Dan Towey

 We’re thrilled to welcome the brilliant Dan Towey to the podcast! Dan is a Teaching Associate on the Physiotherapy course, dedicating two days a week to the role while also working clinically as a First Contact Practitioner (FCP). As one of the first to take on the Teaching Associate position at the school, Dan brings a unique perspective. In this episode, he shares his journey as a mature physiotherapy student at the University of Nottingham, his transition into teaching, and the many aspects of his life that bring him joy and fulfillment. Don't miss this in depth conversation! 

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

so

SPEAKER_02: 0:09

Welcome back to It's Not Just Physio podcast with me, James Coghlan. I'm delighted to have with us today a good friend of mine and colleague, Dan Towie. Dan, welcome to the pod. Absolute pleasure. Hi, mate. The point of this pod really is to give a nice platform for people to hear more about some of our amazing staff here. And you're definitely in that bracket. So, Dan, I mean, just to sort of say, you know, tell us a little bit about who you are, a bit about yourself. and you've worked here at the school and will take things on from there.

SPEAKER_01: 0:42

Yeah, so cheers to that, James. Yeah, I started here at the university only two years ago, so relatively infant here, really. Most students will sort of have seen or heard of me, but I'm only here sort of part time two days a week. So I'm very fortunate to work in the clinical skills department in that I sort of vast majority of my teaching is practical in nature. It's kind of what we sort of came in to do physio for. And I sort of I'm very lucky to to have the vast majority of my teaching being of that nature really so that's me on a Thursday Friday and then outside of that I'm sort of clinical I'm an alumni of the University of Nottingham so very passionate about this place I know well I say every nook and every cranny I'm getting used to it around Queens from the move from CSB but I'm certainly well aware of the people in the department and how it works and it's been great to be a part of the last couple of years since we started and you and I starting on that same day together since then you've gone on to as you can see doing this bigger and better things but you know it's still slaving away on the ground floor doing the clinical work. And yeah, it's great. I love every minute here, really. It's all good stuff. And the balancing of the uni work and the teaching with the clinical stuff that I do is great. I was wondering when I started if I'd go one way or the other and ditch the teaching after a year or go full-time into it. But no, certainly as far as it is so far, the balance of the clinical and the teaching that I do is great and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

SPEAKER_02: 2:04

Fantastic. And just to take us back through a little bit bit of sort of your sort of career because you came into physio having done some previous study haven't you and do you want to tell us a little bit or the listeners a little bit about yeah your trajectory really

SPEAKER_01: 2:20

yeah a bit of an unusual one I um so I was I was not at all sporty or active based in my sort of young years teens anything like that I just didn't um I didn't my sort of sporting my sort of sporting experience the only sport I'd ever play is when as a family we'd go on to we'd go on holiday to this really grim kind of caravan the site just outside Aberystwyth about four times a year and there was a table tennis table there and we'd always go off season and it was always raining so the only thing you could ever do really with my brother and I was just play table tennis so an absolute demon with the bat in hand but other than that I played no sport until I was about 19 so I've never been this kind of really fit active yellow to get into sports science physio that kind of thing it's always very musical in my teens I was the only thing I ever really did if it was of any success it was involving a musical instrument really and then it got to a where I thought of sort of career planning everyone has that in kind of their 16, 17 sort of 15, 16, 17 life phase I realised that the musical side I very much enjoyed did I want to do it for the rest of my life as a job probably not I started looking at other options and then yeah from there sort of into biology and PE stuff I went into a sports rehab degree which I did first which I loved was great I had absolutely no problem with it I graduated what I learnt there was incredibly valuable for what I know and I went to work in that for a year I worked in health insurance and that gave me a bigger kind of I suppose exposure into into health care and patients conditions outside of just rehabilitating sports injuries so I was quite lucky in that regard because that gave me a lot of experience and learnings that then after a year I thought I kind of my interests lay a little bit further beyond the scope of of a typical sport rehabilitator so it was nothing on the course itself or on the content or anything in it was just in terms of my preferences and i needed that year of work to know that because you know 18 year old me would have never gone and done physio it wasn't interesting to me at that stage um but doing the sports rehabilitation degree really opened up doors and now looking back it's given me a really good sort of rehabilitation based platform on which to base my clinical practice and my teachings and then yeah from that year i went back to to physio here at knots which was uh it basically meant i was doing it seven years of my life six years of it was in undergraduate education uh which at the time was really daunting and I didn't I enjoyed it but it was one of those I knew I wanted to do it so I decided to do it sooner rather than later and I'm glad I did and once I was out the other side I've sort of been a very sports rehabilitation based physio ever since really so yeah that's how I came to be today really so not the conventional kind of you know finish sixth form or whatever go do physio graduate from physio be a physio it's taken me sort of a bit of time to get to where I am but yeah absolutely if I was even looking back again you know I wouldn't tell 18 year old me to just do physio and save yourself the four years because those four years were still valuable to position me to be what you know the person I am today and what I do today so love it.

SPEAKER_02: 5:21

Wow well there's so many interesting things to unpick with that so so let me get this right so you did sixth form and then you had a bit of a gap before you went to uni is that right?

