Hi Kiwi Fizio,

Its great that you are wanting to move into such a great field of work. Im a 4th year graduate (Otago) and looking for a job and i will answer your questions.

1) Personally, Im a people person. I love helping people, and specifically in physio, I love empowering people to improve their health and functional abilities, whether it be for sports or just being able to walk for 20 mins etc. At school I was strong in science and PE, therefore it was a natural progression.

2) Finding jobs. Currently it is difficult with the ACC changes. It has put a spanner in the works for graduates as practices aren't hiring, however, the market will level out soon and it will be fine. You will not find it hard to get work, trust me, its health, people are always getting injured

3) Overseas, Aussie and UK (i think) is easy (transferable). Canada, you need to sit exams, america is the hardest, each state has different processes. They all require sitting exams. I am currently considering aussie, depends on what happens in NZ.

4) Best = helping people, being part of a professional team.
Worst = annoying patients, some areas of physio are very prescriptive so get boring.

5) Key skills. Communication, interpersonal and team player skills are critical. Reasonable logical reasoning. Passion for people. Empathetic. Good listener. Reasonably good at science.

6) Yes you are always having to improve yourself. If you want to better yourself in your profession, post grad is v. important.

7) I see this profession having more of a frontline primary care in the future. This will involve physios ensuring the public are active and taking preventitive care model for their health. Its hard to say at this stage but there are other ways we may go but it will be around keeping people active.

8) Great achievement is getting my degree!

9) No spealization yet. I plan to go into musculo at some point but i like to keep it broad at the moment so i am seeing a range of pathologies and clincial presentations. Remeber physio is not all bout sports, there are a lot of cool areas to get into.

10) pay - if you want to make money, you are in the wrong profession. Starting for grad is 45-50K, increases as you get experience. If you owned a successful practice, you could earn over 100K

11) Ive done private as a student, it is good but personally i find the hospital is more fun partly because it is more of a team environment, you are not pressured for appoiutments and you see more cool stuff. Its all about personal pref really.

12) see above

13) What is better? depends what your interested in really. in your average pp you dont really change a lot, but in hospital for example you can re-teach someone to walk post stroke and have a significant impact on peoples lives.

Main thing is to go into your degree with an open mind and not think physio is all about sports and ankle sprains etc, cos there is such a huge amount of cool stuff out there to be invovlved in and its ever-expanding!

14) Probably need to be at least 5 years, but if you get a good share deal after a few then why not, depends on the circumstances.

Alright, hope that helps. Where you wanting to train? AUT or Otago (you know which one i think is better

Good luck

Chris