What does a physiotherapist do?

Considering a career in physiotherapy? Rebecca Mann talks about the squiggly route she took to get her degree, what it takes to start your own business and what the difference between a physio and an osteopath is

Participants

• Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Prospects
• Rebecca Mann - physiotherapist, Dynamic Recoveries

Transcript

Rebecca Mann: Know why you want to do it, because of the impact that you can have, because of how important it is. And vulnerable it is to people and their pain is debilitating. What are you doing it for? And I was one of these people who were like, ooh I want to work with a sports person and see all of that. And it's so interesting, but why are you actually doing it?

Emily Slade: Hello and welcome to Future You, the podcast brought to you by graduate careers experts Prospects. I'm your host, Emily Slade, and in this episode I speak to Rebecca Mann a self employed physiotherapist who runs Dynamic Recoveries.

Rebecca Mann: Hi, I'm Becca, I'm a self employed physiotherapist. I run my own clinic. I've got a couple in our team as me and one other.

Emily Slade: Let's start with the basics. What is a physiotherapist?

Rebecca Mann: Well, you can say that that's a basic question. So physiotherapy can be split into three different sections. So most people don't actually know this when they say I've seen a physio, they expect to see someone like myself, who work in what we call this muscular skeletal side of things. So you've got an injury, you see a physiotherapist they help the injury, sporting rag patient or bones or muscles Sones or muscles postdoc put in if you had a total hip replacement. So that's what we call the MSK side of physiotherapy (Musculoskeletal). But what a lot of people don't realise is there's different roles within physiotherapy whereby you see most of these people in hospital settings or community settings. So the other two aspects of physiotherapy. One is respiratory team, so helping people with cystic fibrosis, COPD, these people work on the intensive care unit when COVID was big, and the physios had a massive role in trying to help those patients on the ITU. So there's that side of physiotherapy. It's much more medical, I would suggest. And it's more rare to find a private respiratory therapist is not rare is not completely a case of there are none. But it is harder to find someone on a private source scope within that field of physiotherapy. And then the final one is neurological physiotherapy. So most commonly that would be stroke patients or in pediatrics. So children with cerebral palsy, some different disorders that are more rare. They're the more neuro side of things. So brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, those sorts of things that require more specialism within the physiotherapy world. Again, you can find private neurological physiotherapist, but you do tend to see more job roles within the NHS with that sort of thing. So it is a basic question. But actually, copyrights are the third yeah, there's a massive scope.

Emily Slade: And what's the difference between a physiotherapist and osteopath?

Rebecca Mann: Well, I could I need to talk from our past so they don't do the neurological and their spiritual training. They are more what we would call muscular skeletal based, they can still treat what we call peripheral injury. So name injuries, elbows, wrists, but from my understanding, they have a much more intricate knowledge of the spine. And they have a much more intricate knowledge of how the nervous system works within that, and the joints specific joints they do tend to train more specific joints. Their rehabilitation scope is not there as much so a lot of us is what can we give you to help yourself and my understanding is they don't have as much of that from working with an osteopath myself. That's where we bounced off of our sort of strengths more than anything. That was my strength. His strength was the manual therapy,

Emily Slade: Right.

Rebecca Mann: Yeah.

Emily Slade: Cool, it's a big old world to dive into. So I guess this ties into - what industry would you put this in?

Rebecca Mann: Myself? I would put myself in private muscular skeletal. Some people might consider me a sports physio. The actual clientele I see I wouldn't consider myself a sports physio. I would just say I'm a private, muscular skeletal therapist, with certain interests. I'm stronger at certain aspects than others.

Emily Slade: But you run your own company?

Rebecca Mann: Yeah.

Emily Slade: And can you be a physiotherapist without having to run your own company via the NHS.

Rebecca Mann: Yes. And privately. There are private roles out there where people, like myself have set up their own company, they've got multiple clinics, or they've got a big clinic with multiple rooms within the clinic, and they offer employed salaries, you don't have to be self employed, the more common route tends to be you're either a freelancer or you are self-employed in those roles. It's really personal preference as to what you look in looking for from women, but it's not you have to be self-employed. It's not that at all.

