A team of five Australian physiotherapists who volunteered to help severely disabled children in desperate circumstances in Zimbabwe has returned home feeling more seasoned for the experience. On the first venture of its kind through the One Night for One Year charity, the physiotherapists were met with more than 800 children wanting help when they arrived at the Open Heart Disability Care Trust Centre located three hours outside of Harare, the nation’s capital.

When the next group of expeditioners explore the Antarctic, one of the most remote places on Earth, they’ll be arriving with the knowledge that a group of select physiotherapists has been helping ensure they will receive the best in medical care.

The physiotherapists from Tasmanian clinics Allcare Physiotherapy, Bodytech Physio and BodySystem Physio are part of a structured pre-departure medical training program that upskills doctors who will be stationed at Australia’s three Antarctic stations, and its sub- Antarctic station on Macquarie Island.

Joel Dunstan was in a position many physiotherapists have been before. Physiotherapy faces a high attrition rate at five to 10 years of clinical practice—and Joel was almost included among those leaving the profession.

One evening over dinner in 2017, APA member Andrew Duff and an orthopaedic colleague thought about how they could help aspiring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander athletes by limiting the negative aspects of injury.

As physiotherapists, we are constantly balancing mind and body in our clinical decision making. This is nothing new, but the increasing demand for mental health services is something for us to think about. This is of particular importance as funders continue to influence our capacity to practise within our full scope.

On the advice of a friend, Bernadette Petzel moved from Sydney to Darwin to begin working for the Australian Defence Force. Despite saying she’d only commit to six months at the Top End, it was the start of a dedicated career with the military. Melissa Mitchell reports.

PRF Seeding Grant recipient Rebekah Das began her career as a rural physiotherapist and, after several major career incarnations, she now runs a small musculoskeletal physiotherapy clinic in New Delhi, India, with her husband. But she’s also taken on an educational role, as she explains to Melissa Mitchell.

Around the central west region of New South Wales, Meredith Schwilk and her dog Woofy are better known as ‘The flying physio and Woofy the wag-tail wonderdog’. But behind that friendly moniker is a physiotherapist dedicated to meeting the needs and challenges of a far-flung rural clientele. Melissa Mitchell reports.

Taking the words ‘Reconciliation’ and ‘Closing the Gap’ off the page and embedding them into practice is the mission of a new working party at Logan Hospital in Queensland, reports Melissa Mitchell ahead of Close the Gap Day this month.