Not every high-paying, highly sought-after job in Maine requires being chained to a desk all day.
That’s good news for Todd Lamoreau, physical therapy coordinator at InterMed, whose job is to get patients safely and comfortably back on their feet.
Lamoreau said he became interested in physical therapy after spending years as an athlete and suffering various injuries himself. Now he leads a team of 13 therapists who treat everything from sports injuries to occupational hazards afflicting warehouse and office workers.
“The biggest thing is helping people get back to being able to do things after an injury,” he said.
Lamoreau and his team have become specialists in industrial ergonomics, the science of promoting worker comfort and preventing injuries on the job. They spend two days a week consulting with workers at L. L. Bean in Freeport at the retailer’s employee health center.
The team’s responsibilities range from treating on-the-job injuries to recommending equipment to reduce the potential for future employee pain and discomfort.
Sometimes it’s as simple as teaching warehouse employees the proper way to lift heavy items, or recommending that shelves be lowered to make inventory easier to reach, Lamoreau said.
One of the reasons physical therapists are in such high demand in Maine is that they are needed in a variety of organizations including health care providers, private companies, college athletic programs and K-12 schools, he said.
The job does have its challenges, such as dealing with the reluctance of some health insurance providers to cover adequate therapy sessions, but Lamoreau said it’s a great way to avoid the pitfalls of an overly sedentary lifestyle.
“If you don’t like sitting behind a desk or in a cubicle, physical therapy is a good profession,” he said.
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