Paula Godwin

Review of Watauga Orthopaedics, PLC

This review is specifically for the Physical Thera...

This review is specifically for the Physical Therapy department. I spent 5 months at this facility working with Will Rochelle. Having never had a knee injury or a surgery of this type, I was hoping for a positive, enlightening, knowledge filled experience but that was not the case. At my very first session, I met with Will for about 10 minutes then I was left with the techs to show me the exercises. This became the routine of most of my visits, Will would be in his office the majority of the time and there were a handful of sessions where I didn t even see him at all. When he did happened to be around, many of my concerns were met with I m not worried about it , which left me uneasy. Whenever I did ask Will questions, the responses were short, very condescending and again, he would walk away without giving me a full answer.

My biggest issue was when I was 22 weeks post-op and I had mentioned running for a second time, Will spoke to me very rudely, that it was too soon, that I was 14 weeks and was obsessed with wanting to run. This professional that I was working with for the past 4 months didn t even know how far along I was in my recovery. Also, on a few occasions when he would put the STEM pads on me, he would comment about the stubble on my legs, insinuating that women should have clean shaven legs, I understand he was trying to make a joke but it wasn t funny and I took major offense to these sexist comments. Will does not know how to treat other people with kindness, especially after injury/surgery when it is mentally straining on anyone, I ve never been in more of a depressive state then when I was working with Will.

After that I had 1 session with Wes, the PTA, he is amazing. I mentioned a twinge of pain after a certain exercise and he gave a nonchalant explanation when I didn t even ask. This is when I knew my experience should ve been different and I have not been back since mainly because I was far along enough to do all of it on my own. But, this facility is not for athletes, there is no desire to get patients back to their pre injury state of running, jumping or any high impact movements. Not even a handout on how to do it on your own. The internet and support groups have given me more knowledge about my injury then Will ever cared to shared.