The Gospel According to a Physiotherapist
I’ve always loved sports and physical activity.
That sentence might cause you to nod emphatically or hightail out of here. There’s a certain culture around sports and physical activity. In Hollywood, these are the buff, biceps-bulging jocks with peas for brains. In real-life high school, these are the cliques of basketball players, hockey players, and track team members who band together in the hallways.
Having been raised in a small rural town, one of the only options for entertainment was participating in sports. I recall playing recreational T-ball, soccer, and hockey from the time I was five years old. It helped that I was naturally athletic and competitive. By the time I was ten years old, I dreamt and salivated about playing basketball on the high school team. Those who played on the team, especially the starters, were celebrities to me.
So I practiced and practiced. I went to basketball camp in the summer. I won the athlete of the year — not once or twice, but every year in junior and senior high. It helped that my grade was exceptionally athletically weak, but nonetheless, I took pride in my sporting achievements.
It was somewhat natural, then, that my career path would take me the direction of sports and athletics. I watched the local physiotherapist (also physio or PT) assess my sister’s sprained ankle and I was hooked. Thus began the journey — first to Lethbridge to earn my Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science, and then to Edmonton to earn my Master of Science in Physical Therapy. Along the way, I spent a season as a student athletic therapist with the U of L women’s soccer team.
But something happened on this journey. Something began to shift…
At first, I loved learning about human anatomy, injuries, and injury prevention. One could blame my shifted interest on my husband, Fritz. As our relationship progressed, I found myself less interested in the Athletic Therapy partner program in Calgary (which would interrupt my degree program in Lethbridge) and more interested in finishing my B.Sc. and pursuing physiotherapy as a Master’s level program. Particularly, I was drawn by the generally astronomical (to my university-student brain) wage earned by private practice physiotherapists in Alberta, as well as their autonomy in setting work hours. Athletic therapy paid less and often required travel as part of working with a team.
Secondly, as I participated in PT student practical placements, I realized that the scope of physiotherapy was far greater than I had anticipated. Physio wasn’t just for athletes (though I did shadow a PT for a day at the state-of-the-art Glen Sather Sports Medicine Clinic in Edmonton and it was very cool) but also for work-related injuries, medical-related injuries (e.g. diabetic amputations), strokes and brain injuries, cardiorespiratory conditions, pediatric conditions including hypotonic Down Syndrome and cerebral palsy, and pelvic therapy pre- and post-partum.
Wow. Suddenly the world opened up.
Which population did I like working with? What types of conditions intrigued me most? In which area would I choose to work?
I experienced a number of fascinating student placements including orthopedic rehab and spinal cord injuries at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital in Edmonton, geriatric conditions and acute stroke patients at the University of Alberta Hospital, and long-term care and acute conditions in a rural centre. Interestingly, my private practice placements were the least interesting to me — they were overly (in my opinion) focused on making money and keeping the client happy. They involved less client care and more salesmanship… and I’m no salesman.
Slowly, my interest shifted away from sports, athletics, and private PT and began moving toward something else entirely.
When I graduated, I spent a couple of months as a casual PT at the regional hospital in Lethbridge before landing a full-time permanent job at a large private practice clinic that specialized in Return to Work programs and Workers’ Compensation claims.
While I did see private-paying clients who were dealing with acute injuries, by and large I was working with people who were suffering from overuse injuries due to long hours and repetitive jobs. In a very short time, I learned how to juggle the worker’s grievances, the employer’s expectations, and the insurance company’s demands, and it was not a happy job.
I soon realized that I couldn’t help some people — they might improve temporarily only to return to the same place within six months, or they were so focused on their insurance claims that they actually didn’t get better at all. They just got angry.
It dawned on me that for many injured workers, the issue of whether one would recover and return to their previous level of work went far deeper than the physical injury.
There were psychological issues (blaming, shaming, or inappropriate anger outbursts), social issues (single parenting, alcohol abuse, or low income), and work-related issues (workplace safety concerns, poor work ergonomics, work-related conflicts, or mundane and monotonous jobs).
How could I, as a physiotherapist, begin to help them heal their injury when so much more was going on beneath the surface?
