Robin ZumBerge

While finishing her degree in science in the school of Occupational Therapy at Texas Woman’s University, she quickly realized how fascinating the human hand was.  Her internship, “Rehabilitation of the Hand and Upper Extremity,” at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas was very competitive to be accepted.  The Hand Program kept her side-by-side with Orthopedic and Plastic surgeons completing their Hand Fellowship in one of the top rated programs in the country.  Once she graduated, Magna Cum Laude for academic honors, from TWU in 1997, she moved to Austin to start her career in hand therapy.  She worked as a clinical hand therapist until she sat for her exam in 2004 when she earned her additional designation of Certified Hand Therapist.

After working for big box therapy clinics, she realized that their goal and hers were not the same.  The big box therapy clinics pressured the therapist to see more patients and bill more units in less time with less resources. Finally, unhappy with the focus on the bottom line, coupled with the fragility and complexity of the hand, she realized that she could no longer feel good about caring for people in that environment and decided to open her own clinic.  The Hand Clinic of Austin PC opened its doors in July of 2007.  The Hand Clinic of Austin is the ONLY therapist-owned Hand and Upper Extremity clinic in the city of Austin now close to 2 million people.  Robin’s goal was to create a work environment for herself and her coworkers where they could all come each day and be happy. In doing so, they care for their patients as if they were family. Without pressures from upper management for financial gains, patients get highly skilled and trained therapy, feel loved and cared for, and leave feeling better than when they arrived.