Emily Slade: Okay, so if we look back to salary, what are we looking at in your job role?

Rebecca Mann: So privately, the world is your oyster. There's no cap on earning potential privately, I had to do a bit of research in terms of what you would get under the NHS. I would say I'm at a higher level than entry level at the NHS currently. But then you've got to remember being self employed. No one's paying into your pension, no one's paying your holiday pay. No one's paying your sick pay. So yes, although you're earning more, yeah. Are you getting more out of it? It is a balance. There's ebbs and flows and there's positive and negatives of both sides of things. I mean, my aim is to have bigger clinic with multi you rooms with different therapists that all can work together and yeah, my earning potential there is uncapped, in my opinion. I have found when looking for job roles, it's always based on your knowledge base and your experience how many years you've been graduated. If it's a self employed role, the cut so normally what happens is you earn X amount an hour, and the clinic will take a cut of that seems to be based around your experience as well. I'm guessing the theory behind that is that they will mentor you a little bit more. Yeah. And then because that's more work for them, they take a bigger cut. It's also probably their mountain and their experience, and their reputation that gets you those clients. And there's always in negotiation later on down the line with more knowledge and more experience as to how that cut works. If you're working in the NHS, this banding is, from what I understand all over, if you're a nurse, if you're a dentist, this is the structure from my understanding. It's based on where you live in the UK as well. Okay, so I'm assuming a little bit like when you go to uni, get more maintenance own. If you're in London, I think that's how it works with within the NHS is location base. And the research that I found was as of 23/24, then bands, so a band five is your entry level post uni. So there are band two, three, four roles, but they're without your level six qualification, right, you leave university with a level six qualification and you've got an entry level of band five earning potential I found that was from £28,000-£40,000, then you can go up to band six, again, it's based on experience, time that you're employed, and that earning potential is £35,000 to £42,000. It goes then up to a band seven now we're talking you're more specialised in here, you know what section of physiotherapy you want to be in? You've potentially done rotations. And yes, I want to be a neurological physio, I want to be respiratory physio, you've really decided this is what you want to do. And it is more of a consultancy base. So you're not one to one patients at all time. From what I can see, with band seven, you have a bit more of an admin role, isn't it, and that £43,000 to £50,000. And then the band eights were broken down into two. So there was an advanced and a clinical specialist. So eight A was your advance. And in potential there was £52,000, £57,000 and, and then clinical specialist. I think I worked under one of these for my understanding. And she really was mainly admin looking over big cases. But she would come to the the hospital and do some face to face work. But it wasn't every day some like or understand when you progress through these roles and who what's required of you that earning potential was £70,000 to £80,000. And this sort of £70,000 to £80,000, again, is based on experience and all of that. So yeah, so that's what I found. That's really helpful. And that sort of also covers career development options, whether you want to go private or public. And you can basically, there's always room to move up, like even yourself with your own business. In theory, there's no role to grow into, but you just expand your business. Yeah, yeah. And privately, I have gone down this route and never worked under the NHS under this band and role. There was the suggestion that I should have done that when I left university. I went through university in a slightly different way, which I'm sure we'll get to, which has made me decide to always go privately. But my personal opinion is with private, there's a bit more flexibility and freedom. But there's also the pressures that I just discussed of you having to manage that.

Emily Slade: Yeah, there's pros and cons of both sides.

Rebecca Mann: Yeah, so absolutely.

Emily Slade: Yeah. Let's get into it. Then talk about your educational journey.

Rebecca Mann: I did the long route into becoming a phsyio. I'm gonna be honest. And it was really guided by COVID, and what happened there.

Emily Slade: Oh, wow, of course.

