HELP!Any foreign trained physio's here??

[caidee]

Hi all!

I am a foreign trained physio who is looking into getting registered in Australia. Anyone here who could guide me through the process and can give me review tips for the writen test? Thanks so much!

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[persaud]

I recently registered in Oz. Guiding you through the process will depend on where you trained and what your primary qualification is. Please advise.

[emmi]

Hi there, I have just finished the procedure for recognition in Australia, it took me two years. You can have info, study material and chats with all the colleagues involved in this procedure from all over the world.

Go to [email protected]

Aapta stands for Australian alliance of physiotherapists trained abroad. It was born because of a need for us to form a group of protest against this procedure which is highly unfair.

I personally lead the group, I am in touch with around 200 physios in the condition of trying to pass the process or just gone through. We are a strong association that will be officially instituted soon.

There is a big story about this procedure. It has been on the newspapers and in Parliament. We are pushing to have changes of the system: the exams are set in a way that is impossible to pass and the cost is very high.

To know all the story you can visit the Australian Parliament site of the Committee of migration for skills recognition at http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committe...ubs/sub105.pdf
That's my report to them before my public hearing.

Good luck.
Emanuela Canini
Italian Physiotherapist
Perth - Western Australia

[physiobob]

Hi there, I have just finished the procedure for recognition in Australia, it took me two years. You can have info, study material and chats with all the colleagues involved in this procedure from all over the world.

Go to [email protected]

Your Go To link is an email address, not a website? It would be great if you could post some of the information from your action group on this forum. This will certainly give you group a much broader exposure and more support. We will even send something about it on our weekly eNews if it is well intentioned

[emmi]

Hi there,

am I talking to the administrator? First of all my compliments for such a great website. It's because of this website that I could find my job/sponsor in Australia. I'm gonna start soon to work.

What type of info would you like me to provide? There are so many! Also, I'm waiting for tomorrow as the written exam results will be out for the candidates that tried last September. This is the first exam done with the help of this group. We hope to have given enough guidelines to allow these candidates to be successful.

Emanuela Canini
P.S. And yes, that was an email address, sorry, not a website. We'll have one when the official association will be instituted.

[bassemd2002]

dear Emanuela Canini

thank you for these information you provided.

i'm %100 agree with you ,the ACOPRA make it difficulte to all qualified overseas physical therapist to be registred physiotheapist in australia.

i strted my dream in early 2002 to be regestred physiotherapist in australia.

at that time the process contains three exames so i found that it's imposble to work in australia as a phsyiotherapist because it's very difficult,veru expensive & the time is the main enamy & what kind of visa i need.

then i waited till june 2004 i found that university of western australia offred a master degree to overseas physiotherapist so after carefull reading the university web site i contacted theme the offred me an offer which is differ from what i read on the web site.

australia is a land with lack of water & high temprtuer,& i don't know why they put these hard requlations because it's not the land of paradaes.

i gurantee that the australia will allways be shortage of phsyiotherapist there & it's only for any student compleat his BSC OF PHYSICAL THERAPY at any australian university.

further more the NEW ZEALAND gose on the same line of australia & there is a treaty between theme to allow new zeland physiotherapist to work in australia & vic vrsa.

australia & new zeland are colsed countries they don't need any immigrants they sale the immigration dream to miliones of people so all of them pay money ,do you know how much they earn each year & there econamy progress from poorly skilled immigrant who beleve than australia & new zeland is an open countries for immigration.

these countries are open only for :

1- holiday maker.
2- retirments.
3- investors

look now in the world,the phsyiotherapy jobs ade say that the need a phsyiotherapist who hold bsc from australia,new zeland,uk,canada,south africa & usa.

it's ok what about the all qulified overseas physiotherapist from the rest of the world countries ,what can the do for there living.

these six countries do many restrictions to allow any phsyitherapist from for example ( italy,germany,spain,egypt & ukraine ) to find a jobs overseas.

this stuation is very bad & let aske our selves is the universities in these above six countries can graduated enugh qualified phsyitherapist to help there countries with the massive shortage.

