Elaine Ewing Fess, MS, OTR, FAOTA, CHT
Phone: 317.274.8006
Professor Elaine Ewing Fess received her BS in Occupational Therapy and her MS in Education from Indiana University. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy and serves on the Department's Research Advisory Board.
Professional
A Certified Hand Therapist and a Founding Charter member of the American Society of Hand Therapists (ASHT), Fess is the recipient of the Society's two highest awards, the Nathalie Barr Lectureship and Lifetime Fellowship Award. Additionally, she served as Chairman of the American Hand Therapy Foundation for seven years and prior to that was Treasurer of AHTF for six years.
She was recently presented with the honorary title of AHTF Chairman Emeritus. She is also an honorary member of the Brazilian Hand Therapist Society. In 2002, Fess was named honorary senior professor for the renowned Philadelphia Surgery and Rehabilitation of the Hand symposium.
Serving as Statistics Editor, Fess was a member of Journal of Hand Therapy Editorial Board for 11 years. She also has served as a specialty resource reviewer for other professional journals and reviews grants on a PRN basis.
Clinical
Fess works in private practice doing consulting, research, and teaching in the field of hand and upper extremity rehabilitation. Prior to this she worked with James W. Strickland, MD in his hand surgery practice and was cofounder and first Director of the Hand Rehabilitation Center of Indiana. In addition to hand rehabilitation, she also has clinical experience in burn injuries and in spinal cord injuries.
Publications and Presentations
With 77 professional publications including books, articles in peer-reviewed journals, and chapters in books, Fess' most recent book, Hand and Upper Extremity Splinting Principles & Methods, 3rd Edition, Elsevier/Mosby, 2005, is coauthored by Karan Gettle, Cynthia Philips, and J. Robin Janson.
A frequent faculty member of national and international hand rehabilitation symposia, Fess has given more than 300 presentations at more than 200 different courses throughout the world.