How did you become Pelvic and Obstetric trained Physical Therapists?

There are so many ways someone can become pelvic or obstetric trained - physical therapist or not - that it would be impossible to keep up with or list all the methods. My undergraduate degree is in athletic training (any Otterbein grads out there?!) which allowed me to have the pre-requisites for physical therapy school. I graduated with a Doctorate in Physical Therapy, and was able to practice in virtually any setting, as we all leave school as generalists.

My work experience in a large acute care hospital made it glaringly obvious that the women’s health (now mostly referred to as pelvic health, but go back a decade with me) care in terms of physical therapy was lacking. I began seeing those patients and read everything I could to learn how to best serve those patients. I asked the medical library to search current publications, I talked to the nursing staff every chance I had, and went way back to open up my (ahem, dusty) textbooks to review anatomy and physiology. I signed up for webinars and scoured Instagram for other therapists doing this work.

About a year or two after that began, when I realized this was going to be an actual career trajectory for me, I sought out the American Physical Therapy Association’s Obstetric instruction. It was three weekend courses, with hands on training. I went to the Institute of Clinical Excellence for a weekend pelvic floor training and muscular examination training. Those trainings endorse competence and provide ongoing instruction and resources to maintain skills. Simultaneously, there was patient care. There is no course that prepares you the same as working with patients who have actual concerns. The accomplishments of these paragraphs happened over the course of a decade. There are many courses and companies that teach these topics, and I love to learn and will continue to take instruction (and maybe one day be the instructor!) as long as I am working. Cheers to a happy pelvic floor!