Pathway to PhD in Physiotherapy
PhD Candidate Melani Boyce tells the Australian Physiotherapy Association how and why she came to do a PhD in Physiotherapy.
Melani Boyce is about halfway through her PhD at the University of Technology Sydney under the supervision of Professor Arianne Verhagen, Head of Physiotherapy in the Graduate School of Health.
Melani has been a clinical physiotherapist for more than 20 years, working in neurology at Westmead Hospital, and in the early 2000s, she won a scholarship to work with a physiotherapist in France on the treatment of cervical dystonia, a painful neurological condition in which the neck muscles contract involuntarily, causing the head to twist or turn to one side or tilt forwards or backwards.
The stint in France led to a research project, which led to a master’s degree on dystonia. That was supposed to be the end of it, until Melani met Professor Lynley Bradnam, who, at the time, was Head of Physiotherapy in the Graduate School of Health and a researcher into dystonia.
Currently, Melani is doing her PhD part-time and is still working two days a week as a senior clinical specialist in the neurology outpatient clinic at Westmead.
Melani brings a clinical angle to her PhD research, in contrast to doing lab-based studies. For her, the clinical perspective is all-important.
“I wanted to do something more clinically relevant, something other physios could reproduce in their practice,” she says.
“I hope to finish the PhD and use the knowledge in the clinical work I’m doing with these patients; that’s the whole point for me.”
Read the full article here: The who, how and why of a PhD via Australian Physiotherapy Association [opens external site]
