Kinesiology & Health
Alumni News
School of Education, Health, and Society
From KNH's winter 08 newsletter
Michele Brock assists spinal cord patients in their recovery
Miami alum Michele Brock, gave a recent presentation to students and faculty about assisting spinal cord patients in their recoveries. She is executive Director of Scid Step, a private out-patient therapy clinic, that provides care to individualsafter they complete their hospital based rehabilitation due to suffering a spinal cord injury. Michele explained thaexplained that SCI-Step is a facility where determined individuals can concentrate on their recovery. They use the most advanced equipment combined with crucial rehabilitative components and the knowledge of dedicated medical professionals specializing in physiatry, physical therapy and exercise physiology.
When asked about how and why she got interested in treating spinal cord patients, Michele told a story: A friend Anne Phipps, loved to race motorcycles. At one time Anne was the fastest woman Harley Davidson motorcycle rider in the country. Then, on August 10, 2002 Anne Phipps' life changed when she sustained a T6 spinal cord injury that left her paralyzed.
Anne was told that she would have to adapt to life in a wheelchair. That was not taken well, and Anne was determined to explore rehabilitative options that might help her achieve her goal of not being dependent on a wheelchair. She joined forces with exercise physiologists, Michele Brock and Matt Ranson. Together, they worked on achieving Anne's recovery goals.
A combination of Michele's research background, Matt's training experience, and Anne's incredible progress led to the creation of SCI-Step in March of 2003.
Sci-Step continues to this day as a family-owned facility where Michele wears many hats. As an exercise physiologist, she knew she had some limitations-so she had to hire a physical therapist and other health care professionals. She also knew that she had to get the word out about her company. Given the choice of hiring a webmaster to design a web page or purchasing new start-of-the-art rehabilitative equipment, Michele chose the latter and learned how to design web pages herself.
Michele shared many success stories with KNH students and spoke about the risks she took in starting this company. Michele's experiences in KNH classes and independent studies led her down this path—and away from others, to the motto of Sci-Step that defines so much about her and her passion: "Never give up!"