Meet a Physical Therapist

"Kids amaze me every day," says LouAnn Goldstein, PT, PCS. As clinical supervisor of physical therapy at the University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital, LouAnn divides her time between working with patients in the clinic and supervising other physical therapists, making sure they have the tools they need in order to give excellent patient care.

LouAnn and her staff see a wide variety of children--everyone from infants born prematurely to kids with injuries from a traumatic accident. LouAnn sees both inpatients and outpatients, and her patients range in age from infants to pre-teens.

But whomever she's working with, LouAnn maintains the same philosophy: "Play is a child's work," she says. "I help kids play. As physical therapists, we're movement specialists. We do whatever we can to get kids to move and play."

In her 10 years at the hospital, LouAnn has helped a lot of kids gain new functional skills that help them learn to move, play, and interact with their peers. She loves "the look on kids' faces when they do something never thought they could do."

One of her patients, an 8-year-old boy who walked on his tiptoes, learned to walk with flat feet in four weeks with the help of serial casting. "He was so excited to be able to walk like everyone else," recalls LouAnn. "Seven or 8 is the age at which kids are looking at who they are and how they compare to other kids in their peer groups, and I know being able to walk like other kids had a huge impact on his life."

LouAnn does a lot of moving herself--she participates in triathlons and is involved in several hospital-wide organizations, including the Comer 5K Race Committee, the CompanionShip Program, and the NICU Reunion. "I like to keep involved in our hospital outside of our specialty in physical therapy," she says.