Grad Stories: Winter 2021
As children, Hannah Blaske and her brothers would visit their father's "office" and feel like they'd landed in a playground.
Big rubber balls, workout apparatuses, and matted floors sure didn't look like work tools.
Today, Hannah knows better. In the wake of her Dec. 18 graduation from the St. Ambrose University Doctor of Physical Therapy program, she is ready to follow her father, Greg Blaske, into the physical therapy business.
Hannah will begin working soon at a Rock Valley Physical Therapy Center in Davenport, participating in a post-graduate residency program. Her father works at a Bettendorf location and has an ownership stake in the employee-owned business.
It was there, as a job-shadowing high school student where Hannah gained a better understanding of the impact of her father's work and decided she would pursue a career in physical therapy.
"I spent a half-day shadowing him and seeing what he does, and as I watched him work, I'm like, 'Yeah, this is what I want to do with my life,'" she said. "It was the way he treated his patients and formed meaningful connections with them – that's when I knew I wanted to go into physical therapy."
First, came an undergraduate experience at a small private college in northeast Iowa. A year on the softball team and four years of honors-winning choral experience enhanced her pursuit of a Bachelor of Science in Biology degree that put her in a position to apply to DPT programs.
She considered several, including her father's alma mater at Kansas University, before landing back home and at St. Ambrose.
"I had the greatest experience at St. Ambrose," Hannah said of a program where her father serves as a member of the Curriculum Committee. "And it was nice to be close to home. I wanted to go off on my own and have my own experiences. But I'm very happy I chose St. Ambrose. The professors were amazing and the friends I met were amazing."
As with many of this year's graduates, Hannah's experience was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but being near home brought a benefit in that regard, too. Because she and others were limited to enlisting the same five partners during hands-on learning in labs, she was grateful to have a willing and experienced homework partner, literally at home.
"Being able to practice on my dad and get his insights was extremely helpful," she said.
Greg is proud to see his daughter enter the PT profession, but not for any personal sense of pride. It is her clients who will benefit most, he said.
"I know this is something she wanted to do and will be very good at because of her drive and personality," her father said. "I do hope I gave her good mentorship. I love what I do, and try to do it at my very best to help those in my care."
A third Blaske, Hannah's brother Nathan, is a PT assistant in Wisconsin and she said there briefly was conversation about creating a family practice.
Hannah thought better of it. "It's nice to make a name for myself," she said.
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