SPEAKER_01: 5:32

No I went straight to uni. You went straight to uni from there okay. From sixth form straight into. But you said

SPEAKER_02: 5:36

there was a an option of maybe doing some music as as well music was a you know important part of your life so what what what do you play?

SPEAKER_01: 5:45

Well I was I was fortunate to you know perfect pitch you're a very musical man you must yeah yeah look at George as well you guys and so I which is like somehow from two completely atonal parents who again had no had about as much interest in music as I did sport in my in my sort of teen years really but I somehow yeah gifted gifted the ability of perfect pitch which effectively means for those who don't know you you play a note on the piano and I can instinctively tell you what that note is I can pitch things you know without without any music in front of me which made me very lazy musician because I didn't need music to read it but it meant that it came easy to me I suppose when you're young you naturally do things that come easier to you and you're kind of more naturally lent towards so yeah I mean I played piano from a very young age but then my two main instruments were like from a brass perspective a tuba big E flat bass like massive thing which I was playing about when I was 12 was sort of twice the size of me and my mum used to hate lugging around the county for Worcestershire to all these things and then clarinet as well I played clarinet so there would be like school concerts and things like that where I'd sort of you know come on one half and play you know solo on the tuba and then come up 10 minutes later and playing something about like a fifth of the size on the clarinet alongside yeah playing the piano and anything that I took my hand to really with saxophone baritone euphoniums that sort of stuff because I could pick something up and play it quite easily whether I was any good I don't know but I was able to do it easily which is why I kept doing it I really enjoyed it so yeah and I still sort of embrace bands and things to this day I've dropped the woodwind a little bit but yeah music was always something I really enjoyed doing but yeah there's always that time where you think was this something I'd do for the rest of my life I mean my dream was always to be an orchestral sort of pit musician that was always what I really really wanted to do but when I actually looked into you know you kind of grow up thinking I want to be this thing but then actually when it comes to right what would it involve what would it sort of I suppose what would you have to do to do that in terms of traveling around lack of stability and all that sort of stuff with with jobs i decided against it and went down a completely different route so yeah that's my uh that's my musical background really it holds a little bit more tunes than your drum set but um

SPEAKER_02: 7:50

i have got no tunes it's not quite as cool i suppose i saw this brilliant this this funny video of what uh someone did on instagram it was like a drummer walking through a door and it said what people think drummers are like and he's spinning a drumstick and then the next clip was what actually drummers are like and we've got like like you know 20 bags yeah kit you know and just bringing it through really not cool but I think I mean that's amazing and like with did you play music quite a lot through university did you use that as a nice sort of balance for you with studying or did you drop it what was your experience with that

SPEAKER_01: 8:25

you know what so I did when I was doing rehab so I did rehab at Hull I should probably say there's a particular first year student who's from Hull that she knows that will enjoy it because we've had a good laugh about that but I feel I'm allowed to say it in that way since living three years in that lovely city do love Alder but yeah I did there for my time there with university ensembles I think by the time I got to Nottingham I was then sort of 20 23 24 I mean look it's not like a proper mature student age but I was still in that age where I was doing stuff outside so when I was in so around here it was more bands sort of outside of the university rather than ones within the university I still did bits within the university brass band and things like that but it was a good balance and that's something that I think is actually has been great is that I've always had music as a social thing and I've really enjoyed having that as something completely different to my job like the absolute you know opposite of it really so yeah it has always been a good thing to balance out with really in that regard through all my studies really and it's been good that I've been able to leave it as something to enjoy and not do as a job and make maybe would have lost the interest and passion for maybe well I don't know but yeah it's a good thing to have as a balance against the stresses and strains of working for sure

SPEAKER_02: 9:49

and you've got two degrees that seem to complement each other really really well you know with the sports rehab side which again I've no doubt you'd have had a really good career just doing that but you obviously changed into or decided to come and do physiotherapy afterwards just interested around that what was your thinking there was a particular moment where you thought oh that's actually the trajectory i want to go or was this was that always your plan or what was what was going on with that

SPEAKER_01: 10:17

definitely wasn't always my plan i can i can say that with confidence i don't i don't think there was one like light bulb moment or anything like that i think just over the year of maybe sort of towards the end of third year i did quite a complex dissertation at the end of my rehab which was kind of quite um sort of neuro rehab focused with sort of using an exoskeleton and sort of relearning motor sort of motor behaviours and patterns and things like that which I suppose from a sports rehab point of view is maybe on the more you know sort of physio side of things in a more general sense so after that maybe that sort of sowed the seed and then I happened to go into work it wasn't at all when I then looked for work as you know a newly qualified sort of rehabber that I wanted something that was quite general and quite sort of more all encompassing from a healthcare perspective it wasn't anything like that it was just how how it happened and then in that year that was sort of where I came across a lot of I suppose clients and patients however you want to term them really that came with injuries but had a lot more sort of things going on really rather than your typical maybe sports injuries clinic or sports sort of club where it might be a little bit more isolated in terms of things you'd see and then from that increased exposure to those things over time I just kind of thought yeah these are the things I'm interested in and you started to realise actually that the sports rehabilitation degree is brilliant as it is for looking into those particular sports injuries and things like that if you're interested to lie outside of that which I think mine did I had to explore those I had to go down the line to allow me to work in those fields for the rest of my working life and that was why I did what I did really so no it was a very gradual experience and it's really weird now to think that what I find really interesting now 18 year old me had absolutely no interest in but that's the way life goes and certainly something I could say to the students is that where you start at 18 on this physio program or even 19 or you know even in your second and third year you know you could be practicing in five ten years in a completely different environment to what you now find interesting and engaging so just keep an open mind to it never close doors keep your options open because you never know where your interests are going to be peaked and what your career might lead to really.

