From Hand Injury to Hand Therapist: Rocky Mountain College OTD Graduate Brings Rural-Focused Care to Alaska
Billings, Montana — When Jaxon Bennett broke his arm during his senior year of high school football, he didn’t know it would become the reason he ended up practicing occupational therapy nearly 2,500 miles away in Wasilla, Alaska. The path from that injury to his current work as a certified hand therapist began early in his life, and it’s one that Rocky Mountain College’s Occupational Therapy Doctorate program in Billings, Montana is proud to be a part of.
Bennett, a 2022 graduate of Rocky Mountain College’s OTD program, traces his interest in occupational therapy back to high school, when his eight year old cousin survived a car accident that left him with a severe spinal cord injury. Watching his cousin work with occupational and physical therapists to improve the quality of his life left an impression that stayed with Jaxon through college. His own hand surgery years later sharpened that interest into a career direction.
“That’s what guided my career choice since then,” Bennett said of the combination of his cousin’s therapy and his own hand injury.
Bennett, who grew up in southeast Idaho and completed his undergraduate degree in human movement science at Utah State University, started Rocky Mountain College’s OTD program in 2020. He chose Rocky, he said, largely because of the people.
“I felt good with the staff I interviewed with,” Bennett said. “I had a good feeling about Rocky, and I felt like it would be a good place to be.”
That fit showed up again during his second Level II fieldwork placement at Select Physical Therapy, where he trained under a certified hand therapist. The placement did more than teach him hand therapy techniques — it led directly to his first job. Bennett was hired at the same clinic after graduation and worked alongside his fieldwork mentor for years, eventually following her when she moved to Pioneer Peak Orthopedics, where they still work together today.
In May 2026, Bennett became a Certified Hand Therapist, a credential that requires 4,000 hours of direct patient treatment, three years of licensure, and a rigorous exam, all specific to the hand therapy specialty. He has also completed advanced training in orthopedic manual therapy and is currently working toward a certification in ergonomics assessment, work he connects to preventing the repetitive-use injuries he treats regularly.
Now practicing in Wasilla, Alaska, and living in Eagle River with his wife (also a Rocky Mountain College OTD graduate he met during the program), Bennett has found that Rocky’s emphasis on treating patients without easy access to healthcare prepared him directly for his current caseload.
“We see a lot of patients who live rurally — people who live in dry cabins, who fly in or snow machine in to get to their appointments,” Bennett said. “Rural healthcare is a big thing about what I do every day, and that’s another plus for Rocky.”
Bennett also points to Rocky’s emphasis on therapeutic use of self — treating patients as people rather than isolated injuries — as one of the most lasting lessons from the program, even in a specialty as protocol-driven as hand therapy.
“Being able to use therapeutic use of self to better relate with the patient, understand their wants, their needs, what they specifically need to treat them as a whole — I feel like that was probably the most impactful thing,” Bennett said.
Bennett’s story reflects a pattern Rocky Mountain College’s Occupational Therapy Doctorate program sees often: graduates who find their way into underserved and rural communities, carrying forward the same values that shaped their training in Montana.
Rocky Mountain College’s Occupational Therapy Doctorate program prepares students for careers as licensed occupational therapists through a curriculum grounded in hands-on clinical simulation, diverse fieldwork, small cohort mentorship, and a focus on serving communities with limited access to healthcare. The program is based in Billings, Montana.
For more information about the Occupational Therapy Doctorate program at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana, click here or contact heynemank@rocky.edu