Annette Karim, PT, DPT, PhD, chair and professor in Azusa Pacific University’s Department of Physical Therapy, did not follow the traditional path of academia. A first generation student, Karim took nearly two decades after finishing her bachelor’s degree before going back to school for her master’s, followed by two doctorates in physical therapy. During those years between degrees, she served as a missionary in Asia, danced professionally as a ballet dancer, and raised and homeschooled two children. After going back to school, she found ways to combine her love of dance with her passion for research, becoming one of the top performing arts orthopedic researchers in the world. Today, Karim is focused on building the next generation of leaders in physical therapy and rehabilitation and movement science, guided by her faith and devotion to the students and patients she serves and faculty she serves alongside.
Originally from Fresno, Karim’s parents encouraged her to focus on perfecting her craft in an artistic field. She played the piano while her younger sister danced. But when she went to undergrad at the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied physical education, she discovered her true passion for dance. “I was a late bloomer,” she said. “I liked playing piano, but I loved dancing. That’s where my soul comes alive.” Karim enjoyed many kinds of dance including contemporary, tap, hip hop, jazz, and competitive Highland dance, but she spent the most time on ballet. Over the following decades, Karim would go on to dance professionally for Pacific Dance Company and Central California Ballet. She served as the dance director at Break the Barriers and for the Houston Metropolitan Dance Met Too Company. She has taught at the Pacific Dance Center, the Dance Studio of Fresno, Fresno State University, the Dance Company of Oakhurst, West Coast Elite Gymnastics, Houston Metropolitan Dance Center, and the renowned Ad Deum Dance Company in Houston as a guest instructor.
Between stages of her dancing career, Karim moved with her husband, Michael, to Southern California, so he could pursue his MDiv and PhD at Fuller Theological Seminary. After Michael finished his graduate degrees, the couple decided to embark on missionary work overseas. They went on mission trips overseas, to Hong Kong, China, and the Philippines. From smuggling Bibles in Wang Ming Dao’s house church to helping out a Baptist Church in Hong Kong and teaching biblical lessons in small villages in Bohol, they had a fantastic time serving the Lord. However, their son, John, got very sick as an infant and they faced a tough decision to return home for his medical care. “We were devastated to leave because we thought missionary work was what God was calling us to,” Karim said. “But I’ve learned to listen to God and obey Him when He calls us to somewhere new. Wherever He calls, I will go.” The family returned to America, and soon after, Karim had her second child, Audrey. “Then God surprised us as he brought international students into our home every Friday through our ministry with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship,” she said. “There was a moment when a student from China decided to invite Christ to be the Lord of her life. That’s when we realized that instead of God sending us out into the world, He brought the world into our home.”
Over the next 15 years, Karim raised John and Audrey, homeschooling them for the most part through high school. In 2006, after years of performing, teaching, and directing dance, Karim decided on a career change. More than 20 years after graduating from Berkeley, she applied for graduate school at Texas Woman’s University to study physical therapy. “I got rejected at first and was waitlisted the second time,” Karim said. “I was a different type of candidate who hadn’t been in school for a long time, had this funky dancer background, and was on my second career. It was a bit risky on their part, but they took a chance on me.” A month into the program, Karim failed her first test in anatomy, a tell-tale sign to the faculty that she might not have what it takes to make it through the program. Karim decided to ask for help, and after getting advice from the faculty on how to study well and manage her time effectively, she aced every class in the program.
As part of her master’s research, Karim began doing screening tests on about 70 performers with the Houston Ballet, one of the first companies in the country to participate in Dance USA’s task force studying dancer health. She fell in love with conducting performing arts research, and decided to pursue a PhD in Physical Therapy after her Doctorate in Physical Therapy (DPT). The DPT degree trained her to be an excellent clinician who knows how to help her patients as they recover from injuries and relearn how to use various parts of the body, while the PhD equipped her to continue doing groundbreaking research on validation through reliability testing of screening components. While pursuing her doctorates, Karim did an orthopaedic residency followed by a fellowship in manual therapy. “I wanted to have a streamlined understanding of how to approach orthopedics in the best way to serve my patients in a particular dance population,” she said. “Those experiences helped me understand how we codify what it means to treat a performing artist. I’ve spent the rest of my career doing that from both the clinical and academic side.” Karim would go on to co-author the description of fellowship practice for performing arts for the American Board of Physical Therapy Residency and Fellowship Education. Her research in these areas also gave her the vision for what the PhD program at APU could become, approaching research from a holistic perspective involving PTs, occupational therapists, nurses, chiropractors, athletic trainers, exercise scientists, and biomechanics researchers.