Rebecca Mann: I went to university when I was 18 did the whole , A-levels, went to university and did a degree called graduate sports therapy. So I was a sports therapist when I was doing my undergraduate which is - and then people go - what's the difference there? And I can't tell you the amount of questions I got when I first graduated. It was so frustrating. You basically want to be like, well I'm what everyone thinks a physio is, but I can't say it. Legally. You can't say. The physiotherapy title is protected.

Emily Slade: Oh, wow.

Rebecca Mann: Yeah. So I was a graduate sports therapist, which is the MSK side of things with the physiotherapy, the sports injuries, the exercise rehabilitation and looking after your rugby player, your cricket player. Most of the education is around that. And it was a great degree. I really enjoyed it. And looking back, would I have done it the other way? I probably would have preferred to have done my undergraduate as a physiotherapy degree, but I'm glad I didn't.

Emily Slade: Okay.

Rebecca Mann: I graduated, I started in the private world doing that, working with different physios osteopaths different clinics freelancing and kind of had eggs in loads of different baskets and then COVID hit and I couldn't work.

Emily Slade: Oh yeah, of course if you're literally relying on physically touching people and moving their bodies to work again you can't do that during a global pandemic.

Rebecca Mann: Face-to-face contact just wasn't a thing. And I kind of, I really had to have a sit in a talk with myself of, is this realistic? Is this manageable in my head? If I didn't have the protection of living with my parents. What would I have done?

Emily Slade: Yeah.

Rebecca Mann: So yeah, I kind of bit the bullet and went and went back and did my Masters. I think, to be honest, it's so silly. The thing that was making me the most reluctant was it was a two years masters. So most Masters are a year. A physiotherapy Masters is two years because you can't physically get everything into one year. So it's basically like going back and doing a whole new degree. Really, that's what was holding me back. But I was in my early 20s, what's two years at the end of the day? So in February 2021, I started my Masters degree in physiotherapy and did that for two years. And yeah, now I'm a fully fledged physio I have the protected title. I have the health care professional Council registration, which is the thing that you don't have under Sports Therapy, which is a big protected title. So yeah, that's that was my journey through education that the long road. Five years . I think, looking back, it was worth it. Yeah, it was I learned things from doing my undergraduate, was exposed to different things, met different people because of that, and it helped me within the Masters. Yeah, to see what was important in terms of patient care better, I think there's certain aspects that you can be quite naive to when you're fresh into the healthcare world. And because of my undergraduate experience, and working in that role, I felt like I got more out of certain aspects of your Masters degree.

Emily Slade: Brilliant. So can you become a physiotherapist without a degree?

Rebecca Mann: So that's a yes and no answer. Okay. So you have to be, you have to have a BSc, right? But more recently, they have launched an apprenticeship scheme through the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. Okay. Yeah. So I again, this is something I had to research because it wasn't an option when I was looking into education two years ago. Yeah. So really, really recently, it requires a level six qualification, which you can only get through university education. Okay, so to get that HTPC registration, they want you to be level six, but they have launched this apprenticeship scheme, which means you can earn whilst you're getting your riser for pre qualification, I believe it's a two to four year course, depending on what apprenticeship you apply for. And I understand that you have to have 1000 hours worth of practice, which is pretty bog standard, what you would do if we went in as a university student, and it works out 30 hours a week. And I think within that you get your education time and your practical work time. It sounds like it works more like rotations. What I mean by that is you have four months on neuro, four months on MFK, and they're actual job roles. And, and you have to apply directly to the job role. So it works like you're applying for a job, but then with the understanding that you have to do the education for a degree for a university and to get the level six qualification. So yes, you do need a university degree, but you don't have to do it just being a student doing what everyone else does when they are 18 sort of thing. I would have loved that option. I wish that was available round here where I lived when when I was looking to get into it.

Emily Slade: Nice. So you sort of briefly touched on it, but I talk about launching your own business. How did you get your job?

