By Matt Goodman
Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash
One of the recurring themes both in the guest speaker sessions throughout the University of Birmingham Pitch-side scheme & at this time of year when students are starting to apply for their first physiotherapy role’s post-graduation is “How do I secure a Physiotherapy role in sport?” The resounding advice from both our guest speakers & myself is to demonstrate the attributes required to work as a physiotherapist in sport.
The below is by no means an exhaustive list but is an amalgamation of both our guest speakers experiences & my own over the years. It might sound cliché, but most Heads of Medical will want candidates with the right personal traits as the technical skills required to be successful in sport can be trained & developed through mentorship, training, exposure to the environment & embedding yourself within the high-performance team. However, one of the resounding themes across our guest speaker’s sessions has been ‘being a good person,’ incorporating honesty & integrity as paramount to being employable in a Sports Medical Team. Both of these traits are core to being a Physiotherapist & part of our professional code of conduct & so shouldn’t be alien to students applying for Sports Physiotherapy roles. However, due to some of the unique challenges Physiotherapist are exposed to in sport, particularly at the start of your sports career where more often than not you will more be the only qualified healthcare practitioner at an academy fixture & complex situations care arise which require you to work autonomously within your scope of practice, in high pressure situations often with athletes parent’s watching you’re your decision making progress. One of the key skills here is recognising what you’re not competent to do is as important as what you can do & in my experience. Heads of Medical/High Performance Team mangers will respect you for being open & honest about this. As in other areas of physiotherapy, reflection is invaluable in sports physiotherapy, exploring complex situations & how you might react in the same situation in the future having sought advice from your experienced clinicians is fundamental to development.
A ’can do attitude’ demonstrating willingness to get involved & support the team as a whole, no matter how menial the task will go a long way. Often in the first few days of your role, this will act as a good icebreaker with both the athletes & the high-performance team. It might be something as simple as emptying the ice buckets or helping the kit man carry the equipment or ensuring the water bottles are topped up. Making an impression and embedding yourself in early will help forge a good relationship from the offset.
Another fundamental trait is tenacity, sport often requires long days with early starts & often late finishes & particularly when you’re first starting out & working with an academy you are likely to be juggling a full-time role in the NHS/private practice alongside your sports role. This can be challenging in terms of the demand of unsociable hours on top of your primary role, but it does enable you to get exposure to the sports environment whilst accumulating clinical mileage in multidisciplinary environment.
Demonstration of experience within a sports environment is invaluable, often this necessitates observational or voluntary roles at the beginning of your sports physiotherapy career however having an appreciation of the nuisances of sport & ensuring that the environment fits with your personality is key. Gaining an insight into the different roles of the high-performance team and how different disciplines collaborate and communicate is enormously beneficial. Understanding terminology and sports specific language will enable you to demonstrate this at interview and show you have an appreciation of the MDT involved within health & performance.
Respect, respecting the coaching team’s decisions & philosophies & supporting them where able & providing them with realistic options in terms of player availability post injury is fundamental. This can often be challenging when you don’t have clinical mileage but seeking support from your peers & demonstrating a desire to learn will always go a long way. Again, having open & honest conversations with both the athlete and the coaches can help ensure realistic expectations and targets are set. This highlights the importance of good communication so that everyone involved is on the same page in terms of an athlete’s availability to train & compete, finding a system that is clear for the coaches to follow with any restrictions or modifications to training communicated clearly. Ensuring rehabilitation plans are structured in conjunction with the other members of the high-performance team & knowing who is leading on elements of a return to play process are important. These processes also facilitate the formation of strong professional relationships and often friendships, as a Physiotherapist you will spend long periods of time with the athletes and high-performance team & so the ability to foster good working relationships is really key.
M.D.Goodman@bham.ac.uk