Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb has appointed Therese Eutsler, PT, CCT, of Linden, to a four-year term as one of three physical therapists to serve on the newly established five-member Indiana Board of Physical Therapy.
Indiana Senate Enrolled Act No. 586, which Holcomb signed into law last year, created the board that will regulate the profession in Indiana. Previously, a physical therapy committee of the Indiana Medical Licensing Board provided regulation. She is a second-generation physical therapist. Joseph M. Wagner, PT, her late father, founded the Physical Therapy Department at Memorial Hospital in Jasper.
J. Michael Nossett, Holcomb’s Deputy General Counsel, recommended Eutsler for the position. A physical therapist at Franciscan Health Crawfordsville, her experiences include direct care in acute inpatient and outpatient settings and private and industrial rehabilitation clinics. Her practice and research interests include women’s health, dry needling, cupping, mechanotherapy, osteopractic physical therapy and orthopeadics. She previously served on the Board of Podiatric Medicine to which former Gov. Mike Pence appointed her in 2016.
She has served as a clinical coordinator, supervising university physical therapy students and their clinical instructors; education coordinator, designing and delivering in-service training to clinical and classified staff; and assistant director, providing personnel leadership and process management. She has served on marketing teams that have established and strengthened relationships to open new patient referral sources. Her work in clinical practice competencies resulted in the creation of training modules and testing to meet facility accreditation requirements.
While holding Clinical Instructor appointments at the University of Indianapolis (2011), Creighton University (2008), Midwestern University (2007), Indiana University (1992), Vincennes University (1991), and the University of Evansville (1988), Eutsler regularly engages with students completing affiliations as part of their Doctor of Physical Therapy degree programs. During her career she has completed advanced training in student clinical performance and clinical education. She has held key ethical and political action roles in the Indiana Physical Therapy Association and has attended the American Physical Therapy Association national conferences. She is a member of the Indiana Department of Transportation American With Disabilities Act Community Advisory Working Group.
Eutsler has a long commitment to serving the community and has been engaged as a church organist and music ministry team member in several parishes. While serving on the board of the John T. Conner Center for East/West Reconciliation, which built relationships between churches in the United States and former the Soviet Union, she participated in a three-week long trip across Russia aboard the Trans-Siberian Express in 1992. In 2003, she was elected Linden Clerk-Treasurer and participated in the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns Newly Elected Officials Training in 2003 and 2004. She has volunteered for the 500 Festival since 1988 and has been a volunteer for the nationally televised IPL 500 Festival Parade since 1992. She is a 2015 graduate of the FBI Citizens’ Academy and is a member of the International Association of Indianapolis 500 Oldtimers.
Eutsler earned a B.S.P.T. in Physical Therapy from the Indiana University School of Medicine and received the Doctor of Humane Letters (honoris causa) from St. Paul Christian University Covenant Divinity Seminary. She has completed clinical and management professional development and certification courses in the areas of Pelvic Floor Treatment, Crucial Conversations, Tigger Point Dry Needling, Lumbopelvic-Hip Method, Cervical/Thoracic/ Lumbar/Sacroiliac Thrust Manipulation, Functional Movement Assessment, Treatment Techniques for Shoulder Disorders, Cervico-Thoracic Complex, Mobilizations and Movement, Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes, Mobilization of the Nervous System, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, Outcome Managed Protocol of the Knee and Shoulder, Controlling Worker’s Compensation Through Preventive Measures and Occupational Medicine, Functional Capacity, Chain Reaction, Cervical/Thoracic and Lumbar Spine Mechanical Diagnosis, Pelvic Dysfunction, Orthobionomy, Myofascial Release, Stroke Discharge Planning and Home Treatment, Orthopaedic Cyriax System, Sports Medicine, Vascular Insufficiency and Cupping, Lean Six Sigma and Functional Fascia Therapeutics.
