health professions Archives | WSU Foundation & Alumni Engagement

By Emily Mullins ’17/20

Zoe Thompson met WSU physical therapy pros in 2023. Since then, it’s been strides forward for both.

“We always say, ‘walk ugly, walk often,’” says Audrey Garcia, a physical therapy clinical faculty member at Wichita State, as her hands gently and steadily guide 8-year-old Zoe Thompson through the playground of Argonia Elementary School.

It was the summer of 2024, and Zoe scowled with determination as she inched her walker through the mulch, aiming her feet to stomp on Garcia’s toes as she swung them forward one step at a time, making her way to a group of students examining a bug on the ground. Her fierce focus was only broken when she caught sight of the camera, which she unabashedly grinned at with a goofy, mischievous smile.

“That epitomizes her spirit,” says Dan Thompson, her dad. “She’s always interested in doing what everyone else is doing. She wants to go off the diving board and down the slide. She wants to get on the bus with everyone else and go ice skating. If she can figure out a way to do it, she’s going to do it.”

Zoe’s quick smiles and independence could easily convince you that her cerebral palsy is just a minor inconvenience to her. Unfortunately, that assumption isn’t quite true. Zoe has dealt with CP her entire life, and while she doesn’t let it stop her, the spasticity it causes in her legs makes walking highly painful and physically exhausting.

The symptoms of cerebral palsy vary from person to person, and while there is no cure, there are many ways treatment and therapy can help those affected. In Zoe’s case, this includes a selective dorsal rhizotomy surgery that involves cutting specific nerve roots in the spinal cord to reduce the muscle tightness in her legs. The surgery would ideally help her walk without pain or the need for assistive equipment. While it’s considered minimally invasive, the recovery is anything but, even for a determinedly resilient girl like Zoe.

Zoe’s parents, Dan and Shawn Thompson, were pursuing the opportunity in 2023 for her to have the surgery, but due to the lack of access to physical therapy after the procedure, they were stalled out. “The success of that surgery is directly linked to the physical therapy and rehab that happens afterwards,” Dan says. “If you don’t have somebody who understands that process and what you’re trying to accomplish, the surgery won’t have the outcomes it could have.”

Shawn and Dan looked everywhere for the services they needed to ensure Zoe could get the care required to have the surgery, but in Argonia, Kansas, a town of fewer than 500 people, those services seemed out of reach. “Most parents will do anything for their kids to give them the best life you can, and when you have a kid with special needs, it can feel like there’s a whole other extra mile, extra hurdle, extra fight you have to go through to do that,” says Shawn. “You’ll have crazy ideas like, well, ‘If the therapy is in Colorado, I guess we’ll move to Colorado,’ because that’s a whole lot easier than trying to find someone local.”

Little did they know, the help they needed was about to come walking right through their front door.

A partnership in motion

In fall 2023, M’Lisa Shelden, chair of WSU’s physical therapy department, received a phone call that would shape the future of her work. On the other end of the line was Amanda Lowrance, director of the Sumner County Educational Services Interlocal 619. Lowrance was in a predicament. The school year was well underway and Argonia Elementary no longer had access to a physical therapist to work with Zoe. This was a problem not only for Zoe but because per the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, schools must provide access to care that meets the unique needs of a child via an individualized education program (IEP). For small schools, finding licensed professionals to fulfill these IEPs is too often a challenge.

Interlocal 619 was set up in 1985 to address that challenge. It uses pooled resources of six school districts to hire or contract for services needed. When Lowrance was unable to find a physical therapist for the remainder of the 2023-24 school year, she decided to get creative, and her creativity paid off. That first phone call to Shelden set in motion a partnership that quickly grew to support upwards of 40 students across all six interlocal districts, while providing hands-on applied learning opportunities for WSU physical therapy students.

“This partnership is important for Kansas communities because of a shortage of physical therapists across the state, especially in the educational setting,” says Lowrance. “Not only is WSU providing services students need, they’re also showing PT students what the educational setting looks like, giving them the opportunity to fall in love with it and decide they can make a difference.”

