Meryl J. Alappattu, PT, DPT, PhD

I'm really proud of the work I've done with Girls Gone Strong, an organization aimed at improving the awareness and level of care women receive from health and fitness professionals and healthcare providers, including...the ante- and pot- partum stages of pregnancy.

GPS Gainesville, FL

Typical Day Wake up 5:30–6, take the dogs for a walk, go to the gym or a run with friends, and then head into work. I’ll review my slides for class and figure out which discussion questions I will strategically place in the slides so that I don’t bore my students (and myself!) to death with lecture. Or I’m working on a grant submission, manuscript, collecting data for an ongoing project, or irb submission.

Persona For me, role models are those willing to bridge the gap between research and clinical practice. When I was completing my training, there was a big emphasis on publishing a paper in a high impact journal and less emphasis on dissemination of this work to those in clinical practice and to patients. So, how can providers working every day with people in pain use the information we’ve published? How is this relevant to clinical practice? How can patients use this information to have a voice in their healthcare? I think, given the rise of social media, podcasts, blogs posts, etc, there are more opportunities for these groups to hear and learn from each other.

Social Media Habits Dr. Jen Gunter (@DrJenGunter on Twitter, Instagram). She is confident, strong, intelligent, and uses her large social media following to address important issues in women’s health and politics. We need more voices like hers.

Contribution I’m really proud of the work I’ve done with Girls Gone Strong, an organization aimed at improving the awareness and level of care women receive from health and fitness professionals and healthcare providers, including elevating our understanding of the unique needs of women in the ante- and postpartum stages of pregnancy.

Words Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese; When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.

Popcorn One of my favorite movies is Welcome to the Dollhouse, a dark comedy about a socially awkward middle child and preteen navigating the incredibly awkward environment that is middle school. The movie takes you through her journey with friendships, crushes, and family dynamics and is funny, sad, and oddly relatable.

PAINWeek PAINWeek is an innovative meeting that pushes the boundaries and generates important discussions. I really like the faculty interviews pw conducts [our Expert Opinion videos]. Watching these, you get a snapshot of a speaker’s thoughts outside of their immediate presentation and it opens another side of them. It’s a unique and insightful aspect of PW that I value.