For one nontraditional grad, physical medicine and rehabilitation will continue her trajectory of hands-on healing

Graduate profile: Vennela Pulikanti, D.O.

For one nontraditional grad, physical medicine and rehabilitation will continue her trajectory of hands-on healing

Not all WVSOM graduates are new to the health care professions. Vennela Pulikanti, D.O., spent 13 years working as a physical therapist before attending medical school. Now, the Class of 2024 graduate is preparing for a career as a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician, where she will help restore function and alleviate discomfort in patients with injuries or disabilities.

Pulikanti was born and raised in Hyderabad, a large city in southern India. She attended the nearby Kakatiya College of Physiotherapy before moving to the U.S. and completing a master’s degree in physical therapy at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn. The mother of two said she was interested in becoming a physician from a young age.

“I was always passionate about medicine, but my kids were my priority. They were young when I started doing physical therapy,” Pulikanti said. “I wanted to wait and go through medical school when they were old enough to manage by themselves. Once they were ready, I said, ‘I’m going to give it a shot,’ and everything fell into place.”

Pulikanti and her husband, a computer engineer, moved where his work took them — from Connecticut to Maryland, and then to McLean, Va. Along the way, she satisfied her premed requirements through a postbaccalaureate program at Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown University designed for nontraditional students. Her classmates came from all walks of life and included nurses, lawyers and fashion designers, she said.

An administrator who was one of Pulikanti’s mentors noticed that her skills went beyond providing therapy and extended into identifying diagnoses. It was at Georgetown that Pulikanti first became aware of osteopathic medicine and its distinct philosophy.

“My mentors asked if I’d looked into osteopathic schools, so I started researching and learned that D.O.s had a similar approach to the work I’d done as a physical therapist, such as manual therapy, osteopathic manipulative medicine, acupressure and acupuncture. It resonated with what I’d always wanted to do, which was approaching patients in a holistic way rather than just pharmacologically,” she said.

Pulikanti said her studies at WVSOM required some getting used to.

“At Georgetown, I took courses at my own pace. Stepping into medical school, my first year was, as they say, like drinking water from a firehose, especially because I hadn’t been in school for so long,” she said. “But it was amazing. It was during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we were divided into pods for labs. The pros of that were that we turned out to be awesome friends and made long-lasting bonds because the same 10 people were together for almost a year and a half. Staff were supportive, too; I had a nice hideout where I would study, and they would come to check on me. And I would sometimes walk into ASPIRE [WVSOM’s Academic

Support and Intervention Resources department, which offers academic support and counseling services] for a friendly chat. There was always somebody to listen.”

By the time she entered her clinical years, Pulikanti’s background in physical therapy proved helpful in multiple ways. Where some students were just learning to communicate with patients, Pulikanti had years of experience collecting information from those in her care. Her knowledge of the musculoskeletal system also gave her a leg up.

“My third and fourth years were very comfortable. I could walk in and understand the situation without having to relearn to collect patient data. Even diagnoses were easier, when it was musculoskeletal, because I knew what the possibilities were. As a physical therapist, the scope of practice doesn’t allow you to get into the medical side of patients’ problems, but you still have to know the basics,” she said.

During a physical medicine and rehabilitation rotation with an outpatient physician, Pulikanti saw patients with pain, muscle weakness and sports injuries. She was able to observe how procedures such as joint injections and ablative techniques to burn specific nerves in the spinal cord could result in drastic improvement.

“It was great when patients would come back and say, ‘I don’t know what you guys did, but I don’t have any pain,’” she said. “Or with pharmacological treatments, the physician would have me follow up with patients we saw the week prior and some of them would say, ‘The medication doesn’t work. I still have the pain.’ So we would go back and try to figure out if it was coming from a nerve or a muscle, or if it was postural. It’s exciting to go step by step and come up with a solution.”

During her time at WVSOM, Pulikanti twice won the school’s Libby Kokott, D.O., Memorial Grant, established by Kokott’s children in 2020 to honor a woman who became a physician at age 50.

Because many physical medicine and rehabilitation residency programs require a transitional year, she will spend time at LewisGale Medical Center in Salem, Va., receiving foundational training in multiple disciplines before entering a residency in her chosen specialty at Jefferson Moss-Magee Rehabilitation, a hospital attached to the Albert Einstein Medical Institute in Philadelphia, Pa.

At WVSOM’s Commencement Ceremony in May, Pulikanti shared the milestone with a family member who is also kicking off a new stage in life: Her daughter, who graduated high school just weeks after, was fortunate to be able to attend Pulikanti’s own big event.

“She’s going to the University of Maryland to study mechanical engineering,” Pulikanti said. “It was a big debate because we didn’t know if both ceremonies would happen on the same day. I’m glad they were on different days, because it meant all of my family could be there to support me.”

[I] learned that D.O.s had a similar approach to the work I’d done as a physical therapist ... It resonated with what I’d always wanted to do, which was approaching patients in a holistic way rather than just pharmacologically.