Biography
Dr. Kruger received a B.S. degree in exercise science in 2002 and a Doctor of Physical Therapy in 2007, both from the University of Montana. In 2017 he received a Master's in psychology and in 2019 a PhD in health psychology, both from the University of New Mexico.
Personal Statement
Eric Kruger is physical therapist and assistant professor in the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, Division of Physical Therapy at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Kruger graduated from the University of Montana in 2007 and has practiced in a wide range of outpatient therapy settings and currently finds the most fulfillment working with patients with persistent pain conditions. He holds a bachelor’s in exercise science, Doctor of Physical Therapy and a master’s and PhD in psychology with an emphasis on health psychology and quantitative methods. Currently, his primary roles are as researcher, educator, and mentor. Dr. Kruger’s research interests include chronic pain, substance abuse, acceptance and commitment therapy, motivational interviewing, and quantitative methods. He has presented at several conferences and has numerous research publications that span his areas of expertise.
Areas of Specialty
Orthopaedics Motivational Interviewing Health psychology Physical therapy Pain Science
Languages
- English
Courses Taught
+ PT 622 Biopsychosocial Practice - In this course I am the primary instructor and within it I present healthcare with a primary focus on the psychological and social aspects of delivering healthcare and their relation to the biomedical aspects of care. More specifically, I present on the importance of therapeutic alliance, social determinants of health, empathy, motivation, grief, suicide interventions, pain, mental health comorbidities in rehab. There are also several guest lectures which I have coordinated that address topics such as caregiver fatigue, grief/loss, best practices when using a translator and transgender health. + PT 505 Foundations - This course is a multi-instructor course that I am the course lead. The course is divided into three parts, basic science, professionalism, and clinical science. The overarching aim of the course is to orient students to basic science underlying physical rehabilitation, an introduction to professional issues within physical therapy, and to teach them the fundamentals of clinical practice. + PT 650 Differential Diagnosis - I am the primary instructor for this course where we teach clinical reasoning skills for determining appropriateness of care in the outpatient physical therapy setting. This course included two simulated patient experiences. See the section on course development for more information on changes I made to this course.
Research and Scholarship
My career has been devoted to helping patients in pain. I practiced for seven years as a physical therapist specializing in chronic pain. During that experience, I grew interested in investigating the most efficacious approaches to chronic pain. I obtained a PhD in health psychology to improve scientific understanding of pain and behavioral interventions for pain treatment. Thus far in my career, I have implemented and supervised my own experiments in both psychology and physical rehabilitation sciences. The former as part of my PhD training in psychology at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and the latter as part of my Doctorate training in physical therapy (PT). During my PT training, I was supervised by Dr. Sheng Li and Dr. Charles Leonard and my research focused on examining changes in kinematic patterns of movement with fatigue and muscular physiology in zero-gravity. My psychology training exposed me to the additional behavioral challenges facing those in physical and emotional pain and this has led me to the study of addictions and substance use disorders. I have several publications that advance methods for assessing mechanisms of behavior change in substance use disorders. This work has increased my experience in applying and evaluating advanced statistical techniques including structural equation modeling, sensitivity, mediation and integrative data analyses.