Student's new career path leads to Regis

By Sara Knuth

Aryn Cunningham was working for an immigration law firm, helping people come to the United States, when her back and hip started hurting.

The pain was debilitating, and lasted for years. So, she started looking for solutions. At the time, she thought physical therapists provided pretty much the same treatment for everyone. But she was desperate to find relief.

After graduation, Cunningham will head to Duke University for a neurology residency. Her goal is to become a neurologic physical therapist, working with patients who have diseases or injuries to the nervous system, such as strokes, traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries.

Regis courses in the specialty sparked Cunningham’s interest. She also served as co-chair of the Regis Neurologic Special Interest Group, which brings in guest speakers to expand on neuroscience topics.

Cunningham grew up in Alaska and is fluent in Spanish — she learned the language, and Portuguese, in high school and as an undergraduate at the University of Arizona — and put those skills to use throughout her career. She previously worked in immigration law as a paralegal and interpreter, assisting people trying to immigrate to the United States. After that, she worked for a nonprofit that assisted immigrant victims of domestic violence and human trafficking.

Most recently, Cunningham served as the chief of American Citizen Services at the U.S. State Department offices in Paraguay. There, she represented Americans abroad, providing emergency services to incarcerated U.S. citizens and in parental child abduction cases.

Despite differences in her former careers and her new one, Cunningham said service remains at the heart of her work.

“My former careers, at least the first two, were really driven towards representing underrepresented populations,” Cunningham said. “(I was) trying to represent the best interests for people and advocating for people, and I see myself doing that in physical therapy.

For one, trying to figure out what is the best next step for a person. When a person sits down in front of you, they have all these problems, what do we need to focus on in that moment?”

In her first year at Regis, she and another student to created a course focused on medical Spanish, covering terms practitioners might encounter caring for patients. The goal was to set practitioners up to help make Spanish-speaking patients feel more comfortable. She also served as faculty liaison, representing student interests in meetings with faculty members. Her advocacy continues.

“A big part of my job is advocating for my patients,” she said. “Really advocating for them is something I see myself still doing.”