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Lynnlee Fullenwider, OTR/L, CHT
President
 Lynnlee
Fullenwider is the owner and director of Eastside Hand Rehabilitation
Clinic in Kirkland, Washington, an eastside suburb of Seattle.
She opened Eastside Hand Rehabilitation Clinic in 1984 and
has seen her practice grow to a staff of seven with a satellite
clinic in Bellevue since 1995. An acting founding member of
the American Society of Hand Therapists since 1978, Lynnlee
became a member of the ASHT Board in 1980 serving in elected
positions for over seven years including a term as president
in 1988. It was during her year as ASHT President that the
society voted to move forward with certification and held
the first informational breakfasts for potential certificants.
Lynnlee continues to be active in the society and as the HTCC
president serves as the liaison to the ASHT Board. She was
honored by the American Society of Hand Therapists as the
2002 recipient of the Natalie Barr Lectureship for outstanding
contributions to the field of hand therapy.
Lynnlee was first enticed by hand therapy after a visit to
Phoenix with her friend and colleague, Pegge Carter who had
recently started another hand center with Dr. Robert Wilson.
She became completely enamored with the fact that the patients
were outpatients, posed challenges and showed significant
changes in a short period of time. After that visit, Lynnlee
sought out a hand surgeon in Seattle, Dr. Edward Mills and
arranged to observe surgery and treat his hand patients. Soon
after Dr. Mills group invited Lynnlee to start a hand clinic
in their cast room. So on a tiny treatment table in a corner
of a cast room, the Seattle Hand Rehabilitation Clinic was
born. Lynnlee credits the doctors in this practice, especially
Dr. Morris Dirstine & Dr. Edward Almquist, as being great
mentors for her in those early years. A risk taker with a
love of a good challenge, enjoying a lot of autonomy, Lynnlee
found private practice in hand therapy to be the perfect match
for her. When Dr. Ed North moved to Seattle from Stanford
and invited her to start a private practice on the Eastside,
she moved in next door to Washington Hand Surgery (Proliance)
where she has been in practice for the past 18 years.
Lynnlee has been with HTCC from the beginning. She worked
on the committee that built the foundation for the credentialing
program and has been on the board since the commission was
incorporated. Lynnlee was elected Vice President of the Hand
Therapy Certification Board in 1989 and in April 2000 was
elected President, succeeding Mary Kasch who became HTCC’s
executive director. Lynnlee brings to her presidency twenty-three
years of professional leadership, over 16 years of experience
in hand therapy credentialing, and over twenty-six years of
clinical experience in hand therapy. A proven leader, she
brings to her presidency in HTCC a love for the profession.
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