SPEAKER_02: 12:28

Did you feel when you made that decision to go back and study again do you feel was that quite a tough decision because I can imagine coming through having a degree under your belt you think well this must be it so I would look and say that takes quite a lot of courage to go I think I need to go back and do a bit more or was it quite you know easy it

SPEAKER_01: 12:51

wasn't easy

SPEAKER_02: 12:52

no it

SPEAKER_01: 12:52

wasn't easy no honestly the night before night before I started in Nottingham this is absolutely genuine mum and I so at this time we were living in Anglesey North Wales which is still sort of kind of home for me and so it was kind of a bit of an effort to sort of you know moving I was when I worked I went down in Croydon so I'd kind of gone from from the Wirral where we were to Hull then back to Wales then to Croydon back to Wales back to Nottingham basically we'd done sort of a lot of moving and in that time I'd always sort of have to up sticks each time and the night before moving into Nottingham I was with mum we stayed over in Nottingham and I was basically having a mental breakdown in Nando's Nottingham because I'm saying I'm 23 years old is it the right thing to be doing am I making a massive mistake to be honest like in like I wasn't the brightest at school I loved Hull as a city but when you're comparing the sort of I suppose perception of University of Nottingham and University of Hull and the sort of students that take that in you know in terms of you know entry grades and things like that and I'm thinking I'm just I'm not bright enough I'm going to go there and everyone's going to be cleverer than me and I'll look like the weird 23 year old who's a bit of an outcast and I was all these thoughts were going through my head whether they were rational or not I just and and so she said you know get some sleep come back the next day and I will be all right and then the next day again we were driving from the hotel to go in we were at the big roundabout by queens and university and i'm still flapping and i'm still saying i can't i really don't know and my mom was literally like if if you don't think you can do that that's fine i'll turn the car around we'll go and that's and she was and that's fine that's no problem at all and needless to say um i sort of went through with it and i was probably never really going to say no i can't get me out of here at that stage when i you know packed in my job and moved up and all that sort of stuff but it's genuine it did scare me that much it did it was that daunting i think because it wasn't going on and doing like a master's add-on and things you know it was a full reset kind of restart three years again start from scratch and all that sort of stuff going to live in halls and stuff as well which again was a little bit am I just going to be that weird old slightly older guy I mean look at me now I'm grey enough honestly I was going grey at that stage already so I'm already thinking like I'm in for it yeah I'm gonna get in the neck which I did but it was all fun and and you know all those thoughts were going through my head it was really tough it was really tough but I don't you obviously I don't regret it for a second I don't think at any stage I probably would have actually truly turned back and chucked that all away but it was a real challenge to go from three years of university finally graduating getting in a job and then thinking I don't know this is what I want to be doing and I could have floated for a couple of years and just waited and you know see what happens and it probably still would have been fine but the fact that I didn't then it did make it a big decision so no in answer to your question very roundabout way pardon the pun because it was all roundabout where I had my big moment yeah I like that didn't you that yeah it was really tough really tough

SPEAKER_02: 15:50

and I mean thank you for sharing that and I think it's actually really useful for people to hear that because I think there is perceptions out there that you know people don't ever I'm not saying you've flapped but you know have those kind of moments of kind of real decision making of real sort of sort of oh am I doing the right thing am I not and I think it's really healthy to talk about it and say yeah that's how I was feeling at the time and you still went through with it and look how well you've done since and I mean you sound like your mum was of great support I was going to say if you could say that was you now sitting next to Dan of that time then what would you have said to yourself if you could have you know if that makes sense if you were sort of sitting next to yourself then and that was it what advice would you have given yourself now looking back on that?

SPEAKER_01: 16:40

I suppose follow your conviction because because I knew deep down it was what I wanted to be doing otherwise it wouldn't have it wouldn't have got to that stage you know so I think deep down I knew it was what what I wanted and for the long term and everything like that so I suppose yeah a case of there's going to be challenges and there'll be difficulties with you know integrating and things like that and and sort of a change from the norm at that point I had two older siblings who are both you know graduated stable jobs they're in you know stable relationships with which, you know, I wasn't at that stage. Well, which all kinds of this constant kind of place apart, you know, that kind of thing. I mean, they were slightly two and four years older. So, so you'd expect that. But again, at that time, you're not really thinking of that from a rational perspective. So there was elements of that, that, that was, was quite sort of overwhelming and daunting, but yeah, I think I'd probably have just said, look, this, you know, deep down, this is probably where you want to go and what you want to do. There's going to be challenges, but they'll be worth it in the end, I suppose, would be the main thing.

