Michelle Brace, musculoskeletal physiotherapist

Michelle Brace is a musculoskeletal physiotherapist, working with patients on our outpatients and orthopaedics wards.

‘My career started in a very different place – a stable. I loved working with the horses, and knew that caring for them was something I was passionate about, but one day I just felt like I needed a new challenge. That’s when I decided to apply for a band 2 therapy assistant position here at UHS. At the time, I hadn’t considered the way I wanted my career to progress; I just wanted to work in a new and exciting environment. Once I started working here, the support I received was incredible and I was inspired and encouraged to take my career to the next level by going off to study. If it wasn’t for the staff here and their belief in me, there’s no way I would have gone and done it.

‘Today, I am a band 6 musculoskeletal physiotherapist, where I rotate between outpatients and orthopaedics wards. Typically, my position includes taking handovers, helping organise the caseload for the day and prioritising which patients we’re handling. On the trauma ward, where I’m based, there’s huge variety in the patients I see. It might be a straightforward hip fracture, where a patient comes in who has fallen and needs rehabilitation to get home after an operation, or a more complex trauma patient with multiple injuries that need to be managed.

‘Working here at UHS can be challenging at times, but it’s also incredibly rewarding. One of my most rewarding roles was in palliative care. It was my first rotation after I qualified, and it was quite daunting, but the team were really supportive and it was incredibly rewarding to help those patients who were in the last stages of their lives achieve things they wanted to do.

‘Even in my current position, seeing some of the trauma patients improve is really worthwhile. Years ago, when I was still a therapy assistant, we had a polytrauma patient who I’ll never forget. He’d been in a bike accident and had multiple fractures, leaving him only able to use one of his arms to bear weight on. We saw him go through the whole journey, and seeing him at the end walking into the department - that’s the kind of thing that makes this job worth all the challenges.’

If you’re looking for a physiotherapy role at UHS, you can apply for our current vacancies here.