Professor Spotlight: Dr. Tudini

Written By: Brittany Battle, DPT19 and Kawin Barnes, DPT19

We recently had a new faculty member added to Campbell DPT’s core faculty. His name is Dr. Tudini, and he is primarily responsible for all Musculoskeletal (MSK) related courses. We decided to interview him to get to know him more. Below are a few of the questions we asked him….

How did you know that you wanted to be a Physical Therapist?
In the beginning Dr. Tudini wanted to be an athletic trainer while he was in highschool. He also thought about med-school, but stated that he was too young at the time for time commitment required. Physical Therapy was only a bachelor’s at the time, so it only took him four years to complete. When he obtained the degree he said it was a little weird to be a 21-22 year old treating patients much older than him.

How did you decide to come to Campbell?
Sacred Heart University was expanding further away from where Dr. Tudini was living at the time and he was already commuting a great deal to work so his wife inspired the move for the two of them. Through colleagues he found that Campbell was hiring and he applied. He mentioned that Campbell is a little more faith-based than Sacred Heart and he is very impressed with the resources at Campbell. He really loves the environment here. Campbell’s life span curriculum is interesting to him and he looks forward to working with it because the institution he left was problem-based. He appreciates that Campbell is a new program and not really rigid or set. This enables our professors to modify the curriculum as they see best.

What do you do for fun?
Dr. Tudini loves to exercise, cook, and he is a big movie buff. He thoroughly enjoys movies that don’t require him to think because he does so much of that during the day. His favorite genre of movies are action movies, and he is a big fan of Guardians of the Galaxy. Dr. Tudini is also a big animal lover, in fact he used to show and breed dogs before his move to Buies Creek.

Advice for incoming student physical therapists.
Dr. Tudini stressed the importance of studying in groups. He explained how by studying with other people students get a chance to practice using the “new language.” He also described the benefits of being able to split up the prep work such as making study guides for tests. Dr. Tudini explained how the most successful students in physical therapy school are those who study in groups. He also pointed out how things can taper off sometimes when you have seen what healthcare is really like, stay focused on what your niches are and set professional goals so that your have things to look forward to just like vacations. It is important to stay excited about your field!

What expectations do you have for the courses that you are teaching?
When Campbell students are compared to other physical therapy students we will stand out because of our ability to reason though certain situations. Clinical reasoning is a research interest of Dr. Tudini’s so he enjoys enabling students to come to a conclusion with a reason of how they got there using evidence based medicine.

 

Rocksteady Boxing

Written by: Sarah Baugh, DPT18 and Kara Campbell, DPT18

Here at Campbell, there are several student interest groups (SIG’s) to allow students the chance to focus in on more specialized areas of physical therapy. There are five different SIG’s including acute care, exercise, manual therapy, neuro, and pediatrics. The neuro SIG has recently started volunteering at Rocksteady Boxing in Cary. This program allows those with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) a chance to work out and regain mobility and independence. Current second year Joe Conaty is responsible for the contact we have had with them and says, “As a joint project between the Exercise and Neurology student interest groups, our experience with boxing and RSB has been really exciting. It’s opened a lot of creative avenues for our classmates and provided unique treatment insights into our patient populations. I’m really pleased with how interest in the idea hasn’t just been maintained but grown as we spend more time with it. Plus we occasionally get to punch things and each other, which is an sublime stress reliever. ”

In the second year of the program, the students begin to learn about neurological disorders, along with their evaluation and treatment procedures for each diagnosis. Our neuro professor brings in many different patients for us to work with hands-on, several of them being patients with PD. These patients were the ones to spark the neuro SIG’s interest in getting more involved with this population.

Rocksteady Boxing is a great opportunity for the students to use what they have learned in the classroom to help individuals in the community. Rocksteady was featured in The News & Observer and blew up overnight! Three of the second year Campbell DPT students performed balance evaluations on the participants to help record any progress that has been/will be made from boxing. This amazing experience allowed the students build on what they learned about Parkinson’s in class and refine their skills. Second year student, Elizabeth Wells attended with us and stated, “RockSteady Boxing is a great organization for those with Parkinson’s, and the location in Cary provides clinical experience and connections for Campbell DPT students. I gained valuable experience from performing initial assessments with their first-time patients and worked with patients of all stages of the disease.”

All of the boxers and staff were very appreciative of our willingness to help, especially with the fame they gained overnight and with having 15 new assessments to perform in 1 hour (PHEW!) The neuro SIG plans to make an appearance 1-2 times a month and more students are excited and ready to participate!