SPEAKER_02: 17:37

I think it, It's really nice to hear your story within this. And it was interesting, you know, we did a pod with Roger and we discussed a little bit about trajectory in terms of when students are learning and going through things. We all go at different rates and that's absolutely fine and that's absolutely healthy. And that's interesting you talk about you had two siblings and I know what it's like being is it three you three in total is it yeah I'm in a three as well so you know sibling rivalry you're always comparing aren't you you always do yeah and what did comparison

SPEAKER_01: 18:23

is comparison thief of joy thief of joy just talking about literally that

SPEAKER_02: 18:26

now did he take that off you or did you no no that was my quote no I took it off yeah well we really like that quote and I think that's it so you could see you coming in and you're thinking well my two siblings have done this and they've done that and I'm going back now doing this I think it's a what you've shown is a really good example of you took a different trajectory but by the sounds of it and the way it looks it looks like this has worked out really well for you

SPEAKER_01: 18:55

yeah yeah I certainly it feels like it has for me I think yeah we all sort of did our did our own things a little bit I suppose theirs was still slightly more conventional it certainly didn't you know have the sort of the returning to university things like that and yeah it's it's not something I look back on and regret in any way. Like I, you know, refer to what I said earlier in terms of thinking, thinking when I was at, you know, 18, I don't now at all think, well, I could be four years better as a physio. I could be four years more qualified or more experienced because, you know, I didn't need that rehab degree. But I, you know, if, if I didn't do it, I wouldn't be where I am today. And there's been a lot of slight, you know, I'm a big sort of believer in these sort of sliding doors moments in your lives that you can't look back and say, well, if I could just change that slightly, because if you change that slightly, you change the entire trajectory of your career and you progress and everything like that. So, you know, you can't look back and sort of say, well, yeah, I wish I'd done this instead because, you know, it's all part of the journey to get you to where you are. And yeah, very much as students, keep all those options open because you never know where your convictions and where your sort of passions and interests will go.

SPEAKER_02: 19:56

Absolutely. And it's interesting, you mentioned about, and I think a very real thing for students, you know, coming into this, in these situations with university, there is that classic, isn't there? I'm I'm going to turn up. No one's going to like me. I'm not going to make any mates. I'm going to be on my own for three years. And it's such a kind of an irrational thought. But it's actually a very real thought. You know, I think we've all gone through that. Surely everyone has that,

SPEAKER_01: 20:23

right? Yeah. Maybe not everyone has the breakdown in Nando's the night before. I don't know. I don't know, you know. Maybe someone broke down in Prime Minister instead. Maybe it's a bit different in that regard. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02: 20:34

But you having to sort of go twice through that, you know, obviously, from Hull and into Nottingham I mean again just out of just interested to hear you know from your experience of it when you came back into Nottingham you think right I've got to do this all again I'm coming in a little bit older I mean how quickly did you make friends on the course

SPEAKER_01: 20:54

on the course very quickly well Sam the same day very first day right yeah

SPEAKER_02: 20:59

so how did that how did you meet with that

SPEAKER_01: 21:01

he spotted that I had a like a water bottle from a cycling team and I spotted that he had one too and we went cycling and since then we've barely left each other's pockets for about nine or ten years now so yeah very quickly in halls but so quickly on the course because it's such a you can't not make friends on this course really you know I suppose it depends on your personality type and your interest as to how sort of involved you want to be and all that sort of stuff but it's a course that kind of comes to you from a social aspect I think because you have to be so involved with your classmates you can't turn up to one lecture in ten and all the the sort of the sessions or certainly we try to make them as much as possible are so sort of engaging from a group perspective and we try and make them very involved so you know you're constantly communicating with each other it's not us standing at the front talking for two hours or whatever you know we want that sort of group dynamic going on so yeah from the core side of things I'd like to think that what we're trying to deliver now is still as it was then and probably how it was 10, 20, 30 years ago when other staff here sort of trained here as well and and yourself and everything like that you know I hope maybe it was the same for you in terms of how you know how quickly you sort of make friends and sort of pick people up along the way because it's that kind of course I think and we sort of yeah like to think and hope and see every year that we do get these students that are just you know really keen to engage with each other some more receptive of it than others and that's fine but it's certainly not something that will be you know a real chore and a sort of an effort to get to know people because We're a fairly friendly bunch, aren't we?

SPEAKER_02: 22:40

Yeah. It's come quite naturally. No, I think you're right. And I think that's it. I think you think about when even applying for the course and reading around what the course is. And hopefully most people, when they're looking around doing physiotherapy, they've had perhaps some experience of what it is. And in actual fact, that's something I think we often underplay is our social skills and our ability to talk and try and make people feel at ease. And in actual fact, you've got... a whole cohort, a whole year, basically all wanting to do the same thing. You're right, what you see is often very quickly people gelling, and that might be, we've seen it, haven't we? We've seen bigger groups of people. You sometimes just see people who just spend sort of one-to-ones or two-to-threes. There's really no rule about it, but what's lovely to see, and I think we've seen this, haven't we, when sometimes they're going off for their, like, you know, the Christmas break or something like that. You sometimes see these big sort of, like, you know, these really nice shows of hugs and this and that, the other, and you see these real sort of bonds being formed which again you and Sam's a great example me and my mate Ben who I met on the first day he was still really close it was literally first day and look where we are now and you think gosh we wouldn't have met these wonderful people in our lives if we hadn't done what we done do you know what I mean so that's really nice within that and you know so you went through the physio course and did really well came up obviously from that and now you're in the world of work now you all you work quite a lot in something called FCP which is like a first contact practitioner isn't it which is quite a relatively new role for physiotherapy do you want to tell people who might be listening what that is and how you're finding that and take it on from there

