With a celebrated and respected 52-year career, Dr Margaret Sherburn still vividly remembers the first time she wanted to become a physiotherapist.

‘I was about nine years old.

'It was in 1956, early on in the 1957–1958 flu epidemic.

'I don’t remember being sick.

'But I remember a physiotherapist coming to our house, and being tipped up over the kitchen chair and having the chest percussion.

'The woman was so lovely and her therapy was successful.

‘From then on, I wasn’t conscious that I wanted to be a physio but unconsciously, every time I went to a careers night, I always came back to physiotherapy.

'I put it down to that physio I had when I was nine years old.’

The retiring senior lecturer from the University of Melbourne and former Head of the Physiotherapy Department at the Royal Women’s Hospital says her story highlights the influence physiotherapists can have on people.

As a mentor and supporter of thousands of students and colleagues, Margaret hopes that physiotherapists will continue to inspire others to join the profession.

‘I think it reinforces the impact physios can have on people and how, when you find something that is right for you, you make the most of it.

'I feel as though I’ve been destined to be a physio all my life.’

Respected as a pioneer in pelvic health for men and women, Margaret has worked in pelvic health in both the public and private health sectors for more than 35 years.

She is an APA Continence and Women’s Health Physiotherapist and a Specialist Women’s, Men’s and Pelvic Health Physiotherapist (as awarded by the Australian College of Physiotherapists in 2010).

She has been a member of the Professional Practice Standards Committee for the Women’s, Men’s and Pelvic Health national group of the APA, editor of the Australian and New Zealand Continence Journal and a recipient of two National Health and Medical Research Council grants for large multi-centre studies.

The University of Melbourne celebrated Margaret’s career on 23 June, the event coinciding with World Continence Week.

Her career started in 1968, when she enrolled in the three-year Diploma of Physiotherapy at Lincoln House in Swanston Street, Melbourne.

The course included women’s health training with a focus on obstetrics, sparking an interest that lay dormant for a number of years, she says.

At the end of 1970, graduates were registered by the Masseurs Registration Board.

Margaret’s first job was two years as sole physiotherapist in the rural town of Warragul, working at West Gippsland Hospital.

At the end of these two years, she donned a backpack and headed overseas.

‘In Canada, I had a hospital romance with an English physio, who then travelled with me, married me and has stuck by me all these years.’

After travel, Margaret returned to Melbourne to teach at the Lincoln Institute and undertake further study.

‘When I look back, I see how the profession has undergone monumental change… when I first started, there was no possibility of going on and there was no degree.

Dr Margaret Sherburn looks back on a long career in pelvic health and continence physiotherapy.

'It wasn’t until government changes brought therapies under the umbrella of the then Victorian Institute of Colleges that we could do a conversion course.

'So in 1978 I converted my diploma to a degree.

'I knew that once I had that degree, I could go into the university system and receive further education; it was a no-brainer.’

In the 1980s came her move into women’s health.

A fan of lifelong exercise, Margaret was front and centre of the aerobics and gym boom.

Seeing it as an opportunity to ‘learn about exercise delivery’, she became a qualified exercise instructor, ran her own business and taught on the subject matter at the Lincoln Institute.

Later, in the 1990s, she was teaching fitness and exercise at the University of Melbourne, ‘rocking up to teach classes in my exercise gear. Imagine doing that today’.

‘The exercise boom brought an increase in concern about pregnant women overexercising or causing damage to their unborn babies, so I became involved in a government-funded project to design safe exercise programs for pregnant women.

'All these classes involved pelvic floor muscle exercises, so, inevitably, patients would talk about their pelvic floor problems.

'That was the time I, and many other physiotherapists, became involved in treating these problems.’

In 1998, she was a graduate of the University of Melbourne’s first postgraduate pelvic floor rehabilitation course.

‘It was one of the first, if not the very first, university-based qualification courses for pelvic floor physios in the world.

'There was an almost overnight change in attitude to pelvic floor physio clinicians once we could prove to the health system that we were qualified.

'Positions opened up, particularly in continence clinics and hospitals.

'We were accepted.’

Study for a master’s degree and a PhD was undertaken in the 2000s and she spent ‘10 happy and productive years’ as Head of the Physiotherapy Department at the Royal Women’s Hospital (2005–2015).

Other career highlights include working with ‘really good researchers who are undertaking excellent clinical research that is changing practice’.

She credits the APA becoming a national organisation in the early 1990s with forming a united and collaborative profession.

‘From this restructure we could establish a national college and get national representation to government.

'On a personal level, this has helped me in my career.

'It reduced the silos in many specialties, including pelvic health, and ensured a collegial approach within a single national organisation.’

Margaret says the one constant throughout her career has been change; success comes with being able to navigate and adapt to change and challenges as they arise.

‘It’s often said that a person will have five career changes in their lifetime.

'Well, I say I have had five career changes within physiotherapy and always have been able to say that I am a physio.

'I’ve travelled overseas and worked in other countries.

'I’ve been a teacher.

'I’ve been a private practitioner.

'I’ve been a researcher and it’s all because of this wonderful profession.

‘My advice to the next generation coming through is to always keep an open mind and take up opportunities as they arise.

'Do everything you possibly can to make your career what you want it to be.’

Main image: (left to right) Professor Bruce Thompson, Associate Professor Fiona Dobson, Hayley Irving, Elise Fraser, Dr Margaret Sherburn, Associate Professor Wendy Bower, Dr Debra Virtue, Associate Professor Helena Frawley and Rowan Cockerell.