I was also restricted to twenty minutes with each work-related patient. Alberta Worker’s Compensation pays far less than privately-paid or privately-insured appointments, and the clinic at which I worked required me to provide care within twenty minutes for maximum clinic efficiency.
Less time = more patients = more money for the clinic (and for me).
Also, less time = patients have to come back for more visits = more money.
It was simple math, and I hated it.
I began to feel frustrated with the system. So many broken systems, including the clinic at which I worked. It felt like a money game to me, not actually about providing good care to the people who sought it.
Also, I was frustrated with the population of work-related injuries. They were simply too complex for me to feel like my work was actually making a dent in their messed-up bodies and lives.
Most of all, I began to realize that the problem wasn’t multidisciplinary; it was holistic. While each of the team members in a work-related claim (occupational therapy, kinesiology, physiotherapy, and psychology) was supposed to work together to help the injured worker,
I couldn’t help but feel like there was a crucial dimension missing: Spiritual care.
My interest had shifted again, this time beyond the physical injury and to the soul of the person carrying it. How could I, a physiotherapist trained in rehabilitating physical injuries, reach and help heal their broken soul?
This epiphany came on the heels of a six-month lay-off during the COVID-19 pandemic. I’d been dissatisfied with my work for some time. I felt burned out, which led me to request fewer hours (instead of working full-time, I dropped down to a 0.8 FTE).
The lay-off changed everything. I was able to breathe and explore the things that I wasn’t able to while I was working full-time. Something stirred within me. When a friend suggested taking a few seminary classes, I thought, Why not? I could take seminary classes on the side when or if I returned to work.
Part of me knew that it wasn’t going to work that way. As I learned about the Christian spiritual practices of prayer and simply being in God’s presence, I realized that my work had been a desolation, that is, I felt the absence of God. I felt drained by it, exhausted, and at the end of my limits. In contrast, my soul lit up as I began reading and studying Christian spirituality, theology, and history — studying seminary was a consolation; I felt the presence of God. It felt right deep within my soul.
I left my job six months after I had returned to it. It was a terrifying decision.
What about our income? What about all those years spent working up to being a physiotherapist? Was that all for nothing?
I didn’t know where it would lead, only that it felt absolutely right to leave that job in order to pursue God’s call to learn more about him and his way of life in seminary. I felt something more tugging at my spirit (hello, Holy Spirit).
Within two months, a former colleague from the regional hospital asked if I’d like to take on a part-time position. I accepted, thinking that I could work and complete my seminary work at the same time.
At the hospital, money was not an issue; I was paid hourly (rather than by commission) by the provincial health care system that operates under universal health care. I felt like I could spend more time with each patient and provide them with more intentional care than in the private clinic. However, there were still a lot of patients to see, and I was limited by time and energy to some degree, though there was plenty of autonomy in the pace and structure of my work.
I still struggled with the sense of a deeper calling that no scope of physiotherapy could meet. The Holy Spirit within me was inviting me to spend more time with God, more time in Bible study and in teaching so that I could practice my ministry calling to preach, teach, and disciple others in their relationship with Christ.
When you say no to one thing, you say yes to the other.
I think Brene Brown said that.
Which one did I want to say yes to?
Saying no to regular physio work was saying yes to pursuing ministry more full-time. Why would I make such a choice when I had earned two degrees and had a financially successful job as a physiotherapist? It was a leap of faith, a step out into the unknown (after all, what kind of job could I get once I earned my Master of Divinity? It’s not like women pastors are a hot job in southern Alberta).
Though it made little financial sense, I left that part-time job in order to pick up shifts on a casual, as-needed basis — just enough so that we had a little extra income, I could maintain my physio license, and I felt like I was keeping one foot “in the real world” outside of academics.
It felt like I had two halves: one half doing the physio to support my studies and ministry, and the other half actually doing the studies and ministry.
But again… something shifted within me and this time, it brought these two halves of me together in an unexpected way.
One of my physio instructors once said to my class, “You’re all here because you want to help people.” I remember raising my eyebrows. Yeah right, I thought. I’m here because I want to be a physio.