Rebecca Mann: How did I get my job? Well, I created it. That's a weird thing to say, when you do run your own business. You just had an idea and you did it. Yeah, it's a really odd thing to say isn't as well. So in a Sports Therapy world, there isn't really too many job roles within the NHS. So I knew that wasn't really an option for me to go in as a band for you don't have the option to be that entry level even though you have the right degree. So I kept all my eggs in as different as many different baskets as I could because that was one of the pieces of advice I got was get as much information from so many different therapists, physios, osteopaths all of that sort of thing. So I left university with a freelance agreement with an osteopath clinic. I was also interning with a physio that runs his own clinic. It was sort of a one man band thing and then I became the team member and I was freelancing for another clinic doing mainly pitch side work. So looking after rugby players, mainly, a little bit of netball, hockey, dabbled in a bit of school stuff there. And I took a year to launch Dynamic Recoveries, I thought, because I wanted to do it properly.

Emily Slade: Yeah.

Rebecca Mann: That might be a bit of a judgy comment, the word 'properly'. But I didn't want to have a business that I launched that I then had to change the logo, and I had to change the name because I hadn't thought about it. And and I really wanted to do it in a way where there was a website, there was an email, none of this or as soon as you opened, everything was yours, so that it can expand easily with how big it got. Yeah. So properly, whether that's a word, in my eyes, that was the way to do it. And also, I didn't feel like I had enough experience to launch it straightaway.

Emily Slade: Fair enough.

Rebecca Mann: I thought I need to be exposed more to different injuries to understand more, understand this as a red flag and needs to be with a GP or this needs to be with this therapist. So yeah, I took a year. So I'd graduated. I mean, we all leave uni about July time. And then I launched it the following April. And that was just like a few half days a week seeing clients when I could but and, yeah, that's how I got into my job. And then the more experience you have, the more people that know you the expands how it wants to expand. It's a very word of mouth, business. And yeah, different channels. Some doors shut, the interning shut because I was doing my Masters, the osteopathic clinic shut, again because of my Masters, I was very short on time and then I was just working for myself. Finding a clinic. Again, that's about who, you know, if you're in the right situation, and you go, Oh, that's a gym that's got a spare room, I can use that and having a chat and being bold and being able to do those things. And that's how I started working for myself. Yeah, again, is a long answer. But that's the reality. And you don't tend to see people that just have this booming 40 patients a week clinic within the first year. Of course, it takes a lot of knowledge, experience, seeing from other people what they do well, and what they don't do well and creating your own job from that.

Emily Slade: So what do you love most about your job?

Rebecca Mann: This is the cringe answer. But just the impact that you have on people. I mean, three weeks ago in one week I had two patients that hugged me, because they were just suddenly out of pain. The first one really got me. I was like, God. I had a student in the room at the time as well. I was like, oh, I need to get it together. But I think seeing the relief on people's eyes, because a lot of people come in so anxious about what's going on with them. And you be like, it's just this and it's a jigsaw puzzle that you have to put together that makes sense to them. And the impact that you can have so they could just get a good night's sleep.

Emily Slade: Yeah.

Rebecca Mann: How annoying is it? What price do you put on a good night's sleep? And pain can be really demoralising for people. It really impacts their mental health more than I think people realise. And getting someone out of that state is really, that's the most rewarding. Yeah, yeah. So I would say yeah, the impact on people's lives is the most the thing I love the most about this job. Yeah.

Emily Slade: What is the best piece of advice that you've ever received?

Rebecca Mann: Oh, wow. Okay. Professionally, I got a piece of advice when I was interning, that, a mechanic wouldn't just use one tool to fix the car.

Emily Slade: Ahhh.

