Gait research, the study of walking and running, was critical not only to developing OESH, but also to developing a new Physical Medicine department at Harvard Medical School.
An article on the history of developing the specialty of physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) at Harvard Medical School was just published in the journal of PM&R.
Dr. Kerrigan, who received her M.D. from Harvard Medical School, played a central role in establishing the department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard. Furthermore, the article was co-written by fellow OESHer, Hilary Siebens, M.D., who is also a Harvard Medical School graduate. It is the first of a two-part series describing the development of the departments at Harvard and Johns Hopkins. This article includes how Dr. Kerrigan built the first 3D gait laboratory in the world at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital (SRH) (http://spauldingrehab.org/) which was critical to establishing the department at Harvard.
Kerrigan’s intellectual curiosity and diligence in securing grant support led to the establishment of a gait analysis laboratory at SRH. With encouragement from Lipson and Young, Kerrigan applied to the Residency Review Committee of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education for approval of a new curriculum for the establishment of a Harvard PM&R residency program (Wainapel and Siebens, 6).”
As a result, after only a few months, the division of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation that Dr. Kerrigan helped establish became a full department. Consequently, that same gait laboratory that she built in 1992 was critical to establishing OESH as well.
To read more about how Dr. Kerrigan founded OESH to create research driven shoes and her research that led up to it, see The Race to Build a Better Shoe, also known by Dr. Kerrigan as The Juiciest Scientific Article I’ve Ever Written.
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