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Blazing a New Lane

Headshot of Chelsea McClammer

BY JULIE RIDDLE '92

From a young age, Chelsea McClammer OTD, MBA '25 competed in just about every sport, except those involving ice. When ParaSport Spokane, an adaptive sports program for athletes with disabilities, started a sled hockey program three years ago, McClammer decided to give ice a try. At her second practice, a coach checked her into the boards. Hard. "It was the best," she says. "I made it my goal to do that to somebody else."

Going after goals and competing to win have taken McClammer around the world as a professional track and field athlete. She started her career early. At 14, McClammer became the youngest member of the 2008 U.S. Paralympics Track & Field team; she competed in the 800 meters in Beijing, placing eighth in the world.

Across her 14-year career, McClammer won serious hardware including two silver medals and a bronze at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro; four bronzes and a silver at the World Championships; and seven gold medals at the Parapan American Games. She retired from professional competition in 2022 to take on a new challenge: earning her occupational therapy doctorate and master of business administration at Whitworth.

"I WANT OTHERS
TO HAVE THAT
CONFIDENCE
AND DRIVE TO
CONTINUE ON AND
DO GREAT THINGS
WITH THEIR LIVES."

McClammer is blazing a new lane as the first student to enroll in Whitworth's newly offered program and as a member of the university's first cohort of OTD students. Learning the business of healthcare through online MBA courses, while concurrently learning the practice of occupational therapy through in-person classes and off-campus field and clinical experiences, will equip McClammer to achieve her goal to open her own OT clinic. She's on track to complete the three-year program in August 2025.

"Throughout my life, especially playing adaptive sports and being on the Paralympic teams, I have always been with people with disabilities," McClammer says. While rooming with athletes at competitions, she observed the variety of ways people manage mobility modalities and common tasks. "I love the process of how people live their everyday lives and the amazing adaptations they do," she says.

As an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, McClammer earned a B.S. in human development and considered a career as a rehabilitation counselor. (She also competed on the university's wheelchair basketball and track teams.) Back in Spokane, she interned at Providence St. Luke's Rehabilitation Medical Center. During her off days she job-shadowed occupational therapist Teresa Skinner, founder of ParaSport Spokane. That experience and Skinner's mentorship made an impact. McClammer shifted her career goal to OT and became an athlete, coach and board member for the nonprofit.

McClammer demonstrates teaching a shoulder strengthening exercise to a classmate using a red resistance band.
Chelsea McClammer OTD, MBA '25, at left, demonstrates teaching a shoulder strengthening exercise to classmate Hailey Somerday OTD '25 in the Dornsife Health Sciences Building's rehabilitation clinic.
McClammer demonstrates teaching an arm strengthening exercise to a Whitworth professor using a small dumbbell.
McClammer demonstrates teaching an ulnar/radial-deviation strengthening exercise to Assistant Professor of Occupational Therapy Katie Ericsson.

In fall 2022, Whitworth welcomed its first cohorts in the new doctoral programs in occupational therapy and physical therapy. McClammer and her six OTD classmates soon gelled into a supportive team. "We're super tight," she says. "We love hearing about each other's fieldwork and what we're learning. And it's nice to support each other in classes." The neuroscience course, she says, was especially tough.

McClammer started her online MBA courses in January. "I feel more a part of the Whitworth community now," she says. "I've made new friends and even did a team project with a professor from the philosophy department who's [a student] in the program."

This summer, for her first 12-week OT clinical experience, McClammer will manage her own caseload working full time at a hand-therapy clinic in Spokane. In the fall she'll work at a neurorehabilitation clinic. As demanding as her professional pursuits are, sports will continue to be a part of McClammer's life: She plans for her future OT clinic to include an adaptive sports team.

"I want to show people that having a disability does not change you," she says. "It can definitely be a part of you – I embrace mine. I want others to have that confidence and drive to continue on and do great things with their lives."

"I LOVE THE PROCESS OF
HOW PEOPLE LIVE THEIR
EVERYDAY LIVES AND THE
AMAZING ADAPTATIONS THEY DO."

Headshot of Chelsea McClammer
McClammer is the first student to enroll in Whitworth's new OTD/MBA dual degree program.

RESEARCHING STRATEGIES TO PREVENT PRESSURE ULCERS

When McClammer was 6 years old, she was paralyzed from a spinal cord injury in a car accident. During rehabilitation, she learned brief "pressure release" techniques to avoid skin injuries that occur from prolonged sitting in a wheelchair.

For her OTD capstone project at Whitworth, McClammer is researching more effective "assistive technology" strategies to prevent pressure ulcers. "Thirty-second pressure releases versus sitting the rest of your day are not enough," she says. Her early research identifies improved wheelchair cushions, proper wheelchair fit, and increased hydration and protein intake as practices that can help reduce ulcers. "Someone with a spinal cord injury should already consume two times the recommended amount of protein, to reinforce the skin matrix," McClammer says. "A dietician I talked to said that someone with a pressure sore should consume four times the recommended protein."

After earning her Whitworth degrees, McClammer plans to attend the University of Pittsburgh on a postdoctoral fellowship in assistive technology. Her career goals encompass both occupational therapy and assistive technology to improve outcomes for adults with spinal cord injuries.

This story appears in the spring 2024 issue of Whitworth Today magazine.

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