Rebecca Mann: So I should be doing as much CPD to expose myself to different treatments, a different conversation standard is different ways of how you can help a patient, some patients just in talking to you I'd even put my hands on, right? Because they just need that reassurance. But the next person will come through and they're like, yeah, just I need a bit of a rub down ruler. So that skill is completely different to the patient that he's talking to. So a mechanic wouldn't use just one tool to fix a car. Yeah, in life, though. This was my most recent piece of advice that I had passed down to students that have come through my clinic, which is know what you don't know. Oh, nice. I like that which was given to me from a physio perspective, feedback. I was on a placement. And there's a bit more expectation on you and you're a master student to know things. And sometimes you don't you can't know everything. Yeah, everybody can physically know everything. He would if he asked me a question. No, I knew it. I would try and answer it. If the I didn't know it. There was no blagging I just went I don't know that one hadn't been exposed to it. And he said that's the best thing about us. You don't sit there in silence. Yeah. Hmm. When you clearly don't know what he said, You're very honest about what you don't know. And you know what you don't know. Yeah. And it makes you a safe practitioner. So although it's a life, a piece of life advice, it can be taken into definitely, yeah. If you are honest, and you can recognize what you don't know, you'll be a safer practitioner. Yeah. Regardless of if you're a physio or an osteopath, whatever it is, isn't me. Yeah. Don't tend to reblog it. People will see for it as well, when I'm building. So yeah.

Emily Slade: So the next question I've got is, what hard skills do you rely on?

Rebecca Mann: If you were, let's say a mechanic, you'd be hands on, on a piece of machinery. Although this is probably not a hard skill, your problem solving is really important. It is a jigsaw puzzle. Everyone that comes through the door has certain ways of reporting their issue. And they might not say it in the way that you're taught at university. That list that you're taught to go through, they might tell you, the first thing they might tell you is the bottom of the list question. Yeah. So being able to work kind of get the frame of the jigsaw and then it can I bring it in and being able to be that problem solver? Being able to ask open ended questions to be that problems over is an important thing. I would say your hands on manual therapy skills are important as well. Your touch, your feel, does this feel like it does on the other side? And is that normal to what you feel on someone else? But your hands on massage skills, some people want you to beat them up and some people can't cope with it. How does that feel compared to their non affected limb or their non affected side and stuff like that? So there is a part of your hands on is quite important. You have to be really strong.

Emily Slade: Yeah?

Rebecca Mann: So you need to get in the gym. And then the last thing you have to be you're almost a detective.

Emily Slade: Right?

Rebecca Mann: Some people won't want to give you information. Yeah, I don't really think that they're being yeah standoffish or unhelpful. I say sometimes it's like getting blood out with a stone with some people. I think it comes from nerves. Yeah. It's a vulnerable state of being.

Emily Slade: Oh, definitely.

Rebecca Mann: In my room, admitting that you've got pain, and then you've got problems. Some people are not open about that. They'll just say this is the issue. And then they expect you to know what's going on. And so you do have to be a detective. And if the instinct you've got something in your head that you think it might be might go well, does it do this? Because you've experienced it with someone else. Is it bad here? What are the mornings like? What are the evenings like? Sometimes you kind of suggest something and they go oh, yeah. Nobody remembers everything. Not everyone remembers everything that you've told them in the first session. But yeah, being a detective, is quite important. And to come on to that, knowing your anatomy, if you don't know your anatomy, you're not gonna get far in this job. You need to know your ligaments, you need to know your muscles, your joints, your medical side of things, you need to know it, to help you be that detective.

Emily Slade: And then soft skills?

Rebecca Mann: You've got to be a good communicator, even on the days where you don't want to talk to anyone, you got to be you put that in a different box. And you have to be the best communicator every single day, you have to be the best communicator in the room, because the person might not be, or because of nerves or anxiety or just not really knowing as well, some people don't know, and an empath you have to be an empath.

Emily Slade: Is there almost a customer service side of it as well?

Rebecca Mann: Yeah.

Emily Slade: And then I guess, is that quite a nice thing where you if you're working for a private company, and you can establish what that customer service looks like, and behavior and what you might get on, say, the NHS or a more strict organisation?

