LVC CURE Clinic

CURE currently provides free physical therapy treatment for referred patients of the following clinics:

• Lebanon Free Clinic
• Lebanon Valley Volunteers in Medicine
• Hope Within Ministries Clinic

Are you a physician of the Lebanon/Annville/Palmyra area with patients in need of Physical Therapy? If so please contact us for more information!

We are always looking for more patients to treat, so please send them our way.

In-person and telehealth appointments are available.

To make an appointment please discuss physical therapy with a physician at one of our referring offices (please see referrals tab) and mention the CURE clinic. If they feel physical therapy is appropriate they will then provide the staff with your information & we will contact you to set up an appointment. If your doctor refers you and you do not hear from us please feel free to contact C.U.R.E Clinic at 717-902-9553 and explain the situation. We look forward to talking with you!

Virtual Appointment Instructions

• Please log onto Zoom 10 minutes before your scheduled appointment.
• Patients will receive a Zoom link via text message.
• Patients will click on the link attached and log onto Zoom to meet their team of student physical therapists.
• Appointments last about an hour.
• If there any problems, please text us via the number that sent the Zoom link or call via 717-902-9553.

• Upon arriving you will be greeted by a CURE Board Member in an LVC Physical Therapy Polo at the door or upon entering our clinic room
• They will ask you to fill out new patient paperwork in the waiting area.
• Once this paperwork is completed 2 or 3 Physical Therapy students will introduce themselves and ask you to come into a treating area in the building.
• Your treatment will be from 2-3 Student Physical Therapists & 1 Licensed Therapist supervising the student’s decisions.
• We as students want you to know we are so glad to provide you with an opportunity to receive care. We also really appreciate you allowing us the opportunity to treat you and practice the skills we are learning in the classroom. We truly care about what you are going through and will help get you back to moving with less pain to the best of our ability.
• In the treating area, you will be asked a few questions so that we can better understand exactly what is happening in order to decide the best treatment and exercises for you.
• Once we have a better understanding, we will begin different techniques including massage and exercises.
• Towards the end of the first session, we will provide you with 2-3 exercises that you can do at home to help facilitate the process. Doing these really makes a large difference in your recovery so if you can take 5-10 minutes a few times during the week to do them, we really appreciate that!
• We will then take you back to the entrance of the clinic room, where they will schedule your next appointment if you are interested in coming back. And hopefully, over the next few weeks with our help and your commitment, you will be back to feeling a lot better.

Are you in need of care but unsure of how you will be able to get there? Please contact us at 717-902-9553 and we can discuss making arrangements for you to get the services you need.

• CURE would like to provide care to as many patients as possible. When a patient cancels or is a no-show this creates an appointment that we could have used to treat another patient. So it is very important that we are notified if you will be unable to make an appointment. We need to know our patients are committed to their care like we are. In order to promote better care, we have implemented a cancelation policy.
• If you are unable to make your appointment, call 717-902-9553 and this will not be held against you. We will ask if you would like to reschedule.
• After 3 missed appointments we will not actively call you to schedule appointments.
• Yet, WE NEVER TURN PATIENTS AWAY, so if you have had 3 strikes and would like care, call us we will always be willing to schedule you.
• Finally, if you are feeling worse do not cancel your appointment; we would like to discuss changes that may have caused this. If you are feeling better DO NOT cancel your appointment; healing/feeling better is a process, one treatment may make you feel better today or tomorrow but two weeks from now the likelihood of still feeling better is not very high simply from one treatment session.

CURE is a student-run clinic, meaning the students of Lebanon Valley College’s Doctor of Physical Therapy program coordinate everything involved! Some duties of the board include scheduling patients and staff, working the main desk, keeping an inventory, ordering equipment when needed, contacting referring physician’s offices, marketing the clinic, and organizing fundraisers. It is a great opportunity to gain insight into the business perspectives of running a physical therapy clinic.

The Board typically consists of 10 students each filling a specific role. They then work together as a group, holding meetings throughout the semester to keep the clinic in top shape. The students who hold these positions are elected by the previous year’s Board. All students who are part of The Board are committed to the purpose of CURE, providing patients the best care possible while allowing the treating student therapists a great hands-on practice opportunity.

2024–25 Board of Directors

• President of the Board: Olivia Nace
• Student Director: Kendall Halsey
• Outcomes Director: Madisyn Miller
• Operations Director: Kaitlyn Brumbaugh
• Alumni Director: Emma Dissinger
• Free Clinic Liaison: Mandi Armstrong
• Minutes Director: Dane Ebersole
• Faculty Liaison: Emily Bartlett
• Health Promotions Director: Sorrell Long
• Marketing and Community Outreach Director: Kelli Heffer

Incoming Students

If you are a high school student beginning your college search and you are considering Physical Therapy for your career, then LVC could be for you! One thing that we have at LVC that allows students to gain hands-on experience and test their knowledge outside of the classroom is the opportunity to participate in treatments at the CURE Clinic.

As a student, the first opportunity to participate in the clinic occurs during your fourth year at LVC, which is the first year of the graduate program. This gives you the chance to test out the hands-on skills you will be learning in class on real patients with real pathologies. The ability to practice on people with pathological deficits will heighten your skills and give you confidence when you step into your first clinical rotation.

Participating in the CURE Clinic enables you to implement your clinical decision-making skills which you may not have much of a chance to do in such an environment otherwise. Other opportunities within the CURE Clinic include applying to be on the Board of Directors, which will enable you to coordinate the business aspects of the clinic such as scheduling patients, contacting referring physician’s offices, fundraising, marketing, and looking for ways to improve patient and student experiences.

Current Students

Graduate phase physical therapy student? It is a program requirement for graduation to be scheduled at least one night each semester to gain hands-on experience in a treatment team for performing an evaluation or treatment session.

Whether you are participating or not and have feedback, comments, suggestions, improvements, we as a CURE Board of Directors are always willing to take them into consideration. If so please email pt_clinic@lvc.edu (with the subject “CURE BOD Suggestion”).

LVC relies on practicing physical therapists to keep running and to continue providing care.

Are you a PT? Could you spare a few hours to help us? If interested please contact CURE at pt_clinic@lvc.edu with the subject “attn.: Supervising Therapist Manager”. We are ALWAYS looking for therapists to help!

Why you should help?

• It’s a great opportunity to give back
• It is a small-time commitment (~3hrs/night)
• You are enabling our students to gain invaluable experiences they cannot receive in the classroom
• It’s a lot of fun!

What to expect:

Upon arrival:

• The on-call manager will ask for a copy of your license/license number
• Student PTs should be arriving at least a half-hour before the first patient is scheduled to do a chart review and prepare a treatment plan
• Typically there will be two teams of students which should include a 6th year, 5th year, and 4th year.
  • During the spring this may change to be a 5th year and 4th year as 6th-year students will be participating in their final clinical experiences.
• Students’ knowledge base and confidence levels may vary based on the semester, which may cause them to rely on you more or less for guidance and support. The main goal is that students actively participate as much as possible to ensure they are using their skills and gaining experience in working with real patients.
  • Certain factors that may cause students to rely more heavily upon include difficult or vague diagnoses, technical skills needed for treatment such as manual therapy, and differential diagnosis knowledge.