PA Hospital physiotherapist Dr Erica Williams was a pioneer for advanced scope physiotherapy in Australia in the mid 2000’s and now she’s advocating for direct access to physiotherapy in the primary care setting on a new frontier – in France.
The Specialist Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist (as awarded by the Australian College of Physiotherapists in 2008) holds the advanced practice position of specialist physiotherapist in the Back Assessment Clinic which she helped to establish within the Spinal Surgical Service at PA Hospital in 2006.
The service, located in the Pharmacy Australia Centre of Excellence building on the PAH campus, is now setting a benchmark for excellence in patient management in Queensland.
“The Back Assessment Clinic was established to decrease wait times for Category 2 and 3 patients with spinal pain who were on the waitlist for specialist appointments – and indeed avert the need for progression to spinal surgeon assessment when it was not necessary,” said Erica.
“The model established in 2006 in association with orthopaedics, and expanded in 2008 into neurosurgery, enabled our Back Assessment Clinic to reduce the wait time for an outpatient appointment from years to within six to eight weeks and currently, the clinic manages about 70 per cent of the cat 2 and 3 Spinal Surgical Service patients.”
She said of those patients, 70 per cent are managed conservatively with the assistance of a multidisciplinary team, without the need for spinal surgeon involvement.
“The physiotherapists, all of whom have significant post-graduate qualifications, work closely with the surgeons to ensure the remaining 30 per cent receive appropriate care.”
Not content to just establish a leading service at PAH alongside her work in the private sector and post-graduate education, Erica’s latest professional foray has led her to France and a new identity as an undergraduate lecturer.
“I flirted with the idea of doing locum work in France – what better way to improve my French – only to discover the profession in France is about 50 years behind Australia in terms of first contact in the primary healthcare setting.
“I was part of the movement to introduce advance physiotherapy practice to Australia so I’m aware of the similar barriers currently facing the profession in France,” she said.
Instead, with what she describes as ‘passable’ French with a weird accent, she dipped her toe in the water, presenting a live webinar on postgraduate education in Australia. She believed it would be shown to a small number of French Physiotherapists, later discovering it was made available to the whole French Physio Association. This led to requests to engage in undergraduate teaching.
“The Physiotherapy schools in France want their students to learn medical English, so the plan was to do about a third of the lecture in French, then change to English. The first one I did was on radiology and after I changed to English, I knew just looking at their faces that they had no idea what I was talking about,” she said. “I delivered the entire lecture in French.”
Erica undertook her role as a guest lecturer in four physiotherapy schools in France in January this year and again in October.
“In my experience, the role of a specialist physiotherapist is not yet fully understood or valued by GPs, the wider medical community, insurers, or even within our own profession,” she said.
“I’d love to see more early-career physiotherapists take up the options for career progression that are now available to them. Specialisation pathways lead to enormous job satisfaction and numerous unexpected opportunities.”
About Erica:
Erica completed her Physiotherapy undergraduate at University of Adelaide, post graduate at Curtin University, Master of Physiotherapy Studies at UQ, more post graduate in Radiology and Pharmacology at University of Melbourne, and a Graduate Certificate in Commerce at UQ. Her research background includes her role as a research assistant and treating physiotherapist on various research projects.