Shortly after the two spoke on the phone, Shelden met with the Thompson family to discuss what support Zoe needed. When she heard about the surgery they were pursuing, she thought of Jennifer James, an assistant professor in the PT department and a board certified pediatric clinical specialist who had the expertise needed to provide intensive therapy post-surgery.

Shelden posed a question to the family: “What if we could provide the support Zoe needs at school and at home after her surgery, and we could also do a case study of this experience?” She recalls, “Zoe and her family were the primary focus in my mind, but I was also thinking about this as an experience that many pediatric physical therapists go their whole careers without having. We have three new, highly skilled, very intelligent, hardworking PTs who could have the opportunity to do the research, support and development, and then look at the outcomes right at the beginning of their careers.”

To Shawn and Dan, the offer was an answer to their prayers, so Shelden and James got straight to work.

A path forward

In September 2024, after more than a year of intensive physical therapy from WSU’s team, Zoe and her parents traveled to Houston, Texas, and a successful selective dorsal rhizotomy surgery was completed. In the months since, Zoe has increased her muscle control, strength and speech, and with Garcia and James providing ongoing post-surgery rehab, she is gaining independence by the day.

Much of the work Zoe’s PT team is doing falls within the realm of rehabilitation medicine, a specialty encompassing work that improves function and minimizes impairment caused or affected by disease, injuries or developmental disorders.

At Wichita State, a key part of rehabilitation medicine focuses on the development and implementation of assistive technology — and the university is taking steps to increase these efforts through the newly established Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine and Assistive Technology.

“IRMAT is the brainchild of Dr. Gregory Hand and conversations about partnerships that already exist within the university,” says Shelden, referring to the dean of the WSU College of Health Professions. “For example, physical therapy and the College of Engineering do some exciting things together now, but there’s sort of a narrow scope. PT also has a working partnership with Communication Sciences and Disorders, but again, it’s a narrow focus. Dr. Hand’s idea was to create an institute that focuses not only on service but on research and development.”

Comprised of collaborators from WSU’s departments of engineering, physical therapy and CSD, including the Evelyn Hendren Cassat Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic, IRMAT is a fluidly structured network of clinicians, researchers, educators, students and other partners who work together to develop and study treatment strategies and technologies designed to help ease the challenges of those living with disease and disabilities.

Now housed in department locations on and off WSU’s main campus, the institute will move to the Wichita Biomedical Campus in 2027, when its new home will feature state-of-the-art research labs, classrooms and clinical space.

IRMAT’s centralized location will further collaboration for work with kids like Zoe, whose CP has also caused delayed speech development. The support WSU provides will go beyond access to therapists and current assistive technology. It will set up opportunities for students to explore customized assistive technology and build new equipment for individual cases.

“This is important, for more reasons than just Zoe’s success,” says Dan. “To have Wichita State willing to do more, wanting to do more, and pushing for more education to train better physical therapists, speech therapists – all of it.

“There are a lot of people who will benefit.”

SEE MORE OF ZOE’S STORY

“Our mission at the Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine and Assistive Technology is to accelerate discovery in applied healthcare research, actively develop new assistive technology and devices, and mentor future leaders in an environment of collaboration. We’re all about science that changes lives and improves health outcomes for people of all ages – including Zoe and her family.”

GREGORY HAND
Dean, WSU College of Health Professions

Learn More About IRMAT

Seeing a difference in the world

Diana Ho ’16 remembers how the world changed when she put on a pair of glasses for the first time in third grade. She looked around the optometry office, amazed by the sudden clarity of the room’s detail, from the intricacies of the grain in the wood trim to the definition of the leaves on the tree outside the window.

In that moment, she knew she wanted to be an optometrist.

Today, Ho practices optometry at Adventure Dental and Vision, a pediatric clinic in Wichita, and also serves as clinical director for the Special Olympics Opening Eyes program, conducting vision screenings for athletes across Kansas.

