ChatDPT

The best part of #AGS25 is meeting up with old friends and mentors!

@sleepinbeautymd.bsky.social @mrdisability.bsky.social

🔧 The fix is possible:
1️⃣ Fund fleet maintenance & real-time tracking
2️⃣ Simplify eligibility + make fares cash-free
3️⃣ Train and support drivers as frontline disability-justice professionals
4️⃣ Bring older adults into every decision room—nothing about us without us

These aren’t transit issues alone—they’re quality of life issues:
✔️ When rides work, people stay healthy, connected, and empowered
✖️ When they don’t, riders miss care, suffer physically, and feel invisible

Six key themes emerged:
🧭 Independence & social connection
🛠️ Staff professionalism & working equipment
🕒 Logistical burdens
🩺 Services that don’t match health needs
🚧 Unsafe environments
🤝 Social support as a survival strategy

What we found: paratransit is a lifeline—but often frayed. Riders endure 2+ hour rides, broken lifts, long waits in bad weather, and confusing policies just to reach care, church, or social connections.

An older African American woman with short gray hair and glasses sits in a wheelchair, facing slightly to the right with a thoughtful expression. She wears a teal shirt under a salmon-colored cardigan. Behind her is a paratransit vehicle with an extended wheelchair lift, parked on a city street with trees and a brick building in the background. The scene conveys a sense of waiting or anticipation.

Paratransit is supposed to offer freedom. But for many older adults, it’s a test of patience, pain, and perseverance.

Our team's new study in Journal of Transport & Health centers the voices of 12 older adults (55+) navigating paratransit

Read the full text here: sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Making the government more efficient is an admirable goal. But doing it through mass staffing reductions without a deep understanding of what these people do to support our Veterans is likely to cause avoidable harm to our patients.

4) delays in approving care outside the VA when staffing shortages make it impossible to provide timely care

3) less transportation resources to get patients to myriad medical appointments

2) longer waits to get contracting done with vendors providing these services

1) Fewer people to support administrative burden associated with paperwork needed for wheelchairs, home modifications, and resources like respite for caregivers

I treat patients with ALS in a VA clinic. The harm that will come from cutting federal government support to them and patients like them with high medical needs is enormous. Here are some major concerns:

Me: I feel like Im old when teaching college students

Also me: ok students, assessing the face validity of a research study is essentially an initial assessment of whether the study is sus or not

Photo of me in a green sweater with a cat snuggled near me

Found a kindred coffee loving spirit in Turkish cafe-Istanbul, Turkey

Physical therapy community well-represented at the #Beeson meeting this year!

4 current #BeesonScholar recipients are PTs, the most ever!

Thankful for this group of amazing humans!

Hey friends! Made a growing #BeesonScholar starter pack!

Message me and I can add you to the list!

Help me grow the community here on @bsky.app

go.bsky.app/QvWS6XT

Now #Beeson2024 Dr. Ziad Obermeyer on #ArtificialIntelligence in Medicine

#MedSky

A case study on pain & how AI may help

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