Brandon tells us about his new teaching role, a partnership between UBC and Camosun College
How did you get into mentoring and teaching?
In September 2024, I started a Master’s program at Western University in London, Ontario: Clinical Science in Comprehensive Musculoskeletal Therapy (MCISc). It’s a mouthful! The program is unique from a physio perspective because it includes clinical reasoning and case studies of different musculoskeletal conditions. It’s dedicated to physios working in private practice.
When I graduated, I had the option to apply for a fellowship known as “FCAMPT,” or “Fellows of the Canadian Academy of Manipulative Physiotherapy.” This allowed me to take on a mentorship role at Arbutus, where I work with new physios. In the past year, in addition to taking on this role, I also created a mentorship program! Essentially, new physios meet with me or another physio to talk about cases and review hands-on techniques and skills.
But I’ve always wanted to become a teacher. A few years ago, two other physios and I at Arbutus – Ashley Scopick and Lena Walther – started teaching nurse practitioners at the University of Victoria. This allowed me to discover more teaching opportunities. Recently, I applied to become a clinical instructor for the “island cohort” of physio students at UBC Vancouver. The course runs from September to April and is organized through Camosun College, a satellite school of UBC.
What’s the scope of this teaching role?
The students are here in Victoria for their course. They’ll complete most of the theoretical coursework remotely via Zoom, though they also have in-person lectures at the main campus in Victoria. I will be working on their hands-on practical skills in person. Depending on the curriculum, we’ll focus on different clinical skills. There are only 40 students, so they’ll get lots of one-on-one time. What will be interesting is that the cohort is a mix of 20 first-year and 20 second-year students.
What’s interesting about having a mix of different students?
First-year students haven’t really been out in the field much, so when teaching, the goal is to get them to understand clinical patterns. If someone comes into the clinic with tennis elbow, for example, a first-year student’s goal would be to observe the symptoms and try to figure out what could be causing the pain: is it from repetition, a fall, or something else?
Second-year students have had some clinical practice, and they’ve been able to observe conditions in real time. Now it’s time to build on that experience. To follow the tennis elbow example, they would know what it is and how to treat it. Next, they’ll layer on variables. Is the tendon pain referring up from the neck or cervical spine, or somewhere else? This is when they start widening the scope to see the bigger picture of how a condition can be influenced by other areas of the body.
What are you most looking forward to about this course?
I feel like part of the challenge with this new course will be figuring out how to present the information in a way that works for the students. For me personally, the people I learned the most from were clinical instructors, because they were out in the field and could speak to their actual experience. It was more tangible. In my Master’s program, a lot of the work was built around case studies. Instead of the information being vague, we’d be presented with a real (anonymous) person’s conditions. It made us think more broadly. I hope to incorporate this style of content and learning into my course.