Rebecca Mann: Yeah. So that's something I try and teach students when they're coming in is that this is how I work. It might not necessarily be what you've been exposed to before. There is a bit more structure from my exposure in the NHS, might hear the questions. They tend to use the same sort of blueprint of exercises and those they might not work for someone. So you've got to use your brain to figure out what done and work with them. If they feel like they're being dictated to, they're not going to do Yeah, as well, which is where the communication comes from. And also if you can't understand the impact on that eye, or even vocalize that you understand there's impact on their life. They're not going to have that rapport with you at all. If it's someone that's a mum, and it's their first child, and they're in a lot of pain, and I can't do these exercises because I can't walk afterwards because I'm in I'm in so much pain after doing it into it. Just give them that blueprint of exercise and you find some but that works for them. And even if it's the most intricate thing you think isn't gonna make a difference, they might come back and say that it does. So I'm going, I understand that this is a bit nitpicky here, but I want you to still be able to care for your child. Or if it's someone that is a laborer, I still want you to be able to do your job, because it's your income and understanding there's a wider impact to them, and how it affects them, how it affects their social life, how it fits their family members, it's really important to show that you understand that because then they're more likely to come back through the door, even if that exercise helped them, or the treatment needed hasn't helped them, because they see that you see them as a person and not just the next person through the door. Yeah. And that's personally how I work, it might mean that I spend less time doing hands on therapy, which another therapist might not do, but I think I place more importance on that. It might be a negative in some situations, and it might not work best for some people. But again, it's knowing your limitations. Yeah, yeah, I think my clinic is how I like to work, if that makes sense. I try and instill that in my therapist and other clinics will be the same. That's whoever's created that business. That's how they want you to work. Yeah. And you should work to the company ethos, every other company has an ethos, whether it's marketing companies, restaurants like we're in now, they will want a certain level of service. So it's no different in healthcare, but each individual will kind of taint it in their own way. Yeah, that's not a negative thing. Because we all have different positives and negatives about the way we work.

Emily Slade: Awesome. So, were there any expectations about your career that have turned out different?

Rebecca Mann: Yes. I kind of feel like I should go do a psychology degree. I had no idea how much mental health you deal with? Yeah, was something I wasn't I was very naive to how the impact on mental health or can have on an injury or vice versa. Sometimes I feel like I'm leaving work and my, my physio or my counselor, no, wow. And it will just depend on the day things comes in. And sometimes they get the most sporty person like myself come through and be like, I'm alright, if I do this, and then other people are so worried. I'm not really sure where it comes from. Maybe Dr. Google was an aspect of that.

Emily Slade: Oh yeah, you google and you're suddenly pregnant with a tumor.

Rebecca Mann: Yeah. And that was an aspect of it. I wasn't expecting that I have to be honest. I wasn't completely naive, that we wouldn't have to deal with that sort of stuff. I was just naive at the magnitude of it, and the amount of it and the massive impact it can have. I mean, I'll never forget a patient I saw that would come in and he had chronic back pain, chronic chronic back pain would come and want to actively come in for treatment a lot as well. Then they retired, suddenly stress free, and then all of a sudden they're back pain is gone.

Emily Slade: Oh, wow. I mean, that connection is true.

Rebecca Mann: And then, a lot of the time, if someone's had a acute flare up as their pain, they we were following the exercises, the treatments working. And then all of a sudden, there's just been this massive two steps back. I'm not afraid of asking them the question of if there's been big stressors in their life, you know, a bereavement, it could be moving house, it could be a change of job or work stress. And I find that emulates in their body and it can emulate in their pain as well. So just again, being an empath to that and knowing how to communicate with that, and not being afraid to have difficult conversations around that side of things. So that's probably the biggest thing.

Emily Slade: Yeah.

