Elizabeth has been a Practitioner Member of the Physiotherapy Council of NSW since 2015, and this is her third term on Council. She is the current President, and a member of one of the two Complaints and Notification Committees. Elizabeth has also been an active member of the Australian Hand Therapy Association (AHTA) for 20 years and has served as AHTA Vice President, Chair of the Governance Committee, and was a founding member of the AHTA Credentialling Council. She is currently the Treasurer and Executive Committee Member of the International Federated Societies of Hand Therapy (IFSHT) for the 2023-2025 triennium, which has meant learning how to operate and manage a Swiss Bank account and deal with multiple worldwide currencies.
Elizabeth is also a Board Member of the Hunter, New England, and Central Coast Primary Health Network (HNECC PHN) which commissions services across the whole 130,000 square kilometres of the region and supports general practices and allied health practices to improve the health of the community. As one of only two allied health practitioners on the Board, she provides an important voice to champion the importance of allied health to achieve equitable and optimum health outcomes across the spectrum of care.
The Physiotherapy Council of NSW posed the following questions to Elizabeth:
Can you tell us a bit about your day job?
I work at Coastal Physiotherapy Clinic on the Central Coast of NSW as a Principal Physiotherapist and an AHTA Accredited Hand Therapist. We established the practice back in 2000 in collaboration with a group of five Orthopaedic Surgeons, and as such it provides a unique work environment where we can work together with the surgeons on a daily basis with difficult and sometimes complex patients.
What is it about your day job that you love the most?
Even after 38 years of working as a Physiotherapist I still love coming to work, which you can’t say about many jobs. Hand and upper limb conditions can range from simple fractures to complex brachial plexus injuries, and also a lot of trauma, so it is never the same. I love the satisfaction of helping someone get their life back if they are (for example) a musician with a hand injury that is treated successfully, and I love the wound management associated with traumatic hand injuries and surgery.
Who has been the strongest influences in your career?
I have had a couple of wonderful mentors influence my career. My first ever boss in the NSW public hospital system, Judy Donoghue, was amazing at casting and I learnt a lot from her. That experience confirmed my love of orthopaedics and led me also into hand therapy, and we still work together to this day in our practice at North Gosford. Janis Redford who followed Judy as the subsequent Head of Department at the CCLHD also provided me with opportunities to be involved with leadership that was both interesting and challenging, and pushed along my own career development. My husband Michael Ward who is a Specialist Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist influenced my clinical reasoning skills and taught me to be more systematic with assessments.
What attracted you to working in the regulatory area?
I have always been interested in working within our profession to improve recognition for what we do and ensure that we work ethically. I also like the fact that with less serious matters in NSW we can bring the practitioner in for counselling and help redirect their career path with education about the right way to approach a situation in the future – so much comes down to good communication! In my previous roles with the AHTA I have worked with a wonderful bunch of therapists to develop an accreditation programme that is based on 100% assessable standards, and being involved from the ground up in the development of this credential has become a wonderful legacy that has helped the Australian Hand Therapy Association grow from strength to strength.
What preconceived ideas did you have about the Council before you joined versus what you know now?
Like most Physiotherapists, I didn’t really understand the work of the Council before I joined. In my time as President and as a council member I have really worked to improve the education of Physiotherapists about regulation as it pertains to them within NSW. I am proud of the podcast series and the video education series that we have created. I am also gratified to see the relationship we now have with the Physiotherapy Board of Australia and the way we work collaboratively together to ensure that the public are kept safe.
You have a heavy load between your day job and Council responsibilities. How do you remain resilient?
It helps that I love my work. I still get a buzz out of helping people and get professional validation for my work with the Council, the PHN Board, and the IFSHT whose mission is to provide global networking and educational opportunities to develop and enhance the practice of hand therapy. I have also travelled with Interplast Australia to teach 4th year Physiotherapy students in Fiji about hand therapy and burns treatment , clinical reasoning skills and splint making, and that keeps me grounded and makes me appreciate the health system we have here in Australia, and what a beautiful, lucky country we have – there is a lot to be thankful for, including the opportunities I have been afforded throughout my career.