Our First Sports Specialist

Specialisation

Jacinta Horan, (MHPrac (Honours), PG Cert AP, BPhty) Sports Physiotherapy Specialist

After almost two years of work it feels hugely satisfying to have achieved the role of Titled Sports Physiotherapy Specialist.

As the first specialist in sports physiotherapy in New Zealand is there any advice you have regarding the process for others thinking of going for specialisation?

My number one piece of advice would be instead of just thinking about it get started. I considered going through the process for a couple of years before I finally got around to it. I am not sure it is any different than many things in life where it seems like too big a process to know where to start! Send your application in if you are interested and meet the criteria as at the very worst all that can happen is you don’t progress to stage 2 and the application itself takes very little time. Then put aside some regular time each week/ fortnight or month (whatever you can manage) and ensure that this time is there to “chip away” at each task building your portfolio. This means that over the coming months/year you will gather all the information you require and it will allow you to highlight and target any areas that you don’t have appropriate evidence or history of achieving and therefore you can set targets on how you will then achieve these. One of my concerns was as I am not a researcher and do not have a PhD would I achieve this specialist status being “simply” a clinician. If this is you what I would say is apply! In order to continue to progress our profession physios on the ground need to be the largest group that achieve this status.

Secondly what advice do you have for those thinking about working towards it as a new grad?

Personally as a new grad I think the most important thing is to consolidate all you have learnt over the previous four years, get comfortable in your job, confident in your ability to provide a great service to the public and learn as much as you can from those you work with - not just in their treatment and clinical reasoning but also in the language they use and the way they interact with their patients. Find out what aspect of physiotherapy you love and set goals around how you are going to progress in that area and what you would love to achieve. If you do that one day you will have the ability to go through the specialist process also if it is something you aspire to achieve.

Have you always wanted to specialise in sports?

I have worked in Sports Physio for almost 20 years. It is why I was interested in studying physiotherapy in the first place and it is the area I am passionate about. I love the challenges that come with sports physio, I love the multidisciplinary nature of it and the challenge of being accountable to not only patients but also a greater management team and I love the sense of achievement when athletes succeed in their goals –whether on a local, national or International stage and the fact that we may have played some part in that.

What has been your worst and best sporting physio moment so far?

This is probably one in the same –Winning a silver medal at the Rio Olympics as part of the Women’s Sevens team but not winning gold. The expectation from the NZ public when involved with rugby in this country is that we win and always win, and even though we knew there was a reasonable chance that we wouldn’t win gold due to a number of factors having worked in the programme for 9 years, it was still heart-breaking watching the girls’ despair when we lost the final. Given a few days to reflect and learn the challenges of winning any medal at the Olympics it certainly became a highlight and is a moment in my career I will never forget.

What do you think are the key attributes and skill sets for a sports physio?

To understand athletes and their desire to return to sport, to be driven by a desire to continually upskill and learn from others, to get very comfortable in a gym environment and push past basic rehab to functional strengthening and sport specific rehab. The ability to clinical reason on the spot, to turn pressure of coaches and players into a challenge rather than

being terrified by it and to be organised from an administrative perspective. Soft skills around understanding athletes –when you need to push them, when you need to pull them back, when you are a “councillor” more than a physio and that none of us know everything but reflection and continual learning is essential in order to achieve.

What do you see as the main differences between being a sports physio and an MSK physio?

I am a firm believer that whilst there is crossover between musculoskeletal physiotherapy and sports physiotherapy they are two very different disciplines. SEPNZ spent a large amount of time arguing the case that this must be a separate discipline within the specialist scope which is great as otherwise I can honestly say I would not have gone down the specialist path. I believe our scope as sports physiotherapists is much broader than musculoskeletal physiotherapy. Clearly the “hands on”/treatment aspect is very similar but the skills required to be a travelling or sideline sports physiotherapist along with the rehabilitation skills required particularly at an International level are much more advanced than anything I would ever would have learnt within the clinic musculoskeletal space. I think Sports physiotherapists also have a huge amount to offer in a clinic setting as we understand advanced rehab and sports specific training and therefore are able to ensure patients are rehabilitated to the highest level appropriate for them.

What opportunities do you envisage will come from the speciality status?

I hope to continue to work within NZ and overseas in the High Performance space as being a physio for NZ teams on the World stage is something I love being a part of and has been the largest driver in my sports physio career. Alongside this the ability to work more as a consultant in a local sense ensuring that I am able to utilise the skills I have gained over the past 20 years to support local physiotherapists and the sporting public achieve their goals. Education of the wider public is an area I am particularly passionate about as when you aren’t at the elite level of sport the information available to the general sporting public is often sparse and variable in its quality. I hope to continue to work in this space particularly in the areas of minimising injury risk and the female athlete.

How do you see your practice changing working as a specialist?

Progression from more of the coalface treating to more of a “second opinions”/specialist review role with patients and referring back to their treating therapist to continue with their treatment and rehabilitation is an area I am particularly interested in. I do think there is also a growing opportunity within the NZ. Sporting space to sit alongside Medical Directors within sports and sporting bodies.

With the board removing some of the financial costs of being a Specialist do you see more Sports Physiotherapists becoming titled in the near future?

I don’t think financial barriers are the greatest barrier to becoming a specialist but it is great that financially there is now a benefit to working at this level.

Do you see any other barriers to becoming a sports specialist?

If you meet the criteria the biggest barrier I believe is time particularly in the sports field as if for eg you are full time with a team it would be a pretty large load to add to this work.

One final thing I would say is that the specialist role is an evolving role –both the application, examination and contracting space continues to change and going through this process requires you to be resilient, determined in what you are attempting to achieve and yet forgiving of the fact that not all the answers are out there yet! Most importantly ask questions as now we have a group who have gone through the specialist process and one in sports achieved we are there to help others achieve the same goal.