First Steps
There is something quietly powerful about a first step. In the moment, it can feel small, uncertain, or unremarkable. Yet, with distance — five, ten, or twenty years later — we often recognise that these early choices were not isolated moments at all. They were the beginnings of a path, shaped by curiosity, courage, and a willingness to step towards the unknown.
As I take my first steps into business ownership, sole practice, and postgraduate study, I find myself looking back with gratitude, perspective, and a renewed sense of enquiry. For nearly two decades I have worked as a physiotherapist, spending around half of that time in the NHS and half in private practice. I have experienced healthcare as both clinician and patient, and I have worked in hospitals, community settings, people’s homes, clinics, and online. Each environment has widened my view of people, bodies, healthcare systems, and what it truly means to help someone move forward.
Where it began
My path into physiotherapy began at the University of Bradford, following a degree in sports science. From there, I moved into my first junior rotations and later into a senior role at Leeds Teaching Hospitals. At the time, I do not think I fully understood how profoundly those early years would shape the clinician — and the person — I was becoming.
Those formative years gave me breadth. They taught me to listen closely, observe carefully, think on my feet, and respect the extraordinary complexity of the human body. Working across different disciplines helped me see physiotherapy as a broad, evolving profession — one that asks us to remain curious, keep learning, and understand the person in front of us rather than simply follow a symptom. That spirit of enquiry has stayed with me ever since.
From hospitals into the community
Family life brought me from Leeds to Sheffield, and with it came another first step: moving into community care with the Continence Advisory Service. I worked alongside a team of specialist nurses, supporting people from many different backgrounds as they navigated symptoms that could feel distressing, isolating, and deeply personal.
That work changed the way I saw pelvic health. Pelvic floor symptoms do not simply affect the body; they can unsettle a person’s sense of safety, influence relationships, limit hobbies, and quietly shrink their world. Working with people in their own communities taught me the value of practical, compassionate care that meets people where they are — not where a textbook, pathway, or clinic room assumes they should be.
The leap into private practice
My move into private practice began in a very Sheffield way: over a drink in the Prince of Wales pub, when my previous employer, Katie Bell, invited me to take the leap from the NHS. It was one of those conversations that seems simple at the time, but later becomes a marker point. Another first step. Another threshold crossed. Another door opening.
Over the next ten years, I worked to build a pelvic health service that could genuinely respond to people’s lives. I became increasingly drawn to one central question: what does this person need, in this moment, to move forward? Sometimes the answer was an online programme. Sometimes it was a face-to-face class, one-to-one rehabilitation, or detailed pelvic health assessment and treatment. Often, it was a careful combination of clinical skill, education, reassurance, and time.
Private practice gave me the space to experiment thoughtfully, develop new ways of working, and ask better questions. It also showed me that good physiotherapy is not simply about knowing what to do. It is about understanding how to bring the right care to the right person, in the right way, at the right time.
Learning what really helps people change
Around the time of COVID, that question became even more important. I saw more clearly than ever how symptoms and life experiences affect not only physical health, but also confidence, identity, wellbeing, and the choices people feel able to make. Beliefs, previous experiences, fear, hope, support, and trust all shape how someone experiences their body and how they engage with rehabilitation.
Like many people, lockdown was a strange mix of challenge, creativity, and doing whatever was needed to keep going. I was homeschooling two children, filming home workouts from my kitchen, adapting clinical work, and finding new ways to connect with patients. It was messy at times, but it was also a period that stretched me professionally and personally, asking me to be inventive, resilient, and open to new possibilities.
During that period, I completed a diploma in professional life coaching, which opened another door in my practice. It helped me look more deeply at behaviour change and how people move from knowing what might help to feeling able to do it. It allowed me to bring together evidence-informed treatment plans, exercises, stretches, and practical tools with the conversations and strategies that support meaningful, sustainable change.
Teaching, learning, and sharing skills
Alongside clinical work, teaching has become another important part of my professional life. I have had the privilege of travelling to China to teach clinicians how to bring skills such as Pilates into their rehabilitation programmes. I have also created training and courses for the APPI Health Group, including Pilates for endometriosis and pre- and postnatal Pilates.
I also developed my own training, The Coaching Clinician, to help other healthcare professionals implement health coaching strategies within their own clinical practice. Teaching always brings me back to learning. Each course, each conversation, and each group of clinicians has challenged me to think more clearly, travel further in my understanding, and refine how we help people change.
A deeper path into pain
At the same time, I noticed a distinct increase in the number of patients seeking help for endometriosis. This drew me further into the world of persistent pain and pelvic pain, and into a period of deeper learning, adaptation, and clinical exploration as I reshaped my practice to better support people navigating life-impacting symptoms.
In 2023, while attending the World Congress in Edinburgh, I had the pleasure of meeting pain specialists whose work inspired me further. I was featured on Michelle Lyons’ Celebrate Muliebrity podcast and have worked alongside Gilly Bond and Virginia Rivers Bulkeley within the Pelvic Pain Network as one of their clinicians.
This inspiring community has strengthened my curiosity about how we serve and treat people with persistent pain more effectively, more compassionately, and with a deeper understanding of the whole person. It has reminded me that the best clinical work often begins with a question — and with the humility to keep asking better ones.
The next first step
And now, I find myself taking another first step. Stepping into business ownership. Stepping into sole practice. Stepping into postgraduate study. These are new directions, but they are not separate from what has come before. They are built on every hospital ward, every community visit, every treatment room, every online consultation, every patient story, every course, every conversation, and every moment of uncertainty that asked me to keep learning and keep moving forward.
We often imagine a path as something clear and visible ahead of us. In my experience, the path is more often realised when we look back. Each first step can feel like a stride into the unknown, but over time those steps gather meaning. They become a direction. They become a purpose. They become the work we are here to do.
So this is my next first step. I am bringing together nearly two decades of physiotherapy, my experience across the NHS and private practice, my passion for pelvic health, persistent pain, movement rehabilitation, education, and health coaching, and my belief that people deserve care that sees the whole of them.
I am excited to see where this path leads next — I’m ready to meet it with curiosity, courage, and a sense of adventure. Let’s go!