“I consider my ability to practice optometry daily as my most satisfying achievement,” said the alumna. “Each day, I have the privilege of providing first-time glasses to help kids excel in school and sports, guiding patients to a greater understanding of their visual or systemic issues, and diagnosing and treating ocular diseases.”

But Ho’s path to her current role was not always paved. In addition to many lessons learned in the classroom, she sees grit and persistence as some of the most valuable concepts from her time as a biology student at Wichita State. As a part-time student with no professional credentials, she recalls the roadblock of securing experience in optometry.

“I called numerous offices until I finally found one willing to take a chance on me,” Ho said. “Coincidentally, the very office where I put on my first pair of glasses became my workplace when they hired me on as an optometric technician.”

In 2016, Ho graduated from Wichita State University with a bachelor’s degree in biology and minors in chemistry and sociology. From there, she attended the Rosenberg School of Optometry at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas, graduating with her doctorate in 2020.

A passionate advocate for eye health, Ho uses her education to promote vision wellness in communities across the state and around the world, from glasses donation drives to events for the visually impaired. The optometrist has served as a translator at the Kansas Health Department’s Asian Wellness Day, providing free eye screenings to underserved community members. She also traveled to Patna, India, where she provided vision screenings and glasses to more than 1,100 schoolchildren and helped to raise money for Unite for Sight, a nonprofit creating more equitable access to eye health care services.

In addition to her many volunteer engagements, Dr. Ho has been invited as a guest speaker to high schools in the Wichita community where she connects students to vision care resources and educates them on the importance of eye health to the overall health of the body.

For her relentless health advocacy and service, both within the Wichita community and well beyond, Dr. Diana Ho is the 2024 Social Impact Alumni Award honoree.

“As a child of immigrants, this award represents the American Dream that my parents have worked so hard to achieve,” she said. “They dedicated themselves to creating a better life for me, and now I have the privilege of using my talents to extend that care to my patients.”

Join us as we honor our 2024 Alumni Award recipients at the second annual Heritage Gala on Tuesday, October 29. Learn more about this event and purchase your tickets to celebrate the changemakers at Wichita State.

Heartspring and WSU’s Cassat Clinic will be neighbors in Wichita’s downtown healthcare corridor

The Right Notes

The histories of Heartspring and Wichita State are so entwined, you can’t tell the story of one without the other.

This past March, those stories interlocked yet again with the partnership announcement that WSU health professions faculty and students will work on-site at Heartspring’s Pediatric Clinic to provide physical therapy and audiology services to the local community.

“This partnership,’” says Gregory Hand, dean of the WSU College of Health Professions, “has become a focal point for our faculty and students who specialize in pediatrics, particularly children with neurodevelopmental challenges.”

Heartspring, which currently operates its pediatric services near K-96 and Webb Road, provides diagnosis and clinical interventions for kids with a wide range of neurodevelopmental disorders, disabilities and delays, including ADHD and autism. WSU physical therapy student Clara Jackson, who has been working at the clinic with a child with autism, says, “Heartspring has made it possible for me to get hands-on experience and learn on-the-fly thinking to work toward this child’s goal of playing community soccer.”

Dan Soliday, Heartspring’s president and CEO, says “We continue to see a growing need for assessing children’s neurodevelopmental skills and providing individualized therapies. This partnership expands Heartspring’s ability to meet the region’s need for our specialty healthcare services.”

HEARTSPRING

“At Heartspring we coordinate multiple therapies to create one cohesive experience for our families with varying needs,” says Kara Gibson, clinical director for outpatient services. “We’re pleased to enhance our physical therapy and audiology services with ongoing student learning as part of Heartspring’s broader offering that includes occupational therapy, speech, language and feeding therapy, mental and behavioral health and applied behavior analysis.”

The healthcare nonprofit, which has operated at various Wichita locations through the years, is based at 8700 East 29th St. N. and has nearly 400 full-time employees, according to Wichita Business Journal (WBJ) data. Its pediatric clinic features a wheelchair-accessible treehouse and therapy playground as well as a fully equipped physical therapy gym and audiology suites. Providing clients the latest in evidence-based resources and care, the clinic offers a wide sweep of services — and has big plans for offering more.