in 2020 the shortag of phsyiotherapist will be very high arround the world espically in above six countries because the phsyiotherapy profission need person has many skills to work like:

1- self indepentant
2- strong( body bulit)
3- costumer organization
4- sens of hummar
5- good acadimic ( medical back ground)
6- VERY VERY PATIENT.


this is my opinion.

for example in egypt to be a phsyical therapist you must compleat five years education to be a qalified phsyical therapist.

these five years is not a trip ,it's very hard & need hard work to pass the exames& get the clinical experiance.

finally thank you for your co-operation in this matter.

by the way MY ACADEMIC IELTS IS OVER ALL 6

thank you.

bast regards,
bassem

note: if you need to reply please send to bassem&rehabtime.com

[physiobob]

What type of info would you like me to provide? There are so many! Also, I'm waiting for tomorrow as the written exam results will be out for the candidates that tried last September. This is the first exam done with the help of this group. We hope to have given enough guidelines to allow these candidates to be successful.

It would be great firstly to hear what you guys have found out and what has really been a challenge. The good and the bad and any solutions you have come up with. We have a study group on the site working for USA exams and this is well supported outside of this site as well.

If you could perhaps share a topic or two that have really provoked good dicussion and input from your members. Then we can perhaps provide more input from the members and reader of this site. We have a large number of Australian's (about 7000) that read the weekly eNews.

On a more serious note and being a graduate from Australia (now living and practising in London) I would like to say that Physiotherapy is a 4 year degree course that is perhaps the most sort after degree in the country. You must be in the top 2-3% academically in the country to gain a place to study it and the drop our rate is high and the first year failure rate is also such that in my year we lost about 25% between the start and finish of the course. The skills taught are excellent and the amount of work and syllabus is extensive. This is why Aussie physio's are so well reguarded overseas and they can get a job just about anywhere. This is not to say that other countries don't provide individuals with similar abilities but more that the level and extensiveness of training does not match that in Australia. This is one reason why the exams are considered by some to be difficult. To a new graduate from Australia they are actually not that difficult but unfortunately to maintain the level of skill and expertise within the country they do have to make the exams at the same level as that of the existing graduates. That said there are always things that registration boards do to just make it more difficult, to discourage and let's face it, to limit the amount of foreign trained workers to continue to provide jobs for their own candidates. This is a very real situation in the UK right now. Even the poor Aussies are not finding jobs over here right now.

As a community forum we would love to try to assist where possible, to provide some local insight where possible, to hear about others solutions but most of all to help us all work in the capacity we have been trained and hopefully in the part of the world we feel comfortable. I look forward to hearing more from your group and we wish you guys the best in the up coming exam results.

[emmi]

Hi,

thank you for your comments and for this opportunity to open the web community for us. Glad to hear your are Australian trained, so I believe you can understand better.

The reason why the written exam to be recognised is so difficult is because it doesn't reflect the real standard of the Australian Universities. I had a journalist going around Perth, testing physiotherapists with some of the question samples provided by the exam organisation Acopra, now Australian Physiotherapy Council, which are far more simple than the real test we have to sit. The journalist wrote an article on the Sunday Times saying those physios had no idea about the possible answers.

The questions are tricky, so they are testing more our ability to solve puzzles than our knowledge. The questions'format is hard to understand even by English mother tongue candidates, including Australians trained overseas.

The questions are not always related to daily practice. This was in the last exam I have done (my third attempt): an old man goes out in the garden in dark hours, he stumbles on a bicycle, falls and gets a fracture of the femur. Question: what's the difference in the anatomy-physiology in the eye of an aged and a young person in the adjustment of the focus.

Why should I know it? How important is this for me as a physio for a correct and safe practice? And this is just an example. At that stage how can you prepare your exam, what do you have to study, where are the guidelines you have to follow?

They say this is the level new graduates have. Well, I have eight years of work experience in Italy, heaps of continuing education and a Master of Sports Physio in Australia. Can my standard be compromised if I can't answer that question?