SPEAKER_01: 24:23

yeah so first contact practitioners effectively came about their sort of role really the idea is to take musculoskeletal complaints away from GPs as we all know GPs in primary cares are incredibly overworked and you can stretch that to sort of ANPs or any other sort of ACP so advanced clinical practitioner role in a primary care setting of a GP's practice which formerly pre-FCPs would have had to deal with the vast majority if not all of musculoskeletal complaints and effectively it came about as a thought of well general practitioners are fantastic but they are general that's what they do they need to know a lot about a lot and the expectation as well that they could provide as much depth and expertise of knowledge knowledge and and of of implementation of practical elements as physios was was unreal is unrealistic because it's what we trained three years for they trained for a number of years but but the the sort of scope of what they have to cover is is like to me anyway just i don't get my head around it like when i see the amount that gps deal with and the variety is absolutely crazy so i think also this added expectation that they should have a almost a physiotherapy level knowledge of of musculoskeletal complaints and management is entirely unrealistic so it came about as a means of, I can't remember the statistics so I won't try and guess, but a large number of proportion of overall complaints to a GP were musculoskeletal in nature. Naturally as well, there's always, you know, it's healthcare, it's public services, there's an element of financial considerations here and primary care providers start to see as well that they could employ advanced level physiotherapists for less of a GP to deal with problems GPs were dealing with in more detail because it's what they've been trained to deal with so it's it's a nice easy win on you know for everyone really on the basis that the patients get excuse me better care or more relevant care from from physios at first point of access so that's where the name comes from so when they call their gps practice saying i've got a sore shoulder they don't go through a gp first and then go to a physio you sort of cut out the middleman so to speak the gps can deal with more sort of medically relevant complaints um and the physios pick up the physio load and hopefully save save referrals into secondary care so if we can manage these sorts of patients who are coming to the GPs to start with with a sore shoulder that's been there for two weeks then we can we can make it better and stop it from being then a referral into orthopaedics later down the line or into you know actual MSK physiotherapy services so it's it's more of a screening based role it's not as treat based you know treatment based you don't get the management time you sort of depending on your your sort of where you work appointment duration will differ but it's usually about 20 minutes or so you know is what you usually get so you're not going to do a full subjective history and and management and you're not going to get follow-ups in or anything like that it's a it's a kind of a a screening triage make sure nothing nasty is going on sign post if you need to refer on if you need to try and manage it in-house if you can save those referrals going through and uh yeah like i said it's a it's a win for all parties hopefully and it's been been great to work in that arena now for i've been doing it two and a half years now so uh yeah it's it's a nice balance with the other clinical work and the stuff I do here it's like I said at the start really I've got my finger in lots of eyes in that regard to be able to do it yeah

SPEAKER_02: 27:44

and I think what's really interesting within that is that the obviously as you know what we do in start for the first year is these students embark on this student guided discovery sessions which is problem-based learning and what we are trying try to do is to kind of make sure that they are aware that from very early on they are starting to clinically reason within these sessions. They may not think it, but they need to think it. And learning to be able to process information quickly, pick out information quickly, deliver information. I think the FCP is a really good example of being able to do those skills in a real life clinical context. Because as you said, these appointments are only around 15, 20 minutes. You've got to be very good at learning what to do and how to adapt to in that whereas conventionally i would be working with patients for at least half an hour 45 minutes to an hour so which is as it is however that development from from what you've had to do there is is brilliant is there any sort of with you going through that is any sort of advice you would you would sort of give back to students now because coming out of university an fcp job is a very viable option now isn't it so is there any sort of like things that you can pick you've looked at from your side of things and think oh if i was doing my timing again these will be things I'd really focus on thinking about my future career or anything

