Whitney Palmer

Brittany Stresing, Owner, LimBonics

Published in the May 2015 Durham Magazine

By Whitney L.J. Howell

At 14, Brittany Stresing received news that both changed her life and planned her future. She was diagnosed with scoliosis and spina bifida, and she learned one leg was shorter than the other. As a result, she was fitted with orthotic braces.

The experience solidified her belief that patient care should be personal and launched her down a path to improve the healthcare process for others.

“I was handed this profession through dealing with surgery and orthotic intervention with braces,” said Stresing, 28. “I received bad care followed by good care. I realized it’s better to treat people as individuals rather than numbers.”

Today, she’s a certified prosthetist and orthotist, as well as the owner of LimBionics, a prosthetic/orthotic company in Durham. She is secretary for the N.C. Orthotics and Prosthetics Trade Association, and she is also president-elect of the N.C. Chapter of the Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists – the first woman to hold this position. In addition, she was the first woman spotlighted for the Ossur Women’s Leadership Initiative, an organization helping promote women in leadership roles.

Her goal, she said, is to maintain open communication with patients and give them a sense of security around their treatment and therapy. She provides those services in rehabilitation facilities, hospitals, nursing homes, or doctor’s offices. Patients also come to her from across the state.

“Whenever someone works with us, they’re always going to the same person who knows them and what they’re going through,” she said. “We take the time to find a therapy that will work with their wants and lifestyle – not just a textbook approach.”

Reaching this point wasn’t always easy, though. She was accepted to a 15-person prosthetics program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and completed a rigorous residency at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But, she was still one of few women in a heavily male-dominated field.

She fought against the stereotype that female prosthetists were more suited for a practice’s administrative work than building prosthetics or orthotics. Now, she consistently designs and builds some of the most technologically-advanced patient care devices available, including prosthetics that replace missing body parts and braces that strengthen feet, ankles, knees, or hips.

Every step, she said, is devoted to working with the patient to identify their needs and to design a treatment plan all parties – patients, physicians, and Stresing’s colleagues – can agree upon.

“With every patient, we evaluate how they walk, how the use their arms, or whatever body part is affected,” she said. “We work to reduce their pain and make that body part functional again.”

To read the profile at its original location: http://issuu.com/shannonmedia/docs/binderdmmay/79?e=13657385/12589504 pg. 56

June 28, 2015 - Posted by wjpalmer | Profiles | Brittan Stresing, N.C. Chapter of the Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists, N.C. Orthotics and Prosthetics Trade Association, prosthetics and orthotics