Rebecca Mann: But from a private perspective, this is not so much if you chose to go down the public health, employment, but from a private perspective, the amount of hats that I have to wear. I'm not just a physio and moccasin person, on the accounts in person, I had a business developer versus on the communicate with new client, inquiries. All of that sort of stuff that you don't really get exposed to at university from or even when you're on placement isn't in the viewer. What you don't really get exposed to that. Because most of the time you go on a placement where is a well established clinic and there's a receptionist that deals with x aspect and you're just with the physio who's doing the physio aspects. You don't see it from the ground up because most people that are in the ground up phase can't take on a student you don't see you see the end goal. You never see the the broken arm behind it was that famous golfer that he was interviewed and they said, oh you keep getting luckier and he was like, it's funny, the harder I work the luckier I get. I don't see that aspect of that people just assume happens. Yeah. Have you gotten that overnight? So yeah, the many hats. Marketing is not something I would never dream of sitting in front of the camera five years ago now and just can't you have to do their day, it's almost got to find out about me somehow. It's not gonna happen if I don't do that. Yeah, the many hats if you're going down the private route, and be prepared to not just be a physio. Yeah. And find time for that as well, if it's important to put time aside for

Emily Slade: Yeah. Okay. So finally, any advice to anyone looking to enter this industry?

Rebecca Mann: Know why you want to do it, because of the impact that you can have, because of how important it is. And vulnerable it is to people and their pain is debilitating. What are you doing it for? And I was one of these people who were like, ooh I want to work with a sports person and see all of that. And it's so interesting, but why are you actually doing it? And do you want to do it to make that impact? Or do you want to do it? Because it seems cool to look after this rugby player. And that tennis player. And that was really interesting, in that you heard about Andy Murray's hip operation and that he come back from that. And the real world real patients that you see that the day to day, people aren't always like that.

You're making it so that someone can get out of bed and look after their kid in the morning, or you're making it so that someone can live on their own still, because they're worried about losing their independence. So just knowing why you want to do it. And then, if you still then want to do physio, you don't have to take the expected route. I am a prime example of someone that didn't take the route that most people take. You are encouraged to go work in the NHS and do your rotations when you leave. And it wasn't what was going to make me happy. At the end of the day, we spend a lot of our lives at work, you've got to enjoy it. And it's got to be something that's rewarding and fulfilling. Because what's the point of what it is? You want to find a job that you love doing isn't? And I don't see myself haven't gone down that route and really, truly enjoy it, enjoying it? Yeah, if you go down the physiotherapy route, you get the chance to dabble in these things. Yeah, placement allows you to understand whether you would, and I'd really nearly got switched out of this. It was very, very close. I loved my pediatric neurological placement. I found it so rewarding. But it wasn't quite fulfilling as this route and things and to me, and I sort of said to myself and was like. Can I do this full time for a job? Was this something that I would really, really want to do forever? I found that this was more fulfilling than that. And the things that I thought I wanted to do and went and made it happen on placement. I ended up thinking now actually, I don't want to do that, which was really shocking. The last placement I did that was my thing. And then actually, again, going back to why do I do this didn't match up with that job role. And so yeah, I just ended up sticking out and been self employed and running my own clinic.

Emily Slade: Yeah, yeah. Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for your time of day.

Rebecca Mann: It was a pleasure I hope it's helped anyone that's thinking of getting into physiotherapy.

Emily Slade: 100% can people find you you have a questions if people want to get in touch?

Rebecca Mann: Yeah, absolutely. I'm on all the classic social media. So I'm @Becca_dynamic recoveries on Instagram. There's also the main dynamic recoveries Instagram as well. Becca_ kind of covers more of what the reality of being a physiotherapy in the private world is. So if that's something you're more intrigued about, then please reach out to me there. Our website is https://www.dynamicrecoveries.co.uk/ and there's a website form on there that will get pushed through to me if it's a direct question about employment or how to get into physio.

Emily Slade: Perfect, thank you.

Rebecca Mann: Thank you.

Emily Slade: Thanks again to Becca for her time. If you'd like to learn more about pursuing a career in physiotherapy you can find out what to do with your degree and a number of job profiles on Prospects.ac.uk. If you enjoyed this episode we'd love it if you could leave a review on Apple or Spotify. For more career advice, make sure to follow Prospects on Instagram, the link is in the description. Thanks very much for listening and good luck on your journey to future you.

Notes on transcript

This transcript was produced using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. The audio version is definitive and should be checked before quoting.

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