By Regional West Marketing Department
As a college student, Jim Holscher, PT, knew he wanted to do something in the medical field where he could use his love of exercise and physical activity.
While studying exercise physiology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he also played wingback on the Cornhusker football team. In the team’s first week of practice for Holscher’s junior season in 1986, he planted his foot on the artificial turf and felt his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear. In those days, an ACL tear meant surgery, weeks on crutches, and a year of rehab.
“Physical therapy was kind of in the back of my mind anyway,” Holscher said. “When I went through a lot of physical therapy myself, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is something I want to do.’ That was the deciding factor, going through physical therapy myself.”
After completing his senior year at Nebraska, he went to the University of Iowa for his physical therapy schooling. In 1990, Holscher accepted a position with Regional West in Scottsbluff, and has now been with the organization more than 30 years. Holscher, who is originally from Cook, Nebraska, and his wife, Sheryl, from Burr, Nebraska, raised their five children in Scottsbluff. The couple has six grandchildren.
Working with Regional West Home Care, Holscher helps patients adapt through injuries to be able to function in their own homes. His work focuses on helping people do tasks such as getting in and out of their beds, recliners, and cars. They may work on going up and down their home stairs or even being able to get in and out of their home.
“That is the focus of home care – what people are doing in their own environment, in their own home,” Holscher said. “Part of the reason I’m drawn to home care is because I’m working with them in their environment, not in the hospital hallway on the nice, perfect floor, or the stairs with the nice, perfect handrail. We see all kinds of different homes. You’ve got to deal with their environment, what their houses are like, what their environment is like, and deal with it and figure out how you’re going to help this person live safely and maneuver and live as well as they can in their own environment.”
When he’s not helping others, Holscher enjoys staying active himself. Already this year, he’s completed an Ironman Triathlon, consisting of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride, and a marathon 26.2-mile run, raced in that order. He’s completed a half-Ironman, and later this summer he’ll be taking part in a seven-day bicycle race in France. His training for the bicycle race is ongoing as he prepares for the grueling event.
“I get as much time on the bike as I can, and look for as many hills as I can,” Holscher said. “We’re going to go to Colorado a couple of times this summer, and I’m going to train in the mountains and see how much uphill I can do to get ready for it. I’m not sure you can get ready for it. It’s going to be every day for seven days, going over 3,000 meters of climbing every day.”
Ironman competitions and bicycle racing are individual endeavors. In home care, any given patient may be working with a nurse, and occupational therapist, and a social worker, in addition to a physical therapist such as Holscher. It’s the teamwork aspect of home care and the people he works alongside that Holscher appreciates in his professional life.
“Home care is a really rewarding place to work, because you’re seeing people in their own environment and helping them on a really intimate basis in their own space,” he said.
