Physical therapist moves to Plains

Whether it's the rising swell of the mountains, the flow of branching rivers or the simple amities of rural living, Montana has always had a strong gravitational pull for the Clark Fork Valley Hospital's newest physical therapist, Ursula “Shana” Dieterle.

Dieterle was trained in Germany and raised in the town of Lüffingen, located near the country's well-fabled Black Forest. Following a yearlong foreign exchange trip to Bozeman, Dieterle said that she was determined to return.

“I liked the wide open spaces, decent people, lots of elbow room and plenty of opportunities to ride horses,” Dieterle said.

Once she had immigrated to the U.S. in 1985 it took Dieterle two years to secure herself a work permit for her first job at St. James Hospital in Butte. Since 1987, she's been working as a physical therapist steadily and all over the country in places like California, Hawaii and Colorado. Yet wherever she goes, Dieterle said she always finds herself returning to Montana. In 1993, she came back to Big Sky Country, first to Butte, then to Missoula, Noxon and now finally, Plains.

Dieterle said that she liked Plains because of the similarities with her hometown back in Germany.

“The mountains around Plains actually have a similarity to the mountains in the Black Forest,” she said. “And the people are a lot like the people in the Black Forest, straightforward, down to earth. You know whether they like you or not, just really practical, nice, honest folk.”

She says that her hope is to use her experience to serve the medical needs of Plains while continuing to perfect her passion for physical therapy.

“After 24 years of work experience I still never get bored,” Dieterle said. “The profession is never really repetitive because it's such a broad field that covers so much ground; I keep learning all the time and it never gets dull.”

While not everyone knows what their job in life will be, Dieterle said that she knew at a very young age what she wanted to do. “I decided at age 14 that physical therapy was a great way to work with people, hands on, be in the health care profession, but without the intensity of being a doctor,” Dieterle said.

Her “hands-on” approach to physical therapy extends beyond the term's literal meaning. Her favorite part about her job is making new friends and getting to know them well.

“I enjoy meeting all kinds of people from all walks of life and getting to know them on a very personal and intimate basis,” Dieterle said. “I usually spend an hour with each person and often times two or three times a week for multiple weeks, so I really get to know them and I enjoy that.”

A positive change that Dieterle said she'd bring to the Clark Fork Valley Hospital is the option for patients to work with a female physical therapist.

“It's nice to have a man here who can do the work and a woman too so that whatever your preference is, you can have it,” she said.

Dieterle explained that she specializes in a special type of “hands on treatment” used for a variety of medical therapies.

“I do a lot of very specific, light, but very deep hands on treatment that is for chronic pain and all kinds of aches and difficulties and connective tissue disorders,” she said.

Despite Dieterle's technical skills and the emphatic passion for what she does, she does admit that the job isn't without its challenges.

“The biggest difficulty in the profession is working with chronic progressive degenerative diseases, when you know that you are just holding back the inevitable,” she said. “Basically you have to deal with the fact that this person is going to suffer and you have to personally deal with that, with all the knowledge and the emotions that come along with it.”

She said another challenge for her at the moment is trying to develop a balance for the new workload. Dieterle still works a few days a week in Noxon at the Bull River Clinic, and she said that this, coupled with her new duties in Plains, plus the momentary chores of moving have been somewhat daunting.

“It has been very challenging and very fatiguing,” Dieterle said about the transition.

An avid equestrian, Dieterle hopes to balance the stress and the workload on the back of her Arabian Mare Tsweet Majik. She said that she's already been invited by the Plains Back Country Horsemen to go out on a few group rides.

But whatever challenges are on the horizon, Dieterle said she’s confident about her new venture. Officially, Dieterle said that she'll be living in Plains by Aug. 23 and is expecting the move to be a lasting one.

“I'm hoping to find a permanent home here in Plains and become part of the community, to actually grow some roots,” Dieterle said.