In these three years I have been living in Perth, I have seen many physios working. In the hospitals they do administration job, writing heaps of notes and reports. In the private practices they use lots of electrotherapy because this allows them to squeeze lots of patients at the same time.

Luckily, I have met also great physios here and I reckon that in every country there are good and bad professionals. That's why it's not possible to assess someone's knowledge with the current system. Luck will decide if you pass or not.

There are very good schools in Europe for example. I can tell you that many European techniques are unknown here, especially French. I can tell you that Australian Universities don't teach how to rehab a facial paresis (which is good for me, I'll have heaps of clients).

And anyway, there are so many things not quite right in all this: the high fees to pay to cover the minimum cost of a charitable organisation Acopra that in 2005 got 400,000$ from overseas physios attempting the exams;the fact that overseas qualifications are accepted to attend postgrad Masters but not to work, because otherwise the Universities would cancel their courses as they are 95% attended by overseas students who pay 30% more fee; the fact that I can't have the exam back to see my mistakes and the poor feedback because the questions are "intellectual property";and more interesting stuff that you can find in my report to the Parliament at the link I have posted in my first message on this website.

The only exam we had back was the September 05, because of the Parliament pressure. But I had to sign a disclaimer so I can't show it to anyone unless for study purpose with the candidates.

Personally I have spent nearly 100,000$Au, three years of my life and I've been close to a nervous breakdown. Some people got serious problems (depression, divorces...). But after all this is what modern democracy produces all over the world, Italy included. Of course this is not the appropriate site to talk about politics, so let's stick to the profession.

To start to work now the law says I have to give training to students at my workplace. Amazing, I was a dangerous professional till last month, now I can teach.

I'll be very grateful if our group could have a space in this website. Our purpose is to give info, study material, contact details, advice and psychological support to whoever is interested in facing the procedure, with the intent to save people from the un-necessary crap we went through because of poor information.

I'll propose the issue to the group and I'll let you know as soon as I have some feedback. We always move all together and I prefer to inform all of them about what I do.

Thanks for your patience to read this long message and I hope you won't get any negativity from that, because I, we really aim to a change of the system in a positive way, so that it can be an advantage for overseas physios but also for the Australian community. Our messages won't be denigrating and won't attack anyone, I felt though that you had to be aware of some facts. We'll be very happy to help our colleagues.

Talk to you soon.
Emanuela

[schneider911]

dear Emanuela Canini

my is xxxxxxx and i am a physio from israel.

i have read the protocol of your meeting and your messages about the exam.

what you are doing is very brave and noble and thank you so much for your efforts. i am starting the process now and i sent the money for the exam ...

i will probably sit the march 07' exam. i got the reference list that acopra published and it's tons of books. i found some at my university's library and started to read a bit.

i would like to join your group and get some info about the exam...

so if you read this message please reply with an e-mail address...

thank you

xxxxxx

[emmi]

Hi Zvika,

glad to hear from you and that you wanna be part of the study group. I'll send you the invitation thorugh the yahoo group to your email address tomorrow. Once you have joined you can introduce yourself and download all the info in the file section (old exam papers, study material, etc).

If you know where you will sit the exam (in Australia), you can search for members in the same city and join the local study group, so you can actually catch up with the other candidates, or you can ask for info for settling in that city.

I hope for 2007 we'll have a proper website.

Looking forward to see you there.
Emanuela

[preethysel]

hello emmi,
my name is pradeepa. i live in australia. would like to appear for the sep 2007 exam. can u please help me out in joining the study group?

[angela1]

Hi Angela here, I will talk you through the whole process. I emmigrated from England 17 months ago to Australia. I sat the written exam in London in March 05 and the practical I did in Adelaide in October 05. We came to the Northern territory(Alice Springs to be exact) because they have a 'Health Practitioners act" which enables you to work as a physio for a year on a temporary registration. This meant that I could get a temporary visa and be in the right country to do the practical exam (which has to be done in Aus). My employer business sponsored me and I signed a contract for 2 years.

I think it was worth it all (expense and revision). I have a very rewarding job and a very appreciative employer!

