educational topic. Maybe it’s just them, maybe it’s with their family member or their caregiver, whatever that is. But it’s very much a one-to-one situation, you and the patient. And there’s only so much that we can do.
on a one-to-one basis. If we are going to truly transform oncology rehab, oncology physical therapy, so that more people know about us, know what we do, and know how we can help them do what is important to them, do what they want to do, what they need to do with the people that are most important to them, we can’t stay in this one-to-one model.
as comfortable as it is, it’s not going to actually transform oncology rehab the way that you want it to be done.
So here’s how we’re going to do that. Instead of a one-to-one, we have to make it a one-to-many.
And one of the best ways I know how to do this is actually through social media. Now.
There’s lots of different ways to share this information. If you’re like, Elise, social media is not for me, I get it, friend. There’s still other ways that you can do this. So we’re gonna take social media actually out of the picture just for a minute. And what I want you to start thinking about is creating content. Now, what does this mean? What does this actually look like in practice? And how can you actually make it work in your already very busy life? My friend, you might even be doing some of these things and you don’t even know it.
So here is your permission slip if you needed it. Not that you ever need my permission for anything. Stop keeping your oncology rehab expertise to yourself. Start creating, start sharing, start talking about this stuff. This could look like maybe you showing up on social media and, you know, giving a brief, know, posting a brief video talking about what is cancer related fatigue.
What are things that we can do for cancer related fatigue? How to find and get connected with your Onco PT services, for example. But maybe it’s not on social media. Maybe it’s a blog post that you share with your patients, with your community, that they can go and learn what lymphedema actually looks like in real life, for example. Maybe it’s a podcast. Oh, I’m a big podcast fan, you know that.
but maybe it’s a podcast where you’re talking about these certain topics. And that’s not even saying you have to go out and start a podcast on your own. If you do, cool, amazing. I know some resources for you. But even going on as a guest of podcasts and talking about this information. Very, very early on in my career, I was connected actually with a local healthcare.
like Health Information Podcast here in DFW here in Texas. And I actually appeared as a guest on that podcast. And again, this was a community facing podcast. I don’t know how many people I reached. That’s not really the point. The point is that I got on there and I shared information about what is cancer rehab? How does physical therapy help people who have cancer? What can we do? And even if that didn’t directly drive patients into see me,
It helped people get connected and more informed about cancer rehab so that they could get their needs met. And that’s ultimately what’s most important about this. Maybe you’re posting information on LinkedIn, for example. We tend to think of LinkedIn as more of like a professional connection site. That’s also a great opportunity to create content, to post, giving different in-services and presentations.
And if you’re thinking to yourself, ugh, at least this sounds like lot of extra work, pause here. I want you to reflect on the last thing that you educated a patient on.
it’s more than likely that you have had this same conversation with other patients multiple times over the years that you’ve been practicing. For example, ⁓ I had a patient last week that I was talking with that we were talking about cellulitis because right now it’s springtime in Texas, people are starting to garden or get their gardens ready or whatever that looks like. And so making sure that they are wearing gloves and taking other precautions to take care of their skin so that we can…
hopefully prevent some kind of cellulitis infection from taking hold. I have talked about cellulitis so much over the past just six months, right? It’s always unfortunately relevant when it comes to lymphedema therapy. I’ve probably given that same education conversation discussion on cellulitis hundreds of times in my practice so far, and I will probably keep giving.
that same cellulitis discussion, conversation, education time, ⁓ thousands of more times in my practice.
This to say, you probably have common topics or themes that you talk about regularly in your practice. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel and come up with brand new information just so you can start sharing it in whatever medium you choose. What are things that your patients are asking you about now? And how can you use that in, again, as a podcast guest?
as a, you know, if you choose to create social media content, for example, if you’re posting blog posts or whatever, or any number of things that are ways that you can share this message, that you can get this information out so that your communities are better informed about what is oncology rehab and ultimately how can it help them. You do not need a large following to get started. You don’t have to be a celebrity with all, like,
hundreds of thousands of followers to get started. In fact, that’s actually the opposite because you have to get started where you’re at before you can grow to whatever you’re choosing to grow to, right? All that matters is that you get started because there is someone out there right now who needs to hear exactly what you know and in the way that only you can say it.
As I mentioned previously, you have those patients that you just click with, you just connect with. You are on the same brain wavelength and you’re helping that person in front of you understand information maybe they’ve heard previously and it just didn’t click in their brain, right? I can’t tell you how many times. ⁓ great example. Here’s a great example of this. So I took anatomy for the first time in college.
I did okay in anatomy. Generally, I understand what the human body is. I knew I was interested in health, but it wasn’t until I took anatomy several more times throughout my PT school career, and then I actually started teaching an intro to anatomy course that I finally really grasped some of the concepts. It’s like I had to be exposed to that material so many times over the years before things finally clicked.
Right? I had to learn the information first in school and then I had to learn it again in school, some more school, and then I was working with patients and then I revisited that material before I said, my God, this makes so much more sense now.
I get it. I finally understand this particular topic.
This is why we need you. This is why we need you to be sharing what you know with your communities. Because even if someone has heard that same message previously, years ago, you never know how it is going to transform their life today and tomorrow and every day after that from hearing your message and the special unique way with which only you can say that information.
Now, if you’re thinking about getting started, I hope I’ve inspired you a little bit at this point. But if you are thinking or considering sharing your knowledge, but don’t know where to start, let me know. I have some ideas. Again, Alex, Kelly and I gave this talk at CSM, but we’re happy to share our information because again, as much as we enjoy talking about social media and being on social media and sharing this information with our communities,
We don’t wanna be the only ones. And there’s others out there, but we need more. We need a lot more. And we need, especially clinicians in your specific area, working with your specific patient population to make this transformation possible, to make it from a hypothetical to an actuality in our own communities. So I would love you, DM me, right? Reach out on Instagram, or better yet, if you’re not on Instagram,
Reach out on The Cancer Rehab Community and message me. We can talk through ideas on this, but it’s so important that there’s more of us. There’s you out there who are sharing this information, who are talking about it, so that ultimately your patients in your community are getting this information and they can make better informed decisions for themselves. As I mentioned at the top of this episode, our world is changing so rapidly. The need for accurate
accessible health information is more urgent than ever. And unfortunately, it’s only going to continue to get more urgent. I hope you hear the urgency in my voice. This is really, really important. And I really want you to go from, I think I have something to say to actually putting your voice and your knowledge out there, because there are countless individuals who are going to benefit from hearing you, your voice and your message. And if this message resonated,
I would really appreciate if you would send this episode to a fellow Onco PT who you know also needs this nudge. So thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. I really, really appreciate your time. If you haven’t already subscribed to the Onco PT podcast on your favorite podcast player where we send new episodes, we drop new episodes into your podcast player every Tuesday. And I cannot wait to see you in the next episode, but until then.
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.