The patient becomes the healer

MIAMI – Myriam Polo had a plan.

She was going to enroll at Florida International University in the fall and major in accounting. Her love for numbers, she figured, made the profession a natural choice.

That was eight years ago.

When Polo, now 27, walks across the stage Tuesday to receive her master’s degree in occupational therapy, she will finish a journey that began one hot summer’s day in 2000-when she still thought accounting was her calling.

The Ford Expedition that broadsided her Honda Accord, sending her into a 12-day coma and causing severe traumatic brain injury, forever changed the way she lived. Her love for numbers would have to take a backseat to the disabilities she now had to overcome.

Suddenly, it was a challenge to recall events. Carrying conversation became harder. Focusing was difficult.

Even her first class at FIU, a one-credit course that introduces freshman to college life, was hard to complete.  

“I would always get so tired,” Polo said. “It was difficult for me to engage.”  

And after years of therapy, it was clear accounting was no longer her interest. For her life to make sense, and for her accident to have purpose, the patient would have to become the healer.

“The accident is what made me who I am today,” Polo said. “I knew I always wanted to do something to give back.”

So after finishing her undergraduate degree in business administration, she returned to FIU and began her graduate studies in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences’ Occupational Therapy program.

“Myriam never perceived the challenges imposed by her recovery from traumatic brain injury as limitations that merited special treatment; rather, she chose to devote herself fully to the goal of achieving her dreams regardless of the amount of effort she would need to exert in order to triumph,” said Alma R. Abdel-Moty, chair of the Occupational Therapy Department.

 Polo hopes to use her experience to help those recovering from their own traumatic injuries-and expand the role occupational therapists have in people’s recovery.

“I want to go more for the holistic perspective, combining the mind, body, and soul in treatment,” she said. “Because of time constraints and insurance standards, a lot of people don’t get that. There’s a step further when someone gets rehab. I want to see how they to return to living after a traumatic injury.”

The department chair said that it’s Polo’s own life experience that will help her succeed as an occupational therapist.

“I think she will be more compassionate,” Abdel-Moty said. “Her life experience will give her a degree of empathy that most other occupational therapists cannot tap into. Her passion is contagious, and she has the potential to become an inspiring role model to any population she chooses to serve.”

Media Contact: Jean-Paul Renaud at 305-348-2716 or jprenaud@fiu.edu 

-FIU-

About FIU:
Florida International University was founded in 1965 and is Miami’s only public research university. With a student body of more than 38,000, FIU graduates more Hispanics than any other university in the country. Its 17 colleges and schools offer more than 200 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations and law. FIU has been classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a “High Research Activity University.” In 2006 FIU was authorized to establish a medical school, which will welcome its first class in 2009. FIU’s College of Law recently received accreditation in the fastest time allowed by the American Bar Association.