Nkume Sobe Listens to His Voice Within

“That program was instrumental in getting me interested in health sciences,” he said.

“Interested” might be underselling what happened as a result of the experience. Once in college, Sobe intended to become a pediatrician but soon realized pre-med classes “did not excite me. I yearned to learn more about the human body, injuries and recovery. I found physical therapy and was reinvigorated.”

His academic rebirth flourished during his “thorough” education in UB’s Doctor of Physical Therapy program. The professors were “so passionate about the field,” he said. “That was palpable—every lecture, they would pour their heart out. I still remember them like it was yesterday.”

Instilled with that passion, Sobe entered the world of clinical physical therapy, confident that “there wasn’t anything I felt unprepared for.”

Today, Sobe is the CEO of Sobe Rehab, which he founded in 2012 after perceiving a special need for therapeutic services for patients in assisted living facilities. His firm specializes in providing physical, occupational and speech therapy to patients in Florida, Virginia and North Carolina, aiming to improve quality of life and length of stay in senior living communities and, ultimately, help people age in place successfully.

Sobe Rehab follows a proactive, preventive model that identifies seniors at risk of falls or who have difficulty being mobile, and then implements rehabilitation intervention in a timely way.

In that way, he said, “we increase assisted living facility resident length of stay and retention by 129%, reduce hospitalizations by 82% and show a 32% functional independence improvement in every patient we treat,” Sobe explains. “We’re helping to give seniors their life back—their independence, dignity, strength and confidence.”

While Sobe’s long-ago STEM experience clearly launched him on his trajectory as a physical therapist, it’s also the core of his firm’s exclusive, five-year sponsorship of UB’s Blue Path summer program. Conducted by the School of Public Health and Health Professions, Blue Path brings Western New York high school students interested in health careers to UB’s campus for two weeks during the summer to cultivate and refine skills central to thriving careers in epidemiology, health policy and economics, exercise science, occupational therapy, community health, nutrition and more.

Sobe explained, “As a student, your aspirations are limited by what you view as attainable. Programs like Blue Path expose students to avenues once unimaginable, making possible the impossible.”

And those avenues, Sobe thinks, are only going to grow.

“Physical therapy is a growing field mostly because of demographics: the baby boomers are turning 80ish and are in need. Salaries are increasing, and graduates get the most bang for their buck as far of years in school and break-out income. “

Ultimately, for Sobe, nothing is more satisfying than seeing a patient who was bedridden walk on their own, giving people their quality of life back. He abides by the notion that one’s profession, ideally, “should be what you would do for free.”

For students and professionals, he’s got one key piece of advice: “Listen to God or that inner voice within us. Sometimes we’re too busy in filling our time up and not listening to that voice or doing the opposite, and it doesn’t feel right. That voice is working to guide you.”