SPEAKER_01: 29:13

like that. I suppose it from well from a very kind of a drier clinical perspective rather than maybe sort of like a life experience perspective we really try and drill this into students now from year one of this idea of sort of red flag screening and all that sort of stuff that it goes back to the old kind of really old adage of kind of do no harm from the start of it and that's kind of the basis of well from sort of a screening perspective perspective anyway there's sort of any kind of first contact work where you you don't like you say James you don't have that sort of time to really be able to get into the nitty-gritty of of sort of a patient's complaint and you do only have 20 minutes you need to be able to then prioritize and write what things do I need to know and 100% of those complaints need to always be around the screening for for relevant red flags and things like that so I suppose if if students can then lay the groundwork from from year one you know about that sort of stuff from a screening point of view and and and patient profiling as well so thinking of a condition and thinking you know okay well what what sort of you know ages get this what sort of genders get this what sort of general lifestyle factors are involved in conditions like this then if that's something you're particularly kind of interested in then maybe by the end of year three you might want to be looking into these more kind of screening based roles rather than necessarily going more into the management side of things which is perfectly valid and I think that's good that as a profession now in physio we have those options we have the options for still for people who are very very rehabilitation based and those kind of things but but then actually if your interest is really around the sort of um sort of epidemiology side of things and etiology and and patient profiling and screening then you can go into a job where that is paramount and that that's where your skills need to really really be sharp um with so for i think yeah in terms of how it aligns with with what we teach here um the the screening side of things can be just as in-depth and as interesting from a subjective history collection point of view than you know this patient's got a sore shoulder give them five exercises for it's the scope of the profession really and where it's going so again it's finding out I suppose through your three years okay which side are you more interested in you've been interested in both that's fine you can go into those more kind of you know general roles which is also fine which I do on sort of my other work alongside it it's fine they complement each other nicely but yeah it's that sort of I suppose red flag screening do no harm get rid of the nasty stuff so to speak and you know consistently monitoring in terms of those things.

SPEAKER_02: 31:39

Yeah. And I think for those listening who aren't aware of what red flags are, and Dan deals with these a lot in his clinical practice, I mean, red flags, as we go to in more detail in the course, it's ruling out things which we call sinister in nature, things that shouldn't be there, nasty pathology, things that... are likely to cause the patient significant harm if left unaddressed. And Dan's absolutely right. That sort of, unless you do those bits right, it doesn't matter how good you are at exercise prescription, you know, it really is paramount on that. Dan, is there any sort of anything, and I'm putting on the spot a bit with this, any things that spring to mind of resources that you tend to look at or found useful for your own learning and reading around red flag screening or anything like that or anything that comes of mine?

SPEAKER_01: 32:33

Yes, but I don't know enough detail to say. There's like a little pocket book I know for I can't even remember what it would be called and I think it's for musculoskeletal practitioners or something. It was a little bible that my senior at LCHS, the trust I'm in had and she passed down to me but I've rarely looked at the front cover of it enough to know exactly what it is. All I can say is that it's a pocket sized book for screening for musculoskeletal complaints in private I think but I'm sure to be honest there will be 5, 10, 15 similar to that I know you know when you were studying that you had these little like pocket books yeah little pocket books yeah absolutely and some clinical educators and lecturers are really really big on them and I suppose it depends how everyone works I'm quite fortunate that the sort of the training provisions and in-house training type sessions we do with the trust I'm in are very very good and that's where I'm sort of getting most of my resources from and actually just a very supportive network at the practice I'm at as well but from a physical sort of when I was first on my own in that isolated setting from a first contact point of view where no one else has seen these patients before I think it is worthwhile having a hard copy of something just by your side to flick through if you need it it helped me but everyone knows differently doesn't they and everyone gets their tips

SPEAKER_02: 33:51

differently. No but I'm really glad you mentioned about that pocket book and strangely enough yeah I remember mine and it's like It's actually a really nice thing to have, and it's just kind of there. And again, yeah, in certain practices, you can often computer-based with physiotherapy in terms of things. You can Google things and stuff like that. But I think it's a really good suggestion. Often, obviously, here at the school, there's Blackwell's Bookshop and obviously the Greenfields Library. These are always a good resource as well. So having something physical with you, you can get these things relatively cheaply, which is a really good idea. a really good idea within that. But, you know, moving on from that, you know, in your day-to-day job, obviously you've been doing the two-day-a-week teaching as well for the last couple of years. Probably felt like it's gone by quite quick, I guess. How have you been finding that as part of your work? Because you've, you know, got some fingers in many pies here. Yeah, I have. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 34:53

yeah. And yeah, it's good. They balance well. They balance really well. I, yeah, I do honestly, I've feel quite lucky to have the sort of layout of the jobs that I have I mean the last two years have been brilliant I think so when we started James, Beth and I on the same day it was a new role it wasn't like it was completely new for the department I'm not sure well I suppose it's one of those I think they knew that there was a gap there for a need for this sort of teaching associate to be on the programme but you never know when you roll out a new job how it's going to go and I think they were quite open with us from the start weren't they they were very much kind of like look we're an excited for you to have you guys started with you're going to be incredibly valuable members of staff and all that sort of stuff but just let us know how it's going and we'll ask you how it's going and there's a lot of feedback and all that sort of stuff I think I think yeah I know the previous director of clinical skills Carly Whittaker who I know through my wife as well was very passionate about getting us guys on board and putting that across on the nursing and the midwifery programs as well and I think I don't know I mean two years in I'm enjoying it clearly you didn't enjoy it because you're doing other stuff now but yeah too important for us now no I don't I don't mean that of course it was great I think when we had the three of us and you were such a great sort of asset in that first year and the stuff you're doing now is so brilliant in terms of developing programmes things like that and it's last year or so it's been Beth and I and now we're fortunate enough to have Sam on board as well so it's a department that's constantly changing and developing but things in teaching do but that's no reflection at all on sort of the job itself which I think is still is still very valuable with the students and we're quite fortunate that with the consistency and the sort of sessions we get involved in and it's easy it's kind of not easy but it's straightforward to then keep on top of from a workload point of view that I know on Thursdays and Fridays it's going to be C33 it's going to start at 9 it's going to finish at 4 we're going to have our breaks at half 10 to get a coffee and a sausage roll in here it's all that sort of stuff you know to be able to actually sort of deliver that on a weekly basis it gives a nice routine and hopefully the students benefit from it certainly as much as I do good fun isn't it

