Bringing Big-City Healthcare to Medium-Sized Waco

The first residency of its kind is making an impact on the Waco community—and on its inaugural clinicians.

February 2, 2023
Resident Teaching DPT Immersion Labs

In March 2022, Hannah Lewis, DPT, and Tyler Fleck, DPT, joined the orthopedic physical therapy residency at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Hillcrest. During their time in the program, they’ve had the unique opportunity to elevate their skills through close mentorship and practice within the community of Waco, Texas.

“It’s kind of interesting because I’m not a Waco or Texas native,” Dr. Lewis said. “The community is new to me and being a clinician in the community is new to me. It’s been interesting to almost grow along with the people that I’m treating. It’s definitely making an impact in the community, I can say, as far as the people that I’m reaching.”

“I just think there’s almost a culture that’s being developed amongst Baylor Scott & White, and specifically with PT, that truly you don’t have to go elsewhere to get excellent care,” Casey Unverzagt, DPT, DSc, Clinical Associate Professor for the Baylor University Department of Physical Therapy and the residency’s academic coordinator, said. “Trevor Carlson is the program director. He often speaks of bringing big-city medicine into medium-sized Waco and that’s really what I think one of the aims of this, is for individuals in central Texas to not be like, ‘Oh, I have to go elsewhere in order to get quality of care.’”

“To elevate the quality of the PT that you can find in Waco certainly helps the patients,” Dr. Fleck said. “To be able to get people back to their goals and back to what they want to be doing more quickly than we likely were before has an impact on the community from a healthcare utilization and financial sense as well.”

The professional and personal impact that the residency has had on its residents is clear. “I feel like we’re kind of on the fast track to becoming better clinicians in one year,” Dr. Fleck said. “We’re constantly being challenged and growing and improving, and just when we start to get comfortable, we get pushed a little more. So it’s really been a profound rapid period of growth over the last nine months.”

“What I didn’t expect was to just have so much fun,” Dr. Lewis said. “We came together as a team very quickly and I feel like we’re almost a family. It doesn’t feel like just a residency. I don’t feel like just a resident.”

“I think everyone from the leadership to mentors to the residents—their heart’s just in the right place, and this is very evident in the day-to-ay activities that we do,” Dr. Unverzagt said. “To see the two organizations truly come together for a common goal, a common good—it’s just been phenomenal.”