It has been a year of amazing growth for the SO Clinic. We now have two additional part time PT’s: Karen Jurjans, who was a previous UD sports resident and recently moved back to the area after working in DC, and Mandy Merritt, a UD undergraduate in athletic training and graduate from the DPT program, is now working full time between the athletic and physical therapy departments.

Our 2006 sports and orthopedic residents Kaja Kilburn and Mark Baughman graduated in December. We welcomed our new residents Sarah DoBroka for sports, and Megan Sions for orthopedics, in January 2007 and we will have two more residents starting a rotation this summer! Also, congrats go out to our very own Airelle Hunter-Giordano, who was profiled in PT Magazine, in an article on residency training.

Our staff has been very productive over the past year, presenting at multiple local, national and international conferences.

• Tara Manal and Laura Schmitt taught Emergency Response to members of the Performing Arts Special Interest Group of the APTA in September 2006 at UD.
• During a conference in Prussia Italy, the clinic staff was connected via satellite to provide visual demonstration while Dr. Lynn Snyder-Mackler presented on various rehab techniques in November 2007.
• Tara Manal was invited to present in Torino, Italy for the International Congress of University and Sports in January 2007.
• We had a great showing at CSM in February 2007. The following staff members presented platform and education programs in the Orthopedic and Electrotherapy sections; Airelle Hunter-Giordano, Lynne Patterson-Sturgill, Tara Manal, Kaja Kilburn, Megan Sions, & Sarah DoBroka.
• Mandy Merritt presented at the UD Medical Aspects in Sports Conference in February 2007.
• Noel Goodstadt also represented the department presenting at the 23 rd annual Jerusalem Sports Symposium held in Israel, March 2007.

Current clinical research projects in effort with Dr. Snyder-Mackler’s lab include assessing the benefit of Hyalgan Injections in the knee, perturbation training in the ACL deficient population who are non-copers, and collaboration with colleagues in Norway looking at the use of perturbation training in potential copers.

Airelle Hunter-Giordano, PT, MPT, SCS, CSCS