APM NZ - Meet our Christchurch team transcript

Rebecca: My name is Rebecca and I'm an occupational therapist. I really enjoy the flexibility and the diversity within this role. I've been doing this for three years. I came out as a new grad, was very lucky to get into the internship program. It's very diverse, so I've been working with a large group of a population and just the contracts that we do. It's not specifically into vocational rehab or specifically into community. We get a range of clients. So to my role, it's anyone who's injured themselves during an accident, sporting event or anything. So we could see a back sprain. I could see an ankle sprain, an ankle fracture. I work with vocational rehabs, anyone that's trying to get back to work in regards to their injury, but I also deal with concussion management.

Josh: My name is Josh and I'm a physiotherapist here at APM. It's really good to be a physio here. I really like the team environment. There's always something different going on. There's always someone to talk about something. So in the pain management service, they have had pain after injury for longer than the expected timeframe. Usually it's impacting their lives pretty significantly and usually by the time they've come to us, they're starting to run out of options. So it's quite cool to be able to come in at that time and actually change someone's trajectory.

Rebecca: I think what drives me is just seeing all the positive outcomes that you see someone at the start of the journey and they're injured and they just don't know where to go. They're like, "Okay, I've got a concussion and everything's a problem. I have to sit in a dark room and I can't do anything with my life." You go in there and they don't know anything, so you're providing them education. You're actually working out, "No, you need to decrease everything, and that's how you get back."

I think the most beneficial part of my role is I go get to the end of their program and you kind of reflect back and you've taken all these notes. You know how they're progressing and you go, "Look, you can actually do this now and before you couldn't even go out and sit in a room or go to the supermarket." And now you kind of look at their goals and they're like, "Whoa. Actually, I've come so far." And I think just seeing them along their journey and what they've done and them actually not believing in their self initially, but with your support actually achieving those goals and seeing what they can do, that's yeah, amazing.