Lisa and I see lots of Male pelvic health patients in our  Birmingham clinic, men with pelvic pain, athletic pelvic dysfunction, colorectal patients and also men post prostate surgery for urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction. We also work with the world’s leading Men’s Health tutors to deliver world class post graduate training courses in Men’s Health. In October we welcome Dr Ruth Jones and Mr Bill Taylor to deliver their male pelvic pain course.

Who can attend?

As someone who has attended this course I feel passionate about letting as many physios and clinicians as possible know how career transforming it is. We have worked hard to get Male Physios and other clinicians attending , we welcome Physios who don’t have experience of pelvic health or women’s health physiotherapy and prior anorectal experience isn’t necessary. On our men’s health course we get musculoskeletal and sports physios working brilliantly with experienced women’s health physios. We have removed the barriers and everyone is welcome as there are lots of men out there desperate to find a Men’s health physio and we don’t have enough.

Perceptions about Men’s Health Physiotherapy!

Very few  Men’s Health ( MH)  physio courses exist and two misperceptions I used to have  which are possibly shared by a lot of PTs were that 1. MH Physio related primarily to faecal incontinence and 2. You could only do MH physio if you were a very experienced WH Physio. Meeting Jo Millios several years ago on twitter  was a turning point as here was a MH Physio clinician doing a PhD in prostatectomy patients. Jo had over 10 years’ experience in MH Physio and had seen several thousand Prostatectomy patients but had never specialised in WH. Perhaps it WAS possible for an MSk Physio to do MH.

Review of Men’s Health Course 2015: What happened!

Approx. 24 of us attended Dr Ruth Jones and Bill Taylor’s Male Pelvic Pain course in Southampton in mid-November 2015. Physios from UK, Ireland, Wales, Cyprus, Iceland, Israel and Scotland attended. There were also 5 male physios who all had an MSk / sports background.

During the introduction to the course and the topic of male pelvic dysfunction emphasis was also put on the NIH chronic prostatitis symptom index and how it can be used to determine if there may be an underlying pelvic condition.

http://www.prostatitis.org/symptomindex.html

The morning session was focused on male pelvic anatomy and in particular the pelvic floor musculature but also their connections to the deep hip musculature.  Once we got to know each other over a coffee and biscuit we moved into the practical session on rectal examination. Ruth, Bill and Cameron (Angus) were all very skilled at teaching this but what really was a fantastic opportunity was to develop some confidence and skill at this with the help of the brilliant women’s health physios on the course. It was really like having a room full of highly skilled tutors. One main reflection on this session was that MSk physios have very good communication, rapport and palpation skills which are transferable to MH Physio. After doing the assessment once it was also interesting how everyone was happy to move around and practice with people at will irrespective of gender, experience or specialism. This is something I hadn’t expected. I have always had immense respect for WH physios and I do feel it’s the most specialised area of practice and working with them so closely was a real honour which was also shared by my other male colleagues.

The section on Pelvic pain looked at Pelvic Girdle pain but had a real focus on Chronic Pelvic Pain. This session was well supported by the evidence on incidence (surprisingly very high in both males and females), reliability and validity of tests, role of rehabilitation for CPP. Ruth and Bill see a lot of complex pelvic pain clients and it was great for them to be able pepper their presentations with real clinical examples. Of particular interest were the sports related hip, groin and pelvic presentations that responded to pelvic floor treatment.

The trigger point practical allowed us an-other opportunity to practice the new skill of rectal examination and to develop this into trigger point examination. The ability of Ruth and Bill to locate specific internal structures was impressive. Day 1 was exhilarating, fascinating but very challenging in a good way. That evening we recorded the MACP Podcast on Men’s Health Physiotherapy which is one of the 1st podcasts on this area of practice.

https://macpweb.org/home/index.php?p=525

Following that we had a fun night socialising in Southampton and finding out what people did both in their own work and outside of work.

What happened on Day 2?

Day 2 started early with a session on differential diagnosis in pelvic pain and also identifying red flags. It also prompted some great discussion on the significant role of behavioural, cognitive and emotional factors in CPP. The practical session on the morning of day 2 was one that was familiar to the MSk gang. Focusing on Lumbar spine, pelvis and SIJ movement dysfunction, pain provocation and motor control came as both reassuring and somewhat surprising. Ruth emphasised the role of MSk skills in treating these patients and conditions it only really hit home when we covered them on the course. Hopefully during this session some of the WH Physios felt that the MSk guys could give something back.

There are few tutors on courses that do “live patient” assessments and it was another real highlight of the course to see Bill assess a male patient with chronic Pelvic symptoms relating to sport and exercise.  Seeing the musculoskeletal and pelvic floor components weaved together in both the subjective and objective sections really pulled these areas together. It gave it real clinical context. Day 2 finished with another detailed theory and practical session on male sexual dysfunction.

World class tutors in Bill Taylor and Dr Ruth Jones, a wonderful group of international physios and two brilliant but challenging days left everyone exhilarated , tired but very excited about my future Physiotherapy direction and Men’s Health Physiotherapy. There are few courses that are career shifting but this was definitely one.

What has happened post course. Several of the course participants including Mr Adrian Wagstaff ( Reading UK) Eoin O Connaire ( Galway Ireland ) Katrina Wade ( Colchester, UK ) Toppa ( Iceland ) Daniella Serfaty ( Tel Aviv, Israel ) and many others have all built successful Male Pelvic Health Physio Clinics . There are few courses that have career and business impart but this is one of them.

Details here and almost fully booked