Emplify Health by Gundersen West Union Hospital Therapists Use Own Rehabilitation Journeys to Connect With Patients

Emplify Health by Gundersen West Union Hospital Therapists Use Own Rehabilitation Journeys to Connect With Patients

There are co-workers who say they are there for each other, and then there are those who work in Emplify Health by Gundersen West Union Hospital's Rehabilitation Department.

Within the course of a year, two of the therapists there had surgery on their shoulders, and both went through rehabilitation in the department they work in. What's more, the first patient rehabbed in time to be the second patient's primary therapist.

Talk about full-circle moments.

The mountains win again

In May 2024, physical therapist Renae Lembke and her daughter were in Colorado, and the pair decided to do some rock climbing. While on the course, they encountered an obstacle they weren't expecting to be a part of the adventure: a tightrope.

Lembke couldn't reach one of the guide ropes used to help her across, but she was harnessed in, so she decided to try to pass anyway. At one point on her highwire act, she slipped off the tightrope, but she grabbed it on her way down and was able to pull herself back up and carry on. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The fall wasn't pleasant, but adrenaline was high.

But a couple of weeks later, the pain in her shoulder arrived. She could get through the day, but sleep at night was difficult and reaching behind her back was harder than it should be. So, to numb the pain, Lembke got a cortisone shot at the West Union clinic-a treatment that worked for about three months.

"After that, it began aching again, so I did my own therapy," she said, "because at that point, I felt like I knew what to do. I knew I needed to strengthen and keep my motion."

In the meantime, she asked her primary care provider to order an MRI to reveal the issue. Turns out, it was more than what a shot and physical therapy could heal. Lembke had a torn rotator cuff, topped off with bursitis and a bone spur.

Initially, she asked her doctor what might happen if she forwent surgery, to which he replied she'd eventually need a reverse shoulder replacement. She got the surgery in March 2025.

"You realize that even as a therapist, sometimes you can't fix it," Lembke said. "There was just more damage than I was going to be able to do to heal it."

Lembke was in an arm sling, but two days after surgery, she started physical therapy, which worked on restoring her range of motion. After 13 weeks of rehab, she was back to work-doing the same therapy on patients that she had done on her. Now, her shoulder feels as good-and some days, even better-than it did preinjury.

"I knew, as a therapist, I had to keep working on my program even when I was done with therapy because I knew I wasn't 100 percent yet," she said. "I knew if I quit doing things, I would probably regress a little bit."

A painful touch

For about four months, occupational therapist Vicky Watts was dealing with pain in her shoulder. In fact, it got to the point where if she simply touched the area, it would hurt. Eventually, it became too much and she, too, went in to see her doctor, where she discovered a ganglion cyst had formed.

"When I went in, I went for one visit and I thought, well, maybe a cortisone shot or something," she says. "Right away, the doctor said no, if we don't get rid of it, it's just going to get worse."

So, this past November, Watts went in for a distal clavicle resection, a procedure that involves cutting the end of the collarbone so that it doesn't rub against adjacent bones-an outpatient surgery that's relatively straightforward.

What followed was six weeks of rehab-with Renae-in her department, where she worked on passive range of motion, moving and stretching her shoulder. It was no picnic, but it was necessary.

"It was definitely a taste of your own medicine," Watts says with a laugh. "As you're doing things that are uncomfortable, and even downright painful, you're like, this is what other people are telling me, and this is what it feels like. I think that does help with empathy, too."

"I just feel like I can understand the situation a little bit better," Lembke said. "You have this new pain that you didn't have before, and this is pain that will get better. I can tell you this because I've been through it, and I know it will."