josh
My first decade of life spanned three continents. Frequent relocation and exposure to foreign ideas exacerbated my insecurities. I spent the next two decades searching for absolute truth. I found uncertainty. I looked for answers but saw questions.
After three University degrees, hundreds of books, thousands of videos, and more than three decades of life, certainty remains illusive. Life’s surprises disturb and delight me. And deliberating truth reminds me to treat these experiences and mysteries as more than enough.
To deliberate truth is to think about reality. Deliberating is caring. Truth is what is. So those who deliberate truth consider what it is. Deliberating truth is being and attending with/to each other and life. It is the words: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Deliberating truth is living. It’s life.
Life dies, but life that lives together, dies slower. Life disagrees, but life that agrees to disagree, lives together. Life that refuses to disagree, isolates itself, and life dies faster in isolation. Life that refuses to disagree dies more quickly than life that agrees to disagree.
Health is quantity and quality of life. Longevity is only healthy in the absence of perpetual suffering. Perpetual suffering is unremitting pleasure or unrelenting pain. Quality of life balances pleasure with pain. Neither pain or pleasure can dominate a life. One must learn to accept them.
Agreement feels good, and disagreement hurts. Life is better when neither dominates. To deliberate truth is to seek a balance between agreement and disagreement.
One can seek a balance of agreement within family, friends, community, and the world. But balance starts within. Deliberating truth involves testing your thoughts and beliefs with your actions before looking to the thoughts, beliefs, and actions of others.
The world will not save you. Others cannot live for you. You must live your life and learn to save yourself. Ask questions. Observe your thoughts. Track your actions. What are they telling you?
Do not delay your self-observation and deliberation. We all have limited time to ask, attend, & act.
– Josh
As a Physical Therapist and public health professional, I help patients help themselves. My questions encourage patients to define their goals and teams to refine their consensus. I synthesize information into context that improves mutual understanding and aids decision-making.
Public Health experience in Federal and Private Sectors helps me bring systems-based health thinking to teams. Working in for-profit, non-profit, and government health organizations exposed me to the geopolitical connections within and between health systems. Public health can improve population health when teams over-communicate a strategic vision, track metrics, and work together to accomplish specific, measurable, accountable, realistic, and timely (SMART) goals.
– Work Experience Summary (10 JAN 2026) –
Lead Physical Therapist (Clinical Director) at FYZICAL Saint Peters since June 2025:
– Providing Outpatient Vestibular & Balance, Lymphedema, & Orthopedic Therapy Services
U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) Officer (2018-2024):
– Planned/assisted mass vaccination clinics & mass testing sites: delivered vaccines, conducted nasal swab tests, & managed site supplies/logistics (Completed Logistics Section Chief Course)
– Designed clinics, literature reviews, & a global information system (GIS) map
– Trained in incident command system, respirator fit testing, tourniquet application, naloxone
– Worked for/with uniformed service members as a Regional Liaison for USPHS CC Headquarters
– Served on two domestic missions providing shelter/health services to migrant populations – Master of Public Health (MPH) since 2021
Licensed Physical Therapist Since 2016:
– Outpatient (AHS/Mercy, FYZICAL), Inpatient Orthopedics (AMN/Franciscan), & Inpatient Rehabilitation (Cox, Select) experience
– Certified Lymphatic Therapist & APTA Credentialed Clinical Instructor
– Provided inpatient & outpatient rehab services for American Indian & Alaska Natives in Gallup & Tohatchi, NM and Lawton, OK
Health Worker Since 2010:
– e.g. Worked as a Patient Safety (inpatient) & Aftercare (outpatient) Assistant
Working Since 2006:
– e.g. Manual Labor, Landscaping, Officiating
Proud of…
– Providing thousands of treatments and hundreds of evaluations while working for the Indian Health Service (IHS),
– Helping deliver 20,000 vaccines through my incident command system, health logistics, and acute care work during the coronavirus pandemic,
– Serving on public health teams caring for migrants, refugees, and military personnel
I see patient care and public health as being better together. An increasingly interconnected planet demands upstream thinkers and interdependent problem solvers. We can form elite teams that are efficiently and effectively prepared for crises by working together to increase the quantity and quality of life for our communities, nations, and world, today.
– Josh Telfer
Deliberating Truth 