In the middle of completing her PhD, Karim moved back to Southern California. She continued screening dancers while working as a PT at Evergreen Physical Therapy Specialists. At Evergreen, she mentored several students from APU’s DPT program who were gathering clinical hours. “That’s what really drew me here. I had one student in particular who struck me by how good she was with her patients,” Karim said. “That’s a hallmark of APU’s program. If you ever come to a patient day here, you’ll see how students interact with patients, genuinely listening to and connecting with them. That really stems from the faculty, who teach how to show love to their patients because the Lord is working through them to minister to people.” Karim was also recruited by two former APU faculty who said she would be a perfect fit for APU’s program, so she applied and got hired in 2016.
There was only one problem. While Karim had extensive experience in teaching, her instruction was in dance, not the classroom. To solve this, Karim sought mentorship from Michael Wong, PT, DPT, OCS, a veteran professor in the department. “I love that about APU. Our faculty are happy to mentor newer professors,” Karim said. “I also sought mentorship through the Office of Faith Integration and as a new faculty fellow in the Office of Research and Grants. I was already a good clinician, but I wanted to become a better teacher and learn how to integrate my faith better into my research and my instruction. What I’m doing here as a professional informs how I’m growing in my faith.”
Faith has been an integral part of Karim’s life since she was 13-years-old. Growing up with a Buddhist father and a Catholic mother, Karim attended a few churches as a child, but she made her faith her own in 7th grade after her teacher shared the four spiritual laws with her. “I often think back to that moment when I was 13 and accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior, understanding how the Holy Spirit works in me and for me, surrendering myself to the Lord to transform my life,” Karim said. “I’m a skeptical person, an eyeball roller. God knew I needed that moment to truly believe.” Today, Karim is actively involved in her church, Pomona Presbyterian, serving as an elder and a member of the prayer and communion teams.
Karim is constantly looking for ways to improve faith integration in her department. While it’s easy for her and other faculty to live out their faith when they work with patients, it’s challenging to implement faith into research. She’s begun incorporating faith-based questionnaires into grants and course material. “I’m trying to bring more of those outcome measures into the PT student didactic so they can ask that part of someone’s whole personhood,” she said. “In PT, you’re healing the whole person. They call it a biopsychosocial model, but the spiritual realm is beyond that. We’re working on improving research in spiritual health as it relates to the rehabilitation of our patients.”
In addition to her role at APU, Karim is still active as a clinician, although her workload at Evergreen has dramatically reduced in recent years. She still works with dancers there upon special requests. She also serves as a director on the board of the American Physical Therapy Association Orthopedics (APTA Orthopedics), currently in her fourth year. Prior to this, she served for six years as the president of the APTA Orthopedics’ Performing Arts Special Interest Group. “I just did a presentation for them at the last national conference. I also present at the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science,” she said. On occasion, she serves as clinical faculty at The Manual Therapy Institute. And a few times a year, she’ll guest teach for Kaiser Permanente’s Sports Fellowship, and throughout the year she serves as the faculty mentor for the APU dance team. Balancing this in addition to the courses she teaches at APU each semester is a juggling act, but Karim’s found ways to make it work. “I took a sabbatical a while back and one of the biggest things I learned is to have a mini sabbatical every day,” she said. “I get up really early every morning and before I come to work, I spend time in my backyard with my dogs and a cup of coffee in hand and take time to pray. I end my day in prayer too. And I always take Sundays off.” Karim still enjoys dancing, taking dance classes several times a week. She’s still learning how to say no to the constant requests for her time so she can focus on the more important things, like making APU’s Department of Physical Therapy the best it can be.
APU’s DPT program is one of the top in the country. Each year they admit a cohort of 74 students and the cohort is always at capacity. 100 percent of graduates go on to get jobs in the field and several open their own physical therapy practices. The program is made truly special by the renowned faculty who teach in it. “When students are considering where to get their DPT or PhD, I would recommend they choose APU because our faculty genuinely care about them in the same way God cares for them,” Karim said. “We have extremely competent educators who are leaders in their field. Before I began teaching at APU, I already knew Mike Wong because of the PhysioU app he created and I reviewed. Derrick Sueiki is a national leader in pain science, as is Chris Patterson in biomechanics. Our faculty are humble, confident, collaborative, and engage the world in everything they do.” Alongside these faculty, Karim is committed to developing diverse leaders in equitable and inclusive clinical, research, and teaching environments. By doing so, she is shaping the future of physical therapy practice.