Why I chose physiotherapy - Sam Nunn

Hello, I am Sam, and I’m currently studying at the University of Winchester as a second-year student physiotherapist.

I have always had my heart set on becoming a physiotherapist from a young age. I had an older sibling going into the same degree and being the younger sibling, I always wanted to be like them. Throughout my education, I tailored my studies to accommodate the needs and requirements of becoming a physiotherapist. Physiotherapy is a role where I feel I can express my skills as an individual because I am very person-centred and always strive to help others. Helping people reach their goals and setting them back on track is one of the best feeling’s and I am sure many healthcare workers would think the same.

I am currently in my second week of an eight-week placement with Health Education England (HEE), joining meetings with allied health professions (AHP) professional bodies, and NHS teams. By joining these meetings, I can provide a student voice and first-hand experience from a student’s perspective of what placements are currently like and the teaching available to us.

By working with HEE, I will be able to develop my leadership skills as well as build up my confidence when speaking to others. The benefit of this placement is that these skills can be transferable when I am working with patients, face to face twice a week. I wasn’t sure how this placement would take place after spending my first year as a student as well as my first placement developing my clinical skills in a patient-facing format. However, with help from my tutor and supervisor Beverley, we were able to understand how my goals and how my placement objectives would be met. Working with HEE will help me understand the policies in place inside the NHS and working with First Contact Practitioner’s (FCP) will allow me to develop my patient-centred skills.

I have been set a research project to understand why people choose to become AHP’s, in order to grow students’ numbers. We want to understand the barriers in AHP student recruitment whilst also trying to increase the breadth of knowledge regarding motives for smaller AHP profession populations. All of these factors are important in order to follow the NHS Long Term Plan which includes increasing AHP workforce in the future. Towards the end of my eight weeks, we will have more feedback as well as results from the questionnaire we plan to send to all students studying AHP courses. These results should allow is to understand what would motivate people to become an AHP and what would stop them. The results can also help us understand how we can raise the profiles of the AHPs and grow each of the 14 professions.

More blogs to come during my placement!