Why I Built the Men’s Health Physiotherapy Courses I Wish Had Existed
- Aug 12
- 6 min read
Why I’m so passionate about education, supporting others & why I built the courses I wish had existed - Men’s Health Physiotherapy Course
There is a moment in every clinician's career when they realise that passion alone is not enough! That the fire you feel for a specialism, the hours you spend reading, researching, traveling to conferences, piecing together fragments of knowledge from wherever you can find them, deserves better than the scrappy, self-directed journey it so often becomes.
For me, that moment came somewhere in the middle of building one of the several pelvic health service over the past 16 years and doing this, almost entirely on my own.
I want to be honest about that experience, because I think honesty is the only thing that actually moves a profession forward.
The Path Nobody Maps For You
When I began developing my pelvic health services, I was motivated, I was driven, and I was, frankly, often lost. All services had never existed where I had worked, the vision was within my own head and constantly having to reinforce the importance of the services and development to colleagues, managers and boards was exhausting. It was tough constantly trying to prove why best practice, high quality training and cutting edge developments in service as well as high patient care and satisfaction was so important- especially in an area quite honestly many did not understand and went against the grain on traditional physiotherapy as many departments knew it.
It was not that the clinical need wasn't clear, it absolutely was. People with pelvic floor dysfunction, post-prostatectomy incontinence, incontinence, prolapse, chronic pelvic pain, bowel dysfunction, and sexual health concerns are sitting in urology, gynaecology, colorectal, oncology waiting rooms, GP surgeries and at home quietly suffering, often for years, often without ever being told that physiotherapy can help them. The need was never in question.
What was missing was a roadmap.
Mentorship was hard to find.
I meet some AMAZING Pelvic Health Physiotherapist along my journey who were and are still my saving grace or my now TRIBE.
More often than not however, I was meet with discouragement, or questions in how could I possibly know what I wanted to specialise in an area so early, or refusals for study leave for courses or events that weren’t seen as useful or beneficial. Even with trying to shadow top specialist at times I was still meet with "you know this is a really hard area to work in"or "you need to nearly be an enrapture to work in it to make your own job." Again more negativity and discouragement!
Anyone that knows me knows you definitely don’t tell me I can’t do something as I will prove it wrong 100 times over!
Supervision in a meaningful, clinical sense was almost impossible to access and also was impossible for managers to see the value in funding. I sought out every course I could, I contacted colleagues abroad, I leaned on peers who were equally in the dark. We were all figuring it out together, which is both the beauty and the problem of being at the frontier of a specialism.
The particular gap I felt most acutely was in sexual rehabilitation. This is an area where men and women are profoundly underserved, where the clinical impact of good specialist Pelvic Health physiotherapy input is enormous, and where clinicians are most likely to feel under-supported, uncertain and, frankly, anxious about developing their skills. The discomfort is understandable. But it cannot be allowed to become a barrier to patient care. Its is also a integral part of bowel and bladder function and assessment with so my clinicians were shying away from addressing this confused me as it meant incomplete assessment and care at times with quality of life not maximised!
Standardisation: The Word That Changes Everything
One of the most consistent things I heard from colleagues over the years was some version of this: "I want to do this work, but I don't feel confident enough."
And when I dug into why, the answer was almost never a lack of ability or commitment. It was a lack of standardisation.
When there is no clear framework or pathway for what pelvic health physiotherapy should look like, when there is no structure guiding clinicians from foundation to advanced practice, the result is that perfectly capable, passionate therapists remain on the edges of the specialism, uncertain whether what they are doing is good enough, unsure how to progress, and without anyone to turn to when things get complex. This is particularly seen I have noted in the transition from wonderful therapist working in women’s pelvic health to treating male pelvic health.
That uncertainty costs patients. It limits access. It undermines the quality of care that people, many of whom are paying privately and trusting a clinician to have the skills they say they have, deserve to receive.
Patients have a right to know that when they walk into a room and lie on a treatment plinth, the person working with them has been trained to a standard. Not just self-taught through a patchwork of courses and goodwill or by doing a short 2 day course and claiming to have the skills to support , but genuinely, rigorously prepared with a network to reach out to to support if they don’t have the answer.
Why I Refuse to Gatekeep
I want to be direct about something: I did not build courses to protect a niche or establish an elite. I built them because gatekeeping knowledge in a specialism where patient need is enormous is something I find professionally and personally unacceptable.
I love teaching and sharing knowledge and find the value of information sharing and awareness the most powerful tool we possess.
This is why I have designed a Level 1 in Men's Health Physiotherapy.
I have some amazing colleagues in Ireland teaching in the areas of urinary incontinence, prolapse, bowel and female sexual pain as well as paediatric pelvic health that can all stand over the quality and content of their courses so that we know attendees have received high-quality training. But we have a gap for Men’s Health training in Ireland and suitable Pelvic Health Physiotherapists uncertain and lacking confidence and support to step into the space for these patients.
The more clinicians who are skilled, confident and supported in men's pelvic health, the more patients who get access to good care. It is that simple.
Level 1 Men’s Health Physiotherapy
GW Pelvic Health's Level 1 Men's Health course exists to give clinicians a robust, structured foundation: the anatomy, the assessment, the clinical reasoning, the communication skills to work with male patients in a way that is both clinically excellent and deeply human.
Level 2 Advancing Practice in Men’s Health
The Level 2 Advancing Practice in Men's Health course exists for those who are already well established working in the area and who are ready to go further. Specifically, to go further into sexual rehabilitation. This is where I see some of the greatest unmet need, and some of the greatest hesitancy. My goal is to replace that hesitancy with competence, with framework, and with a community of practice around it.
The Peer Support Problem
Something I have come to believe deeply is that clinical skill, on its own, is not sufficient. What clinicians also need, particularly in a specialism as nuanced and emotionally complex as pelvic health and sexual rehabilitation, is peer support, supervision, and mentorship.
We need to be able to pick up the phone and talk through a difficult case. We need to debrief after emotionally heavy consultations. We need colleagues who understand the specificity of what we are doing, who can challenge our thinking and affirm our instincts in equal measure.
Building that kind of community is as central to what GW Pelvic Health's education is about as any clinical content. I want the people who come through these courses to leave not just with skills, but with a network. With people they can call. With a professional home.
Future-Proofing a Profession
Pelvic health physiotherapy has come a long way in a short time. I am forever thankful to the Pelvic Health physiotherapists who were promoting and paving the way for the specialty’s long before I arrived.
It has gone from being a quiet specialism discussed mainly in relation to women's health and postnatal care, to a recognised, respected, rapidly expanding field.
That growth is exciting. It also carries responsibility.
If we do not invest in education, standardisation, mentorship and quality assurance now, we risk a profession where the gap between the best and the least consistent practice widens rather than closes. Where patients, who are often vulnerable, often in pain, often carrying significant shame around their symptoms, cannot reliably expect a consistent standard of care.
I am not willing to watch that happen. Not in Ireland, not anywhere.
The courses GW Pelvic Health is launching are my contribution to making sure it does not.
They are born out of my own hard experience, out of the gaps I fell into and had to climb out of alone, and out of a sincere desire to make that journey easier, more structured, and less lonely for every clinician who comes after me.
You deserve support. You deserve to be encouraged and championed. Your patients deserve it more.
Let's build this together.
If you are an experienced pelvic health physiotherapist looking to develop your skills in men’s health, GW Pelvic Health’s Level 1 Men’s Health Physiotherapy course provides a structured, practical foundation for working with male patients.
View the course and book your place.
Men’s Health Physiotherapy Level 1 course
my journey in pelvic health physiotherapy
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