SPEAKER_02: 37:13

yeah no absolutely and I think you know again it's sort of when it's great to have this role and again it's whatever you want to make from it it's you know you've got this really nice balance of your clinical as well as the teaching and side. For myself, I'd done my clinical and I really fancied doing this for something I've always wanted to do and that sort of having the opportunity meant I could sort of dip my toe in the water and see whether there is something I wanted to do full-time or whatever. It's a really, I think it's a really cool post but obviously having people like yourself who are, you know, very much in the field still, coming back in, disseminating information, you know, we keep ensuring that keeping the course up to date isn't it

SPEAKER_01: 38:02

yeah and i i think that's very valuable as well not to it obviously doesn't lessen the importance of anyone who isn't doing clinical work but i think it's quite valuable to be able to call upon those clinical experiences when we're doing the teachings and and things like that um when when the students asking stuff to know that you know the the sort of questions they're asking and the things we're covering are the things that two days ago i was physically doing i think is is quite beneficial and to be able to get that that balance in those sessions of as well from the sort of the sort of you know teaching lead role type things that yourselves and and sort of well everyone else you know in the department um you know paul alan sam ed everyone else has um to sort of have a balance of the two really and i suppose the only difficulty with it is is that sometimes because i'm not going to you know i can't sit here and say yes perfect everything's great because because you guys are obviously here full time in terms of your work with university um and i suppose that the only downside with it is that quite often we turn up on the thursday and things have happened on the monday tuesday wednesday we're not quite up to date with that so it does bring about its challenges it's you know it's not it's not all absolutely as perfect as it could be it's fairly unavoidable in terms of how that is but I think you know that support in terms of with the staff anyway to keep us up to date so that we know what's going on and everything like that it just means that we can sort of supplement each other quite well and certainly as job roles as they go in yeah two years in all seems good so far

SPEAKER_02: 39:23

no and you do a great job and with the adaptation and yeah there are a lot of plates to sort of spin and you do really really well with that and I think that's going into you know if we've got any students listening who are thinking about placement options you know we obviously have the education placement

SPEAKER_01: 39:40

here can I say how good they are like they're great well it's good

SPEAKER_02: 39:45

to hear because we think they're brilliant but I mean you can see it as well and you've been part of that as well from what you've seen there Dan because I would say if you were thinking about a career within university at some point it's a really good opportunity to have that. Did they do the education placement when you were a student? No, no, no,

SPEAKER_01: 40:05

no. Unfortunately, I think it's a relatively new thing, but it's brilliant. I think if any students are fortunate enough to be on one and the ones that we have had have just been absolutely phenomenal. Like, yeah, intimidatingly good because you're like, I do this for a job and they're coming in and they're just like, I don't know, get it out. I mean, yeah, I had to do that mock OSPI and I'm pretty sure it wasn't any better than when we had asked Raph to do it. And yeah, they can just sort of deliver it and you sort of set them up an educational sort of, you know, developing some kind of, you know, material or resource or gaining feedback and they're just able to do it so well. And it's, I suppose, yeah, it is good if they're looking at going into educational leadership or teaching, whatever else it might be. But, you know, just even if you're full-time clinical, there's so much support work and leading on in service trainings and you'll have your own students and you'll have, you know, within three or four years you'll have juniors you'll have to support that i think the education placements are giving the students a real sort of insight into that sort of stuff that they'll within no time be implementing even if they're full-time clinical and don't actually go into anything like this um but oh no no they're brilliant whoever's idea that was it was yours it's probably

SPEAKER_00: 41:18

one of

SPEAKER_01: 41:21

your ideas no not mine no no i can't take credit for that as well yeah absolutely brilliant yeah it's the sort of idea you would have though no a very good one

SPEAKER_02: 41:31

I love what you said within that because I think there is a perception that I'll only do the education placement if I was interested in going into teaching and you're spot on actually it's definitely not the way it has to go and you're right I think thinking ahead of where you want to be at the end of your degree obviously a lot of students around the country will graduate at the same time with a physiotherapy degree now we obviously rate this you know this institution here highly but that's not enough to get you any job that you want you've got to then be able to think about that application as well as then come into an interview and be able to showcase something so as you say there are lots of skills isn't there that you can take from that placement but into a working environment a clinical working environment