My idea of “being a physio” was disconnected from the people. It was more of a measure of status — look at me, I’m so smart, I made it into the most competitive program in the country and now I’m a super smart physiotherapist and I make lots of money. It was childish, simply a desire to be somebody and to have recognition.
However, in real life, physiotherapists get very little thanks. Oh sure, if you’re a physio for some athlete who regains full sprinting ability, you’ll be praised. But most of the time, patients who come to a physiotherapist want to be fixed, and to be fixed quickly. They don’t want to put in the work that the physio is prescribing. Yes, you actually have to put in the work to get better. Shocking.
So, my perspective shift — thanks to my experiences and what I now recognize as the movement of the Holy Spirit over these past fifteen years — was four-fold:
I realized how thankless physio is and how often the job turns into people-pleasing rather than evidence-based practice. If you don’t keep the customer happy, then they won’t come back, right? I was shocked at the speed at which a healthcare profession can devolve into a business make-money model.
I realized that a patient’s problems run far deeper than the physical injury and I couldn’t do a damn thing about that. That was immensely frustrating and eye-opening to the general state of humanity — we are all broken people.
The call deep within me to something more (i.e. caring for people’s souls) was persistent. It started way back in my first student placements when I realized that physio was about more than rehabbing athletes, progressed through my experiences of private practice physiotherapy, and culminated in being laid off and starting seminary.
For many people, COVID-19 was terrible. It was terrible on a global, economic, and social level. For me, on a personal level, it was the catalyst I needed to jolt me out of my career frustrations and to listen to the call to go deeper with God.
In going deeper with God, my heart for his people awakened. At first, just to teach them the Bible. Then, to preach the truth to them. And then, suddenly, I saw the people. All the people, those in church and those not. I saw how God cares for the homeless, the vulnerable, and the poor, and I saw how I could care for them, too. I wanted to touch not only their bodies, but also touch and heal their souls.
Suddenly, my call to pastoral ministry and my job as a physiotherapist aligned.
Healer of body and healer of soul.
Well, not really. Both are really not done by me. I’m just the means by which the Spirit works.
Working in acute care physio puts me at the heart of the region in which I live. It’s not about the money. It’s not about recognition; as a casual, I pick up shifts here and there and there isn’t any long-term continuity with the patients. I simply show up and do my job, hoping that the way I care for them reflects the heart of Jesus. And it’s messy… hospital gowns leave little dignity, and sometimes there are less-than-favourable bodily fluids to clean up.
Acute care physio keeps my feet grounded in reality; it’s practical theology in action. It takes place deep in the mess of human existence. No longer is physio separate from my theological, biblical, and historical studies; now it is an opportunity for me to put into practice all that I have learned and studied. In theological terms, it is orthopraxy — the doing of faith.
While I’m on the verge of beginning pastoral church ministry (believe me, I never thought I’d be here), I still choose to work casually as a PT because now I see value in the job, particularly in seeing and providing care and dignity for the desperately hurt and sick who are admitted to the hospital, which includes the Indigenous, the homeless, the poor, the immigrant, the drug addict, the wealthy businessperson, the university professor, and sometimes the drunk driver who killed a kid. Everyone deserves care, no matter their circumstance.
Physiotherapy is all about caring for people.
My instructor said that; I was just a little slow on the uptake.
All of this is to say that my journey hasn’t been neat. I was a kid who loved sports, and through twists and turns along the way — ahem, by the Holy Spirit —, I became a woman who loves people and cares deeply for their whole self — their entire physical and spiritual being.
In one way, I care for people through physiotherapy.
In another, I care for people through direct soul care and ‘formal’ pastoral ministry.
This is the gospel, isn’t it? It’s the good news of Jesus’ new way of life — to live as whole, healthy, restored human beings and to use our gifts, strengths, and experiences to bring God’s kingdom to every corner of the earth.
And here it is, the gospel according to a physiotherapist in a nutshell:
God cares for all of you — body and soul.
Furthermore, body and soul are not separated, but are an integration of the entire, holistic person.
Physiotherapy is one physical manifestation of my calling to pastoral ministry. I am called to teach, preach, and provide spiritual care to those who seek it, and I am also a physiotherapist. Body and soul healing together by the power of the Holy Spirit.
