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  • Student, looking for advice and suggestions re: future

    Howdy...
    I'm not sure if this is the right forum to ask this in, so if it is, I
    apologize in advance.

    My name is Kristin Pilotte, and I'm a Masters of Science student in
    Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. My
    undergraduate degree is a BS in Physics, and I anticipate finishing my MS
    within a year (by May 2003). However, through my undergraduate and now
    graduate career, I've felt that I keep coming back to a strong desire to
    work with people, and work in a rehabilitation field. I went through the
    intro courses thinking I was going to apply to medical school after I got
    my BS, but decided fairly early on that I could never tell somebody that
    they were dying (just a personal issue) and that maybe medical school
    wasn't for me. I was working, at the time, in the Space Systems Laboratory
    at UMd, doing design work for a space robot called Ranger Telerobotic
    Shuttle Experiment. To stay involved with the project after gradaution, I
    opted to come and get my MS. Now the project is almost done, and all of my
    work with the robot is pretty much done. I was responsible for designing
    the end effectors for the dexterous robot to do satellite servicing tasks
    in space. I'm working on my thesis, which is a trade study on the ability
    of dexterous robots to do space servicing tasks, and an exploration of what
    level of dexterity allows you to do certain types of tasks. In my class
    work, therefore, I've focused mainly on design classes and classes related
    to human factors and biomechanics--the principles there easily extend to
    robots, particularly for space applications.

    Enough of my research and background. The other aspect that's important is
    that though I decided medical school wasn't for me, I never have given up
    that I want to work in the orthopaedic rehabilitation field. As a
    competitive soccer player, rock climber, and in karate, I've had experience
    in personal injury (double shoulder surgery, sprained right knee with
    subluxations, chipped left kneecap, lateral ankle reconstruction coming up
    next week, a few broken fingers, a broken toe, cracked ribs...not all at
    the same time, of course) thus was looking into going into biomechanics
    design engineering. However, I'm still afraid of sitting in front of a
    computer 24/7, so the thought occurred to me to go into physical therapy.

    I guess my question really becomes this. I'm seriously considering PT
    school...but given what I want to do, is it possible that medical school
    (if I could get in) would serve me better for research opportunities? Are
    there any PTs out there that do engage in research of rehabilitation (both
    via physical therapy and the use of orthoses, whose design I'm particularly
    interested in given my experience with knees and ankles) in addition to
    working with patients? Does anybody out there know if either the
    University of Maryland system or Johns Hopkins University system have any
    programs that might allow me to work with patients and do research and
    apply my biomechanical engineering skills (I ask about those particularly
    since for family reasons I would prefer to be in this area for a few more
    years anyway)?

    Thanks in advance for any suggestions or advice anybody could offer, and I
    apologize again if I've asked my questions in the wrong forum. As I
    mentioned earlier, I have about a year to figure this stuff out, but I'm
    trying to start to determine what my next step is.

    Thanks,
    kristin pilotte
    University of Maryland Space Systems Lab
    http://ranger.ssl.umd.edu/data/

    ~kristin (kristin@ssl.umd.edu)
    shoulder surgeries: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~viperkjp/shoulder_surgery.htm
    "Well-behaved women rarely make history" -Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
    "If you drink two beers and three shots of espresso, there's a twenty
    minute period where you can climb anything." --Unidentified climber at
    Joshua Tree
    "Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the
    exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs." --P. J. O'Rourke

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