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Love what you do
Carrie Gracey shares about the job she loves and how she got here
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
MT. PLEASANT — Mt. Pleasant Athletico Clinic Manager and Physical Therapist Carrie Gracey loves her job, but that was not always the case. If she had any word of advice for other women, she would tell them to pursue their passion, regardless of when they find it.
Coming out of her undergrad at Coe College with a degree in psychology and health care administration, Gracey says she wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to do. She entered into a more traditional desk job at a hospital auditing health care claims and found the work boring.
“Then my mom got sick,” Gracey shared. “She was an elementary school teacher at Winfield-Mt. Union and she kept saying ‘I got to get back to school, I got to get back to school, I miss it so much.’ And I was like, oh my gosh, if I was sick, I don’t like my job that much, I wouldn’t even be worried about it.”
Gracey’s mother, Theresa Woline began teaching at WMU in 1996 after going back to school herself. She received the Walmart Teacher of the Year Award in 2003 and was voted Teacher of the Year at WMU in 2006. Woline passed away after a two-year battle with cancer in December 2007.
It was through this season that Gracey decided she also wanted a job that loved as much as her mom loved her job. So, Gracey went back to school, initially as a biology major.
After running her first marathon, however, Gracey experienced some knee pain and went to a physical therapist. As she worked on her knee, her physical therapist actually pointed out that all she would need to do was add a physics class to her studies and she could apply to physical therapy school. She graduated from The University of Iowa with a Doctorate of Physical Therapy.
“So, that’s what I did, and it is a great career,” Gracey said. “It is really fulfilling. We get to see people get back to their regular lives, get back to doing things they love, and achieve goals that they set. It is really fun.”
Gracey’s career with Athletico began in Iowa City, her career also took her Belle Plain for a few years before moving to Pennsylvania in 2017. Two years later, whoever, Gracey and her husband made their way back to her hometown of Mt. Pleasant when Athletico reached out to her with a job opportunity to be a clinic manager.
As a clinic manager, one of Gracey’s first responsibilities is to be the best physical therapist she can be and lead by example. She also utilizes some of her experience in hospital administration to keep that part of the practice in order.
While her job also includes disseminating information from higher levels of the company into her local clinic, she is says that Athletico allows each clinic the freedom to find what their communities most need and offer those services.
“The fun things about being in a more rural setting is that we see a really wide variety of patients,” Gracey said. “So, we see people of all ages and of all abilities. We see more of a variety of patients compared to a clinic in the city, because in the city there’s a hand specialist and neuro-specialist, and we’re generalists. We do have some specialty programs that we’ve been specially trained to do, but we see a wider variety of diagnoses because we’re in a setting where people don’t want to drive to Iowa City to go to the hand therapist.”
Some of these specialty therapies include dry needling and therapy for vestibular issues that cause dizziness or vertigo. Gracey specifically offers a specialty program for pelvic floor therapy.
“This was a huge need,” Gracey said. “There were local providers here asking if we did it, and as of a few years ago, we did not. At that time the closest pelvic floor therapist was in Burlington and Iowa City.”
Most of Gracey’s favorite parts of her new career revolve around people. She enjoys meeting new people and getting to know them. She also appreciates that her work allows her to work with a wide variety of people.
“Helping people achieve their goals can be anything from an elderly person who wants to be able to stand long enough to prepare a meal to a high schooler that wants to be back on the football field,” she explained.
Much like her mother, Gracey finds that she also enjoys the educational aspect of her career. She likes to help individuals learn about their bodies, teach them about their diagnosis, and helping them understand what to do next.
Now Gracey can confidently say, she loves her job just as much as her mother once loved teaching, and when she is gone, she really does miss it. For those trying to decide their next steps, Gracey encourages them to do as many job shadows as they can so they have a better idea of what they might want to do when they actually get to college.
“Being a person who did go back to school, again, I encourage people to not be afraid to do that if they really want to make a change in their life,” Gracey said. “Because being in a career that I really love changed my life.”
Comments: AnnaMarie.Kruse@southeastiowaunion.com
