When occupational therapist Jill Cummings (MOT ’14) stepped into in-home occupational therapy, she knew she’d found her calling. What she didn’t know was that it would lead her into an ESPN documentary. Cummings shares how her Pitt Occupational Therapy (OT) education shaped her human-centered approach to care, and how that philosophy guided her work with Pat Behan, a 35-year-old amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patient determined to keep coaching for as long as possible.
Discovering Occupational Therapy
Cummings graduated from Pitt OT’s Master of Science in Occupational Therapy program in 2014. She had returned to Pitt as a second-career student in her 30s after studying social work, being a child advocate and becoming a certified yoga instructor. She originally learned about occupational therapy after meeting some OTs that were also her yoga students; she was amazed at how they were applying occupational therapy to young people in their pediatric practice.
Cummings was interested in how OT could combine what she understood about movement and exercise through yoga and also work to support a person engaging in their community at the same time. She moved to Pittsburgh and looked into Pitt’s Occupational Therapy program and was accepted, which was a “very cool turning point” in her life.
Stepping Into Home Health
After graduating and establishing herself with a career in occupational therapy, Cummings found her ideal place when she transitioned to home health about eight years ago.
“The minute I stepped into home health, I felt like I found my home, because it’s so OT,” she says with enthusiasm. “You’re in their [the client’s] home…no more trying to speculate what their bathrooms look like and what their lead-up to the front door looks like.”
Her home health care agency’s decision to certify all therapists in the Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT) BIG program for Parkinson’s patients opened the door to working with more neurological conditions. Soon, Cummings found herself drawn to the unique challenges and urgent needs of patients with ALS.
“I really was starting to attach to what, not just the patient, but the families were dealing with,” Cummings shares. “You’re constantly spinning your wheels to order durable medical equipment (DME) as they’re changing right in front of you.”
Becoming an Advocate
Cummings’ commitment to her ALS patients led her to become more assertive in the medical system.
“I would say to neurologists, ‘Their upper body strength is changing as I’m sitting in front of them. You cannot put the situation on hold,'” she recalls. “I started getting a little demanding, and they started listening.”
This advocacy approach became crucial in her work with Behan. Despite being only 35 years old, his neurologist recognized the urgent need for in-home occupational therapy.
Behan’s case was particularly aggressive. He had the familial form of ALS, which affects only about 10% of ALS patients and progresses rapidly. A number of family members had passed from ALS in the past decade, including his father.
The ESPN Feature
When ESPN decided to do a story about Behan as he coached his high school basketball team through their championship season while battling ALS, Behan insisted that Cummings be included.
“Pat had said, ‘I’ve got this therapist who’s been working with me, and she needs to be a part of it,'” Cummings remembers. “The producer came in and said, ‘Yeah, we’ve got to get you in on this.'”
The resulting documentary showcased the holistic support system surrounding Behan—his caregivers, family, friends and therapy team—all working together to help him maintain his quality of life and continue coaching for as long as possible.
At its peak, Cummings was seeing Behan four to five days a week, addressing everything from energy conservation to mobility to DME needs. When Behan moved from Alexandria, Virginia, to Washington, DC, to be closer to his school, Cummings made the trek across the river without hesitation.
“Pat’s goal from day one was, ‘I just want to keep coaching as long as I can,'” Cummings says. “To date, he’s lost all ability to move, he’s had his tracheostomy and he is still consulting with his college coaching program via eye gaze communication. That is so cool.”
The Lasting Impact of Pitt OT
Today, Cummings continues to work as needed with a home health agency, maintaining a busy caseload while prioritizing time with her two children—one in high school and one in college.
More than a decade after graduation, she remains deeply connected to the values instilled during her time at Pitt. When asked what she would tell someone considering the program, she doesn’t hesitate.
“Pitt OT’s rankings and notoriety speak to so much—they didn’t get there by accident,” she says. “But if you’re uncertain about the path of occupational therapy or Pitt, that will be allayed the minute you step into the program because of its support. It’s automatic. From day one, they make you feel like you could do anything.”
She specifically recalls the impact of faculty members like Professor Beth Skidmore, who taught neuro behavioral science in a way that made complex material accessible. “I stepped into neuro thinking, ‘I’m going to fall apart trying to learn this,’ and Beth just made it feel like I could learn it like third-grade English. I found myself doodling and making drawings of the pathways in my free time.”
The support extended beyond academics. Recently, when Cummings’ 16-year-old daughter needed to interview OT faculty for a high school research project on new stroke interventions, professors responded within hours—despite not having spoken to Cummings’ in years.
“If that doesn’t speak to the connection, I don’t know what does,” she says.
“I don’t know that a professor or a curriculum told me this specifically, but it was ingrained,” Cummings reflects on her Pitt OT education. “Meeting somebody where they’re at, and almost just letting them organically provide you a real-time synopsis of what their most meaningful activities were.”
This philosophy has shaped every patient interaction throughout Cummings’ career. Even during her time in acute care, where productivity was measured in minutes, she always made space to ask patients about their lives before their diagnosis—what they did for work, their role in their family system, what mattered most to them.
“It gave me a way to open up the door to a conversation that was so much more than range of motion testing and manual muscle testing,” she explains. “The staff and instructors at Pitt were constantly like, ‘But there’s a human.’ Don’t ever forget that there’s a human behind all this, and they are already coming to you with this whole litany of life experience.”
A Career Rooted in Humanity
Looking back on her journey from social work to yoga instruction to occupational therapy, Cummings sees a common thread: a commitment to helping people integrate themselves into their communities and live their most meaningful lives.
“Why are we providing rehab?” she asks. “Maybe to help that hip protocol come to fruition, but really, it’s for them to get back to their daily lives in the most meaningful and rich way. That was sort of how I’ve always felt about coming out of Pitt’s OT program.”
As she continues her work with patients with ALS and other neurological conditions, Cummings carries forward the human-centered approach she learned at Pitt—one that sees beyond the diagnosis to the person, beyond the protocol to the purpose, and beyond the therapy session to a life worth living.
