Sara’s path to POP is through her love of animals. As a student, she would cast molds for animals needing prosthetic devices while volunteering at a special needs animal sanctuary. Sara loved every part of the process and used that experience to gain a shadowing opportunity with a local POP clinic to learn everything she could about the profession.

Unfortunately, Sara also needed prosthetic care after undergoing a transtibial amputation and worked with POP professionals to regain her ability to walk. After recovering, she continued her pursuit of POP and strived to use her experiences as a patient and shadowing POP professionals to help others regain mobility. Sara is completing her master’s in prosthetics and orthotics at Northwestern University. She credits her family as her biggest source of inspiration to study POP.

Sara’s advice for students who are interested in POP is to build relationships with POP professionals and pursue shadowing experiences to gain insight into what a POP career can look like. She looks forward to giving back to the profession that gave her so much.