Health Care Heroes 2025
PHYSICAL THERAPIST: Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung
Rhode Island Hospital physical therapist
What led you to choose health care as your profession? I was always getting hurt as a gymnast. I was in physical therapy so much, it just seemed natural [to choose this career path]. I do love acute care and the medical and socioeconomic complexity we see every day in our state’s level one trauma center.
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How have you helped boost the quality of access to health care? My involvement in politics helps regarding steering legislation and helping to set policy that can help turn the tide here in Rhode Island’s health care crisis. Political leadership is all about relationships, and we need to forge more of those in our industry with government leaders. If you’re not at the table, showing up night after night at the R.I. Statehouse, then quite simply, you’re on the menu.
What is the biggest challenge you and your organization are facing this year? Our state’s extremely low Medicaid reimbursement rates and lack of practitioners – both specialty and primary care – to allow for timely follow-up after a hospitalization with us. Sometimes, it’s a recipe to end up in our [emergency room] again in short order because of this lack of infrastructure.
What more do you feel the state can do to help further support the health care sector in Rhode Island? We need more bipartisan representation in federal offices, as when the Republicans are in charge, Rhode Island has no juice. At the state level, we need to invest in raising Medicaid rates and grow our economy to increase commercial insurance caseload mixes.
Are you confident patient access and quality of care will improve in Rhode Island over the next five years? Why or why not? Unfortunately not if we stay on the current course because we as an industry are not active enough in the political sphere to educate and influence policy. However, with the right coordination between medical organizations (both academic and clinical) and the right energy, we can turn the tide here. I look forward to taking on more of a leadership role in this arena over the next few years.
