It was on a routine bike ride home from Randwick to Newtown in Sydney when Suzanne Rath APAM had her life changed in the blink of an eye. 

The commute from the hospital where the Irish-born and trained physiotherapist worked to her home in the inner Sydney suburbs had previously been relatively trouble-free. 

Suzanne was fit, active and enjoying life as a young professional with a career and life plans laid out before her. 

Then, at age 29, her world was turned upside down.

‘I was cycling down McEvoy Street and I had a green light and I saw this car indicating to the right in front of me,’ Suzanne says. 

‘I thought, “She’s not going to go” and then she went.’ 

Suzanne hit the car, striking it face-first. The impact left her with multiple jaw fractures, including an open fracture and severe cranial injuries. 

Blood was also trickling from Suzanne’s left ear.

Suzanne was rushed to St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, where— as a physiotherapist—she found herself examining her own CT
scans with professional curiosity. 

Yet, amid all the pain and chaos, Suzanne’s recovery was marked by gaps in care. ‘No neurologist came near me,’ Suzanne says. 

Left to self-assess, Suzanne found that her professional background became both a tool and a source of frustration. 

‘I spent hours doing cranial nerve tests on myself,’ she says.

Surgery followed to repair Suzanne’s shattered jaw, involving the use of arch bars—hooks secured to her gums that wired her
mouth shut for more than two weeks. 

An example of arch bars.

Communication became a challenge, with Suzanne relying on using a whiteboard to interact with medical staff and loved ones.

Her dietary intake was restricted to liquids and even that was fraught with difficulties. 

‘I was living on Sustagen,’ she says, noting the physical and emotional toll of those early weeks in recovery.

A complex recovery

In the months after her surgery, Suzanne faced significant emotional and physical challenges. 

‘I thought everything would be fine once the arch bars came off,’ she says. ‘But it wasn’t fine.’ 

Suzanne soon began experiencing chronic pain, anxiety and post-concussion symptoms, including noise sensitivity and impaired concentration. 

Social engagements with friends became challenging, leading Suzanne to begin withdrawing from those around her. 

The change in Suzanne, previously the vibrant ‘life of the party’ among her friends, was dramatic.

‘Essentially, I started to spiral when I went home after the surgery. 

'The weekend before the surgery, I’d been thinking, “Right, this is okay. We’re going to do this and that.” 

'When I went home, I had persistent base-of-skull pain and a constant pain in my face and I started to get crazy anxiety.

‘The surgeon said, “Well, the jaw’s healed, that’s great.” 

'But I couldn’t open my mouth, couldn’t get more than a finger in. So I couldn’t eat. 

'I remember trying to eat sushi with a knife and fork after the arch bars came off. There was no way I could have had an apple for several months.

‘Many of my friends were turning 30 around the same time. 

'And I couldn’t enjoy birthday parties and dinners because if someone was talking on one side of me, I wouldn’t be able to focus on the conversation on the other side,’ she says.

Suzanne’s professional life was also up-ended. 

Pre-accident, Suzanne had been balancing three physiotherapy roles—working in private practice and community rehab and picking up weekend hospital shifts. 

Suzanne Rath.

Post-accident, she struggled to work even part-time. 

‘I gave up my private practice work and weekend shifts,’ Suzanne says. ‘I’d come home at five o’clock and go straight to bed.’

The emotional burden of recovery proved equally demanding. 

Suzanne describes the isolation caused by invisible symptoms like cognitive impairment and chronic fatigue. 

Friends and even healthcare workers underestimated the extent of her struggles.

‘People would say, “Oh, I don’t notice you have memory problems” but I noticed,’ she says.

A turning point came when Suzanne identified her symptoms as post-concussion syndrome, having previously undertaken a Watson Headache Institute course. 

Despite this realisation, Suzanne found that navigating pathways of care was daunting. 

‘The compulsory third-party insurance framework was a process I thought I understood as a physio,’ she says. ‘But you don’t fully understand it until you’re a patient.’ 

Suzanne’s journey through medical and insurance systems revealed significant gaps in coordinated care, reinforcing her determination to advocate for holistic, multidisciplinary approaches.

Practitioner as patient

Being a physiotherapist influenced Suzanne’s recovery in profound ways. 

Her expertise enabled her to seek targeted interventions, from temporomandibular joint physiotherapy to headache management and integrative medicine. 

At times, however, her health knowledge also heightened her frustrations. 

