Dana Washburn, PhD, OTR/L

Speaker Topics

• Shoulder treatment
• OT inpatient or outpatient rehabilitation
• Interprofessional education

Interests & Expertise

Dana has 27 years of experience as an occupational therapist and 14 years as an occupational therapy educator at UWM’s Occupational Therapy Program.

Her area of expertise is physical rehabilitation of adults, and she has worked in a variety of practice settings including acute care, sub-acute rehabilitation, home health and outpatient therapy. She has significant clinical expertise in the area of shoulder rehabilitation. She is passionate about interprofessional education (IPE) and teamwork. She has helped organize IPE events with the Medical College of Wisconsin and within UWM to create unique learning opportunities for her students, fostering greater preparedness for clinical practice with their future interprofessional colleagues.

In the area of research, Dana completed her master's thesis on the topic of patient compliance with occupational therapy treatment programs. Her dissertation is titled Pre-Professional Occupational Therapy Students' Learning of Interprofessional Team Skills During Clinical Fieldwork and was published in May, 2025.

Professional Memberships

• American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA)
• Wisconsin Occupational Therapy Association (WOTA)

Courses Taught

• OT in Physical Rehabilitation I and II
• Physical Agents in Rehabilitation
• Professional Development Seminars I, II and III 
• Critical Evaluation of Theory, Research and Practice