[Music]
Kind of my whole point here is disabled doesn't mean unable, and it's kind of cool that I
can show that in a field where I'm treating disabled people as well.
Emma Chambers is a Samford University physical therapy graduate perhaps the only PT graduate
in the country that's legally blind and the road to her graduation has been a long one.
The Emma before fourth grade was a completely different person. I never would have said I
was blind; I never would use tools to help me see better. I wanted to be normal. I wanted
to be like every other kid. I wouldn't wear my glasses. I was very obstinate and problematic.
I was very hard-headed. And then I went to a program in Huntsville called SCIVIS,
and it's space camp for interested visually impaired students, so all the kids the whole
week are blind, and that was the first time I had a community of other blind people,
and that changed a lot for me I kind of came back and after fourth grade realized that I
was limiting myself more than I was letting the world limit me with my attitude so fourth grade
and I had a change of heart and we I started using devices and seeing potential in what I wanted what
I could do in the future. And that included a growing passion for not just helping herself
but others. I've always wanted to be in the medical field. I mean, as a surgeon,
then it was an EMT, then it was an ER physician; it's always been kind of on the forefront. I mean,
as a PT, we're seeing people for an hour of their day multiple weeks in a row. We really build
connections with them, and I know about their families and they know about my life, and that's
kind of the reason I went into PT specifically is because we can help people well beyond
their physical body to kind of incorporate the emotional side or the spiritual side or other kind
of various facets in a healing journey. There's a lot of flexibility built within this job that you
just have to be flexible, and I have to be able to accommodate the situations if that is not my
whole life of being thrown in this situation and figuring out how to make it work, I get to do that
for work, and I really like that. It's trying to help people figure out how they can live and be
functional in their new body. As Emma's eyesight worsened, her need for a companion developed, and
that's Jetta. Not only her seeing eye dog but a welcome and comforting friend for Emma's patients.
I'm just so accustomed to Jetta that she doesn't have that effect with me necessarily, so I forget
when patients come in, and they see her laying there even though they can't interact with her,
they can't touch her, they can't talk to her it is still multiple patients expressed just the kind of
relaxation and the Comfort level that she brings which is really cool to be in a setting that you
already don't really want to be in people don't want to go to PT people don't want to be hurt
you know but to go there and kind of have I guess Jetta's relaxation in her presence and just her
the comfort that she brings people just by sleeping in the corner is kind of cool.
So how did Emma end up at Samford? Well, one thing she could sense early on was the
physical therapy department's commitment to its students particularly ones with disabilities.
I am so aware of the fact that this degree and my success in this program is not because of
me. I am very aware that it is because of my cohort it is because of my professors and the
people here and in my community who whether it was driving me to class or driving me to
clinicals or believing in me when I did not feel like this profession was meant for me, I mean it's
not my graduation it's not my diploma it is my communities' and the impact that each of these
people had in my success here. And despite the odds and despite the pressure Emma knew one thing
her story wasn't hers alone she wanted a story that many future Emma's could and will tell.
Going through school felt a lot of pressure to not fail. I felt a lot of pressure that
I could not fail a test or could not fail a skills assessment because I want to prove that
disabled people can work in physical therapy and I want to prove that disabled people can work in
PT and be proud of it. Still every day there's doubt I mean there I cannot deny the fact that
I question abilities I think that's just part of the internalized ableism it's just part of
having a disability and being an adult is the questions are still there but it's more the
premise that the worst I can do is try and like not be successful and I'd rather do that than
limit myself and not try. [Music]