By Long Beach State students and faculty may not know that a physical therapy clinic exists on campus. For the price of $50 per session, patients can get evaluated and receive treatment all within the span of an hour. The main challenge that the clinic faces is that there hasn’t been a clinic director since before the pandemic.
The new Clinic Director Brice Rosby wants to expand the outreach and awareness of the clinic on campus after taking on the role at the beginning of the academic year.
The clinic, located in the Life Fit Center in the Kinesiology Building, is available to everyone on campus as well as the surrounding Long Beach community.
Three physical therapists and one intern make up the staff at the clinic, each working between 18-20 hours per week. Rosby’s goal as clinic director is to add more hours and people to the clinic but means that more patients would need to be seen weekly.
Clinic Director Brice Rosby makes use of the Life Fit Center to help students, faculty and Long Beach community members mobility. Photo credit: Richie Rodriguez
“My goal is just to help anyone that walks through the door,” Rosby said. “You get to take the feeling of helplessness and be able to positively impact someone’s life and show them that they can go out and do things.”
The clinic also specializes in orthopedic specialty care and offers orthotic feet inserts and ankle support for patients who come seeking foot care.
Rosby is not only taking the responsibility for staffing and running the clinic, but he is also focusing on marketing the services and engaging the surrounding community.
Many of the patients seen in the clinic are 49 and older but there are also student-athletes of high school age and CSULB students can also be seen. The clinic also accepts medical insurance from various PPO providers.
Life Fit Center Director Ayla Donlin added that because of the amount of change the campus has seen over the last two years, it was much more difficult to maintain awareness. There were only two directors of the clinic prior to Rosby according to Donlin.
That hasn’t stopped the staff of the clinic.
Susan Mais has 30 years of experience as a physical therapist with four of those being spent working at the PT clinic on campus with a specialty in orthopedics.
“We’re an underutilized gym on campus with convenient high-quality therapy,” Mais said.
The LifeFit Center, where the PT at the Beach Clinic sees patients, is located in the Kinesiology Department building. Photo credit: Richie Rodriguez
Physical therapy at the clinic is aimed at providing alternative care to patients rather than having people be overreliant on pain medication. A barrier that Rosby believes why people have difficulty trusting the physical therapy community is that many patients have had negative experiences at other PT clinics and would much rather seek immediate relief with medication.
“We are an alternative to taking pain medicine,” Rosby said. “I think one of the biggest things in our profession right now is trying to get people to come to us first if you have any musculoskeletal issues”
With state-of-the-art equipment and physical care for the community, the PT at the Beach clinic staff’s goal is to provide quality service but also to create and maintain awareness on campus.
The PT at the Beach clinic is in the Life Fit Center in the Kinesiology Department building. For further information about the clinic, visit their website.
