New rehab program at Gundersen St. Elizabeth’s gets workers back on the job

Being a nurse in the Med-Surg unit in a small hospital was a job Tris Myer had always wanted, which is why it was so difficult for her to have to give it up after injuring her neck while doing the work she loved. But thanks to a new rehabilitation program at Gundersen St. Elizabeth’s Hospital and Clinics, Tris is right back where she belongs.

Tris was the first patient to complete Gundersen St. Elizabeth’s new work conditioning program. It’s an intensive regimen of rehabilitation that’s aimed at people who are injured while working at their place of employment. Typically, they’re people who’ve gone through physical or occupational therapy already but aren’t yet capable of performing the job they did before the injury took place.

“Work conditioning is a pretty intensive, rigorous patient-specific rehab program to get them back to doing whatever it is they need to do,” says Leah Winecke, a physical therapist at Gundersen St. Elizabeth’s who was part of Tris’s care team. 

The program involves a variety of stretching techniques, strengthening exercises, and endurance and aerobic training, in addition to any job-specific tasks, such as lifting, that might be required. The goal is to increase stamina and the ability to move so a person can perform as well as they did before the injury – if not better. 

“That’s why we have different equipment, to be able to try to simulate their job duties as best as possible,” Winecke says. “A lot of times, these people have been off work for any number of months or even years.”

Enough of the pain

For Tris, she was away from her Med-Surg unit for nearly two years. It started in October 2021 when she injured a disk in her upper back, causing terrible pain while doing the most routine parts of her job. After the injury, she was transferred to triage where the physical demands were less. But by February 2023, she had had enough of the pain and opted for surgery, something she’s glad she did.

Following surgery, Tris had six weeks of physical therapy and was then able to come back to work, although not in Med-Surg. Instead, she was assigned light-duty work on a truncated schedule back in triage. Eventually, she got back to full days, but she still couldn’t do the physical tasks that were required of her because of lingering pain.

Work conditioning a perfect fit

That’s when her primary care provider suggested she might be a perfect fit for the new program, and wanting to get back to her job on Med-Surg, she agreed.

So, for two hours a day, five days a week, for six weeks, Tris faithfully met with her physical therapists, pushing and pulling carts with 100-plus pounds of weight, lifting 50-pound weights up to her waist, doing cardio, upper and lower extremity strengthening exercises, and core work. She admits it was hard, and there were days she’d have rather stayed home. But her therapy team encouraged her – and pushed her – through the exercises. 

“Everybody (in PT) was always just so wonderful to work with,” Tris says. “They were just as excited as I was when I graduated.”

Winecke said Tris did a great job in the program and worked hard to overcome the challenges. 

“That’s the type of person who you’re going to see benefit from it and get better,” Winecke says of the program. “It’s hard. It’s two hours of exercise, heavy lifting, strength training, aerobic training.”

The therapists at Gundersen St. Elizabeth’s liken their patients in the program to industrial athletes. Getting them back to work, Winecke says, is like getting athletes back on the field.

“They have to be able to do this job eight hours a day, several days a week,” she says. 

'I feel stronger'

Now, Tris says she feels better than ever.

“I feel stronger; I feel so good,” she says. “I really feel like I feel stronger, healthier, more mentally prepared for my job, and those were all things that I was really working toward with work conditioning.”

And in September, she achieved another goal: getting back to her beloved nursing unit. 

“I’m gradually getting my feet wet and remembering all the things that I used to do,” she says. “Because of the two years between when I left and when I came back, I’m kind of retraining. Otherwise, I’m back to doing all the things I was doing before the injury, without any serious problems.”

Winecke says the program makes sense for Gundersen St. Elizabeth’s and Wabasha. There’s a lot of industry in the area, she says, and anytime employees get injured, there’s a need for a program like this that can get them back to their livelihood. 

That was especially true for Tris.

“It’s not easy, but it’s worth it,” she says. “If anyone’s on the fence about doing it, and they have an injury and want to get back to their job, I think they should do it.”

For more information about the work conditioning program, call the physical therapy registration office at (651) 565-5558.