Jeremy Hunt PAA Treasurer, with Dipa Karmakar and team, India
I am sitting in the cafeteria at the VM Salgoacar Hospital in Goa, India writing this update of my trip. Early in 2018 I was approached by a friend with an invitation to go to India and help set up a rehabilitation facility in Goa, provide continuing education for the physiotherapists in Goa and Mumbai and to help chaperone the Australian Osteopathic students over here on placement with their tutors.
I have spent the past week in Goa, observing the Australian Osteopath students provide treatment for the locals, and I have been lucky and privileged enough to also offer some of my advice into their ‘at home’ exercise programs. My exercise selection has been mainly pre-pilates exercises and physiotherapy exercises. I have just started to observe and co-treat with one particular physiotherapist who looks after a 120 bed hospital on her own!! I have had some discussion with her regarding exercises to choose for her patients and shown her some variations of exercises she is already teaching.
The previous week I was in Mumbai observing and helping out the physiotherapists at Mumbai SportsMed. This is a fantastic clinic that has a few orthopaedic surgeons, including the charismatic Dr Ananat Joshi (one of the leading knee surgeons in the world), a team of five physiotherapists, two osteopaths and a handful of osteopathic students on placement from Australia. The physiotherapists are mainly focused on rehabilitating knees post surgery and they see a few other musculoskeletal conditions as well. I was able to help provide greater depth of exercises and training of the deeper muscular structures, especially the deep lateral rotators of the hip.
At Sportsmed, I also led the physios and osteos through a basic level mat class and discussed Joseph’s principles and philosophy behind his exercises. I had the privilege to work with Dipa Karmakar, who is India’s top gymnast and who underwent an ACL reconstruction last year. I was able to provide her with some deep glute work and foot strengthening exercises and took her through an intermediate level mat class (though she managed a few advanced exercises very well too).
In Mumbai, there is only a small handful of people teaching Pilates and just two studios that we could find – this is incredible as the city of Mumbai has a population of more than the whole of Australia! Mumbai is an amazing city, the thing I noticed most is how happy and friendly everyone is, there is such a sense of community and sharing food is part of the daily routine. Mumbai is such a fast paced city and every square meter is jam packed with people, scooters, flowers, altars, temples and shops; their traffic is even more hectic and packed than Sydney traffic. Here in Goa, there is a different vibe – it is a seaside holiday city. The beaches are beautiful and the seafood is some of the best I have had in my life. One night last week, I was lucky enough to have my 30th birthday dinner with likeminded osteopath friends at a restaurant on Bogmallo Beach called Joets, which does delicious local food. Afterwards I enjoyed a swim in the warm ocean and watched the bioluminescent shrimp swimming around like living glitter. It is a memory I am going to cherish for the rest of my life.
Jeremy Hunt
PAA Treasurer
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