‘As physios, we have a huge role in validating our patients’ experiences,’ she says. ‘I experienced a lot of invalidation during my recovery.’

‘Obviously, I’m very fortunate. I’m a physio, I have that pre-existing health knowledge and I was determined to get better. 

'But we see a lot of people in society who are very accepting of their diagnosis or their current state and don’t believe in how good they can be,’ she says.

Suzanne visited several physiotherapists. She began to see a psychologist, had massages and invested time and energy in building up her physical and mental strength.

Suzanne’s experience as a patient reshaped her professional ethos. She now emphasises the importance of truly listening to patients and validating their concerns. 

‘You can’t always see concentration issues or anxiety,’ she says. ‘But patients notice when you actively listen to them and it matters.’ 

This understanding has become a cornerstone of her approach at her private practice in Cairns, in far north Queensland, particularly in her concussion clinic, where lived experience enhances her empathy and effectiveness.

Taking time to heal

Suzanne eventually made the decision to return to private practice work but only part-time. 

Although she was working fewer hours and resting more to help her recovery, Suzanne continued to struggle.

‘Knowing what I know now, I probably could have moderated my return to private practice in a more sustainable way, like having more of those healthy habits and brain breaks. 

'But at the time, I felt like it was either you’re all in or you’re not in at all,’ she says.

‘I was working three days a week in Sydney and it’s really expensive and not sustainable on a reduced physio wage.

'I wanted to get out of Sydney. I think there were many memories at that time that weren’t great. 

'I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the city,’ she says.

Eighteen months after the accident, Suzanne made a pivotal decision to leave Sydney and move to Katherine in the Northern Territory. 

There, she found a slower pace and greater autonomy in her work, allowing her to rebuild her professional capacity.

‘I felt ready to return to private practice,’ she says, ‘but I needed to manage my own hours and pace.’

In 2017 Suzanne relocated again, this time to Cairns, where she established her multidisciplinary clinic, Wellness Embodied. 

The clinic framework is built around the holistic care model she had wished for during her own recovery. 

‘I wanted to create a practice that treated people as whole individuals, not just body parts,’ she says.

Suzanne’s healing journey also reignited a passion for endurance sports. 

Six months after the accident, Suzanne pushed her limits by competing in the Boston Marathon in the US. 

Having qualified for the prestigious event before the accident, Suzanne found the marathon to be a gruelling experience.

‘I wasn’t physically ready,’ she admits. ‘I struggled through the last 10 kilometres but I was determined to finish because it was Boston.’ 

While the race highlighted the lingering effects of her injuries, it also underscored her resilience and commitment to pushing through adversity. 

Suzanne enjoys running marathons.

She reflects on the experience as both a personal milestone and a lesson in respecting the body’s recovery process.

In 2023 Suzanne competed in the Tarawera Ultramarathon in Rotorua, New Zealand.

Five years after the accident, Suzanne began training for a half Ironman, confronting lingering fears and building her physical confidence. 

Today, Suzanne continues to push those boundaries, with plans to cycle across South America. 

‘It took years to rebuild my confidence on a bike,’ she says. ‘But I’m there now.’

Reflecting on recovery journey

Suzanne’s two-year recovery journey has profoundly influenced her approach to physiotherapy. 

She advocates for patient-centred care, emphasising open communication and individualised treatment plans. 

‘Listen to people,’ Suzanne advises fellow physiotherapists. ‘Everyone’s experience is different.’

Her clinic reflects this ethos, offering services from nutritional counselling to psychological support. 

Suzanne champions a multidisciplinary approach, recognising that recovery often requires addressing both physical and emotional dimensions. 

‘Patients need a team around them,’ she says. ‘No-one should have to piece it together themselves.’

As a speaker and health advocate who also wrote a chapter in the 2024 book She built it! Inspiring stories and strategies for women in business, Suzanne often shares her story to help inspire others. 

She highlights the importance of resilience, framing adversity as an opportunity for growth. 

‘We all face challenges,’ she says. ‘It’s how we respond that defines us. Lived experience makes it a lot easier to relate to people as a practitioner.’

Suzanne’s journey from trauma to recovery underscores the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of the lived experience. 

As both a patient and a practitioner, Suzanne has bridged the gap between clinical expertise and compassionate care. 

Today, she continues to lead by example, demonstrating that recovery is not just about healing but also about rediscovering purpose and joy.