Hope this helps

[oscar]

Hi Angela

Sorry to jump in here but can I ask where you sat the written exam before you left? Was the written/practical exam difficult?
Do you know if you need an amount of experience to go to OZ or if they would take new grads from the UK?

Thanks!

[angela1]

Hi Oscar,

They would take new grads I think. The written exam and practical were reasonable hard and expensive. You'll spend about 2000 pounds before you've done. It may be easier to apply to New Zealand (no exam required) and then Australia and New Zealand have an agrerement.
I did the written exam in London, March 05.

Speak to some recruitment agencies in New Zealand about the whole thing. I think I found out about the on 'seek.com.nz'.

[Rohini chava]

hello emmi,
my name is pradeepa. i live in australia. would like to appear for the sep 2007 exam. can u please help me out in joining the study group?

hi praddep,
im rohini.i too am planning to appear for exam in sep2007.if you are intrested for a group study pls do contact me on my mail [email protected]

[michez333]

Is it true that there are AU states that do not allow even limited registration for physiotherapists holding an AECOP Interim Certificate? I'm planning to undergo the supervised clinical practice to help me pass the Practical Exam. I've heard that the standard of living in AU is very high and thus very expensive. Is there a way to stay there during the supervised practice while on a tight budget? Help please. Many thanks.

[emmi]

Hi,

I'm not sure if you are talking about limited registration to work, or temporary registration to have a clinical placement in preparation for the clinical exam. So, I'll try to explain both.

Limited registration: you can work for one year under supervision even if you haven't passed Aecop process yet. This doesn't apply in WA and QLD.

Temporary registration: it is given after having passed the written exam and allows you to undertake a placement to practise in order to sit the clinical exam. You can't work with this type of registration. It applies to all the States.

Regarding the cost of living, it depends on what country you compare. I am from Italy and I can tell that Australia is terribly cheap for me. I live in Perth, which is still cheaper than Sydney and Melbourne.

While you are here you can work if you have an appropriate visa. In this case I wouldn't know what to say as I don't know your situation. But definitely people can support themselves even working as a waiter (which doesn't happen in my country for example).

If you are interested in joining Aapta study group to prepare your exams and to get more info by the colleagues involved in the process, let me know, I just need to have a yahoo email address to invite you to subscribe.

I hope this helps.
Emanuela

[quickfire1980]

hi,man ,can i in this group.
[email protected]
thank you



Quickfire1980
bachelor of medicine
master of physiotherapy

[RAHEMU]

hi this is hema.i'm preparing for ACOPRA WRITTEN EXAM.Can anybody please suggest the books for this exam.

[emmi]

Hi Hema,

in our study group (A A P T A) we have resources and study material. You can also ask for info to the group. Instructions to join the forum are on the website.

Emanuela

[rohitsawalkar.physio]

hi
Emanuela,

i would appreciate if u cd add me in the study group..
also onbe doubt if u cd saolve it for me..?

1. i plan to give my licensure exam in march 2010 so can i apply right now for credentials evaluation right now for written exam in 2010..

the reason cse i have got admission for a masters pg in unisa its of one yr so i wnt be able to give it in 2009 and as i am in my home country right now i can make the nessecary preparations is that possible..?

,ust say you are doing a wonder full job in this website hatts off to you..


rohit sawalkar

[rohitsawalkar.physio]

[email protected] my id

[emmi]

Hi Rohit,

the email address you provided is not working. Please provide another one and send it to [email protected] to join our study group.

As far as I know, I've never heard of anyone that applied so much in advance for Aecop process. You'd better check this with the Australian Physiotherapy Council.

I hope to see you soon in our forum.

Emanuela

[rohitsawalkar.physio]

hi,
thank you so much my id is
[email protected]

or [email protected]

though i have sent my id @ the above given yahoo id.

thanxx
rohit sawalkar

yup wish to c u dre too maam

[geste123]

hy emmanuela,


wats ur opinion about american n canadian physio boards? do thy do the same lke oz n nz boards? im actually plannin to take up eithr OZ or US exams..pls do reply..