In late August, Soliday announced via the WBJ that Heartspring will be expanding and moving its pediatric outpatient services to the northeast corner of Topeka Avenue and English, within downtown Wichita’s developing healthcare corridor. Plans project targeted occupancy for the new “cutting-edge, multi-clinic healthcare facility” within the next four to six years.

CASSAT CLINIC

The Evelyn Hendren Cassat Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic – located at Wichita State’s Hughes Metropolitan Complex, 5015 East 29th St. N. –provides speech-language services for speaking, hearing, swallowing, and spoken and written language impairments and offers programs and support groups for aphasia, autism, fluency, literacy and more. Audiology services include hearing evaluations, hearing aid fittings, repairs and maintenance, assistive listening devices, Bluetooth accessories and real ear measures.

A university-affiliated practice within the WSU College of Health Professions, the Cassat Clinic has provided services for individuals and families in the greater Wichita area for over 60 years. The clinic has gone by different names and been housed at various locations, including in Hubbard Hall, where Barbara Hodson (top photo at left), a communication sciences and disorders (CSD) professor and expert in phonology disorders, research and testing, was among the clinic’s staff in 1992.

WSU’s Cassat Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic, slated for relocation in 2027 to the third floor of the Wichita Biomedical Campus building now under construction, and Heartspring’s pediatric outpatient services now based near K-96 and Webb, will come together as neighbors in downtown Wichita’s developing healthcare corridor.

Like Heartspring, the clinic has plans to move and, as early as 2027, will be open for service on the third-floor of the Wichita Biomedical Campus’ eight-story building now under construction downtown between 200 S. Broadway and 214 S. Topeka. A collaborative effort led by Wichita State, KU School of Medicine-Wichita and WSU Tech, the biomedical campus is spurring development in the city’s healthcare corridor.

LOGOPEDICS

Both the Cassat Clinic and Heartspring trace their origins back to 1934, specifically June 4, when Martin F. Palmer, a passionate and visionary scientist, was informed that President William Jardine had agreed to his ideas for starting a speech sciences program at the University of Wichita. With the purpose of studying and treating language and speech disorders, the program officially began in September with Palmer focusing on creating a sound financial base for WU’s developing department. The first substantial contribution was used to establish the Flo Brown Memorial Speech Laboratory in a single room on the fourth floor of the main administration building, Jardine Hall. The room served as office, classroom, research lab and speech clinic. In 1939, a building just off campus on the southwest corner of 17th Street and Fairmount became available to be remodeled as a speech clinic, and in 1940 the clinic was renamed the Institute of Logopedics, for logos (work) and pedia (children).

The 1940 Parnassus reports that the newly named institute was “recognized by the government as the foremost speech laboratory in the Middle West” and that “the present staff of 25 works with over 300 children,” using “every known form of speech equipment — from sound recording to photography,” all the while “endeavoring to coax science to return stolen birthrights to speechless children.” The institute was so highly regarded that it attracted attention from parents of special-needs children across the United States and even abroad. By 1945, it was an autonomous entity with its own board of trustees and in 1949 moved to a 40-acre complex on 21st Street several blocks west of the WU campus. At the time of Palmer’s death in 1965, the Institute of Logopedics was the largest institute of speech and hearing rehabilitation in the world – and Wichita State had awarded its first two doctoral degrees in logopedics. After years of being fiscally and physically inseparable, the institute and the department became separate entities during the early 1970s. In 1993, as the institute’s services continued to expand, its name was changed to Heartspring. Five years later Heartspring moved to a $14.25 million campus northeast of WSU’s main campus.

There’s a through-line in all that change. It’s the overarching sense of purpose and commitment articulated by Rosalind Scudder ’64/72/78, who was serving as chair of WSU’s CSD department in 1992: “Our mission is student education, and we work to provide the very best service we can to members in our community. We don’t compromise that at all.”