By MARTY LEVINE
On a worktable in the office of new School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (SHRS) Dean James “Jimmy” Oñate sit the pieces of a puzzle. The frame is completed, but the rest of the parts lie in a pile. It is an overhead view of the old Pitt Stadium.
“I put puzzles together,” says Oñate, late of Ohio State, where he was most recently interim vice dean for health and rehabilitation sciences. “It's nice when pieces fit. I think higher ed is just a big puzzle now,” he adds, from the rapid incorporation of AI to new federal rules and much else besides.
A whiteboard hanging near the puzzle lists 28 points – some of his plans for the school since his arrival on June 1. But he isn’t ready to debut them yet.
Still, the potential impact of a deanship represents the clear and compelling reasons he moved into administration after years of prominent research in human movement assessment and injury prevention.
He takes out a small pad and draws a triangle, with clinicians-in-training at the apex, preparing to help people one-by-one; instructors at another corner, ready to train many clinicians at once; and researchers in the third corner, whose discoveries influence the teaching directions of multiple instructors.
He draws a circle in the middle of the triangle, its circumference nearing every corner. In that circle is the administrator, he says, who “gets to influence and touch all of this.”
Oñate began his academic career as a high-school teacher in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he was also an athletic trainer, teaching sports medicine and anatomy. But his impact at that level wasn’t as much as he had hoped, he says – hence the move to higher ed. He still plans to teach as dean. This fall, he’ll teach single classes on case studies and on leadership to master’s students in athletic training, and this spring, a full course on “Current Concepts in Sports Medicine,” co-taught with doctoral students.
To succeed today, students need to focus on three areas, he believes: communications skills, problem solving and critical thinking. The latter may be both aided and hampered by the necessity of using AI today, he allows: AI can consolidate information at a rapid pace, aiding healthcare professionals to make swifter and better diagnoses and recovery strategies. “It's another tool that helps us plan,” he says. But the public is concerned that AI will be allowed to take over the planning without any humans guiding the process and guarding against errors. “This is where our critical thinking comes in,” he says.
“People want to make this about who is either for or against AI.” He recalls when computers first entered his classroom, when he was a high-school student. He would love to go back and ask his instructors, when they were first told to incorporate this new technology – or the first workers forced to sew by machine instead of hand, for that matter: How does it feel? “I think there would have been as much resistance” to any of these innovations, he says. “It should be helping, not taking over,” he adds.
He points to adaptability as one of humanity’s best traits. “I would hope we don't raise a group of students who aren't able to adapt,” he says, as long as they maintain their own thinking abilities. “We have to be the decision makers” as part of the healthcare team.
To succeed as dean, he says, “the biggest thing is listening, which is a skill that needs to be practiced often. Patience is another piece.” He’s still figuring out those puzzle pieces, he adds.
“We have a very strong reputation,” Oñate says of SHRS, with five programs in top rankings nationally, “and we want to maintain that.” He draws a set of concentric circles: “The school, the University of Pittsburgh, has been here since 1787. It was here way before me and it's going to be here way after me. I want to have an impact in these circles stronger and better everywhere we go,” from programs to departments, and outward to the wider university, the health sciences, across Pitt, the city, the region and beyond.
The type of graduates the SHRS produces, including occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, audiologists, physical therapists, physician assistants and others – make up about 70 percent of the overall healthcare world, he points out. “All these don't get thought about in the healthcare system, but they are vital. It's a collaborative team environment. A strong functioning team needs to have respect and trust across all the areas.”
His own research focus on performance, from an athlete trying to recover from injury and get back on the field to a senior making decisions about navigating the world or even just their own home, and is broadly applicable to the school’s focus, he says. It’s not just about joint health but about brain health, he explains, and healthcare overall is not just about stopping diseases. “We need to learn how to rehabilitate, recover, learn how to thrive through these things,” from accidents to aging. The school will host a performance-focused conference in March, gathering scientists who study not only the athletic field and military performance, but also performance of those with disabilities.
Oñate draws another triangle with the dean at the apex in a decision-making role. Then he turns it upside down, putting himself at the bottom with a look of satisfaction. “I'm the supporter of the school, not the leader,” he says.