SPEAKER_01: 42:20

yeah massively transferable skills which I suppose is what we're hoping to get from from all the way across the course anything we're teaching you know we don't like to think of skills as being isolated in that instance we like them to be able to sort of transfer across to certain things and anything to do with that kind of you know I suppose initiative taking leadership and those kind of roles I mean I suppose it's easy because it's in-house we can control that with the education students you know and placements we know that if they're out on placement maybe some of them are getting loads of that maybe some of them aren't getting any and you have the kind of certain some unfortunately clinical educators who are very kind of you know you're the student we'll give you this to do but you only do this and you must be supervised and that sort of stuff and it depends on the environment and things like that but it's just nice I suppose to be able to have the placement then in-house to be able to make sure those things are implemented because they're such vital skills to have whether you go on to work in clinical or non-clinical environments because yeah from day one as a newly qualified physio or a sports rehabber you're leading you know that's everything you do involves those kind of things of sort of taking things on board and running projects and integrating with each other as well because obviously they have to work as a team on the education side students it's we don't sort of you know take a number of them in and write you do this you do this you do this it's very much a right you guys you're responsible for this and then maybe we split them off into maybe like a three and a four or four and a five and then you guys respond and it's up to them then to work as that team and to integrate and to communicate and and arrange themselves to sort of effectively deliver what what we're sort of requesting them to deliver if they're not taking it up on them sort of themselves sooner than that so yeah it's it's it's everything that then when you go into work you're going to have to do and it's it's not just just for those who are going into teaching, I don't think. It's great.

SPEAKER_02: 44:03

No, you're absolutely spot on. You're often in a typical NHS rotational environment. You're often given something from the top down as a new junior, often a project to work on. There'll often be some sort of thing of, right, you're going to have to work in six weeks' time and on this in-service training, you are going to deliver at some, and it might be you've got to go out and find some statistics on how effective this knee class is or patient satisfaction or da da da da da and if you haven't had any experience of really going out and doing that that can be a really really daunting task and the advantage on the education placement one of them is there'll be very much that kind of ethos of the skills to learn around yeah as you say project time management a focus an aim you know and a collaboration as well so yeah it's I think I would definitely wanted to have done it if I'd been available I think going back on it so but it's nice to be as we were both involved on helping that through now and I guess I mean I could speak to you all day I'm just conscious a little bit on the time probably going to have to wrap things up but so many great things that you've talked about I guess I'm just interested really sort of final thoughts really you know looking at where you've been in your career your study your professional career I mean outside of work as well I know you enjoy your cycling and and many other things as well. This might be a bit simplistic, but if there was a little bit of Dan Towie advice you would be able to give to someone, it could be anyone, it could be a student, it could be just a person, it could be a friend, I don't know, is there any sort of things that you really feel passionate about that you feel like maybe someone needs to hear at this moment?

SPEAKER_01: 45:49

Yeah, I wouldn't want to keep, I mean, look, I feel like if we're doing a pod for the university and I teach at the university, I'd like to make this kind of student centred so I don't want to kind of go all you know be kind to each other generic which is great by the way or everyone be kind to each other that is very important but also from a student point of view I think just things I've sort of learnt I suppose from the last two years of sort of teaching and then before that if I've had them in as sort of students in clinical environments so being an educator any student listening to this you must hear it all the time so I'm sorry if it sounds repetitive but it's so true just don't worry about your marks like just don't you know I mean yeah the difference between a 41 and a 99 maybe matters a bit but honestly where you find yourself even in like three to five years after qualified you're not going to care if you get you know a low first or a high 2-1 it just doesn't matter it's about the experiences it's about your development as a person over those three years it's just not it's not worth the stress over and you won't you'll look back and almost be a bit frustrated at your former self forever, forever sort of being that sort of, you know, really aware of them. I can't even remember what I said a few seconds ago. It's not a case of not caring about them. I don't want to say don't care about your marks. It matters. It's a, you know, it's what we have as a scale to judge your ability and your competencies and everything. That's it. Yeah, of course they matter. But really getting caught up with them and letting them encompass every thought you have going into exam periods or any kind of assessment period and basing your learning. So you're learning on a program and on a module just to try and do as well as you can in that exam. There is a lot more to it than that. And it is really about how it shapes you as a person and as a practitioner over the three years than just chasing a number. I mean, yeah, it's worth a lot more than that. And then from, I suppose, a generic sense, I like the saying that there's sort of, there not been any stupid questions. Quite often students, I think, feel a bit self-conscious conscious of not being able to ask stuff I'm a big believer there are no stupid questions particularly you know as a student on physio or in any walk of life just ask it you never know you might get an answer that you don't expect what you know at all and if you're not comfortable asking it in front of a large group that's fine fine is at the end ask it we're not showing around we're not having a giggle at it we don't care we were in that position once you know we get all sorts of questions doesn't matter what you think it is it's not stupid please ask it so yeah I think off the top of my noggin probably them two would be the main two but yeah it's it does sound a bit kind of you know old dad type advice but you're only at university once well except unless you're me and you do it twice but do enjoy the ride or just go you know do it once and go back anyway because you enjoyed it so much the first time but the vast majority will only do it once and yeah you won't look back 10 years ago and be glad that you did all that work to get four or five extra marks on one single exam you'll just be glad of the experience you'll be glad of the thing that you learned the friends that you made um so so just to kind of from a student point if you just enjoy it while you're on it because it's the time of your life

SPEAKER_02: 49:07

i think that's a fantastic way to end dan been a pleasure

SPEAKER_01: 49:11

likewise