Josh Wyngaarden: My Dad did 22 years active duty and in the Air Force and we lived all
over the world traveling around and it’s just really all I ever knew, and I knew I
wanted to serve in that way especially being in high school when 9/11 happened. And so
I went to the Air Force Academy for four years and that led to my commission.
after shadowing physical therapy, I kind of decided that this is the path that’s best
for what I enjoyed. And so, I was fortunate enough to go to the Army-Baylor program after
the Air Force Academy.
After that, I was selected to go to South Korea for a year.
Brian Noehren: Yeah, so Josh emailed me and it was a unique email because it came from
South Korea. He explained how he was currently on deployment and that he had recently been
accepted into the Department of Defense's program to go back and receive his PhD, but
there was one catch. He only had three years and that was something he was really up front about.
Josh Wyngaarden: But a number of the schools I called they just said, “It’s impossible.”
Brian Noehren: We've had other people from the military who've come back to the University
of Kentucky and particularly into the College Health Sciences who have been very successful,
who've done it in three years. So I knew there was a track record. So I came up with this
idea that even though he was not formally enrolled in our program yet, that we could
start having FaceTime meetings together with him in South Korea and myself here in Kentucky.
With the time difference, that either meant that one of us was up early the morning or
late at night. He was able to come and hit the ground running.
Josh Wyngaarden: Within six weeks or so I had my first draft of my IRB submitted and
I was already starting collecting data by December of my first year. It was stressful
at times trying to balance all of the patients and course work and all this just daily student
requirements, but I’m really thankful for it.
In San Antonio in the early stages of my career, we did a rotation at the Center for the Intrepid.
That’s where a lot of the wounded warriors go after they’re injured in Iraq or Afghanistan.
A lot of these guys did really poorly understandably because of the trauma of the injury, but also
just the psychological influence of seeing their best friends injured or killed in action.
And so, that’s kind of what my dissertation is, is looking at those psychosocial factors
early on after injury that influence who develops chronic pain and disability.
So I have recruited a 122 people to participate in the study. We’ve tracked everybody through
six months so far and the most consistent predictor of who’s going to have really
bad pain and physical function outcomes at 6 months is self-efficacy. Basically the person’s
confidence that they can work through an injury, their belief that they can kind of return
to full activity despite the circumstances that they have been presented with.
Brian Noehren: He's taken individuals who have had a traumatic injury and tracked the
development of chronic pain over the years. So his work is really applicable to the military,
but it's also very applicable to the Commonwealth. Orthopedic injuries, there's about a 50% conversion
rate to developing chronic pain and to the use of opioids. So Josh's work will give us
really important insights for non-pharmacological treatments that we can administer to people
before they develop chronic pain both in the military and outside the military.
Josh Wyngaarden: I’ll defend next Spring and then it’s looking like I’ll be going
to the Army-Baylor physical therapy program to teach and do research. I will definitely
be continuing collaborating with Dr. Noehren and Dr. Matuszewski.
Brian Noehren: Dr. Matuszewski in orthopedic surgery and myself were involved in the consortium
called, “metric sized traumatic injuries within the military and outside of the military.”
Having Josh here, having an actual service member who’s treated individuals wounded
in combat, has just been really important for us. The military system of medicine is
different than the civilian. And so, that kind of cross-pollination of ideas. I think
it's been really enriching for our undergraduate students as well as with our graduate students.
Josh Wyngaarden: You know when you are in the military setting, you’re leading of
bunch of really solid people, but it’s a different scenario than when I get to study
full time. It will be good to go back, but it’s also going to be kind of sad to say
bye to UK.
Brian Noehren: You know we push people in our labs to really take risks and to try new
and bold ideas and he definitely has done that. His work is certainly on the cusp of
providing some really important insights into a very vexing multimodal problem. So I'm for
one really excited to see the results and see his future career trajectory. He's on
track to do some amazing things both inside and outside of the military.