Dr. Bruce Gans serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation and National Medical Director for Rehabilitation for Select Medical, the parent company for Kessler. He also currently is the Chairman of the Board of the American Medical Rehabilitation Providers Association. His distinguished career in the field of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation spans five decades as a leading clinician, educator, researcher, administrator, and advocate. A prolific writer and researcher, he has served on the editorial boards and as a reviewer for numerous medical journals and just concluded many years of service as an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Dr. Gans also has presented hundreds of lectures throughout the world on various topics in PM&R. He is past president of both the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the Association of Academic Physiatrists. His medical degree is from the University of Pennsylvania and he also holds Master of Science degrees from both the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Washington. In this special two-part live series, Dr. Gans delivers his acceptance speech of the 2016 Howard A Rusk Leadership and Innovation in Rehabilitation Award. The introduction to this speech, which took place at the 2nd Annual Rusk Research Symposium, is given by Rusk Chairman, Dr. Steven Flanagan.