Why I chose Osteopathy as a profession?

So why did I decide to study osteopathy?

 I worked as a personal trainer when I first left school and was always interested specifically in training patients who had health issues or injuries which prevented them from exercising. This was a much more challenging group often than those who were motivated to exercise to improve their health or appearance. Clients often think they will never get their fitness back or are unable to exercise because of an injury. There is always a way to exercise safely when injured and many adaptations can be made to assist clients who think they are limited. This led to me getting involved in my next job as a physiotherapy assistant. Using therapeutic exercise to treat patients was an eye opener. I witnessed many patients with many different conditions recover and improve their limitations and free themselves from pain which they had often suffered from chronically.

When I immigrated to Canada I continued to train personal clients with a focus on rehabilitation and the injured client. I had the skills and experience from my years as a physiotherapy assistant but I figured i wanted to add more to my education and my ability to help injured clients. After long research I came across Osteopathy and specifically the National Academy of Osteopathy. I loved the idea of being able to continue to work and study simultaneously and the NAO offered the perfect opportunity.

What really made me want to study osteopathy was the whole person approach it takes. Ive seen myself through my own practice that focusing just on the presenting injury can often make you miss what is really going on and all the contributing factors to any disease or injury. By adding an Osteopathic approach to my treatment of clients I have learned that structure and function are important when treating any injury. This has given me a broader consideration of how I used to treat specific injuries and follow specific protocols.  I can see now how bad posture can sometimes be contributing to a knee injury and how the body really operates as a complete unit. Taking this holistic approach has not just opened my eyes to the value of treating an injury with an open mind but has also added to my clients recovery and overall treatment.

The NAO has given me a great opportunity throughout this program and I am thankful to the school for helping me do this while working, and also making it an accessible and easy to understand format.