CATHEDRAL OSTEOPATHS' NEWSLETTER

2024 has been a busy year of many changes for us at Cathedral Osteopaths!

In February, the clinic offered a clinic placement opportunity to two students of Sports & Exercise Therapy at Leeds Beckett University in Leeds. We had a lot of interest and it took 2 days to complete the interviews. We found two lovely keen students and were able to provide them with up to 150 hours each of clinic experience starting in March.

The students spent their time here shadowing Eleanor, and on occasion, Vanessa, getting a sense of what clinic work is like. They also attended Ripon City Football Club with Eleanor as the clinic continues to sponsor the club by providing a weekly triage and massage service on their training night.

The student placement programme gave us great insight into the students, with a view to one of them joining the team to cover Eleanor’s maternity leave.

In March, we also were extremely lucky to welcome Jane Keogh to our team. She provides reception cover and support to the patients and practitioners at the clinic. It has been a little confusing and amusing, because our practice software is called Janeapp.  Vanessa has had many a conversation over the last four years with patients explaining that Janeapp is not a human being, and ironically, we now have Jane, who is a real person and making a difference to the day to day running of the clinic.

To help the students get some hands-on experience with real patients they offered massages for a charitable donation.  We chose the Jenny Ruth workshops and raised over £136 for this small local charity.

It was such a busy evening the only photo we took was before anyone arrived! It was made all the more enjoyable by a trip to Mario’s afterwards for Pizza!

 

In April, we ran our win a free massage a month for a year competition, which gained lots of interest and one lucky winner.

Vanessa also had the opportunity to spend the day with a consultant spinal surgeon at the Nuffield in Leeds, which was good to make connections with other health providers building a network for cross referral, to be able to give patients the best solution for their back conditions.

In May, we hosted an open evening to other clinics, providing a continuous professional development event for clinicians in the area on how to treat disc injuries, stenosis and sciatica with IDD therapy. We had interest from as far as Hull, Malton, York, Ripon and Harrogate and the Dales.

In the meantime, the demand for back pain appointments was increasing so we advertised a part-time associate position.  We were very fortunate to find Martin Keogh (no relation to Jane), who relocated from Scotland to join the team. Martin brings a lot of experience from private practice and NHS work, at home and abroad. He also offers appointments on a Saturday morning, extending the clinic’s availability.

 

One of our students Josh, officially joined the team at the end of July one week after graduating.

 

In July both Josh and Martin completed their training and qualified as IDD therapists.

 

 

Josh and Eleanor spent 2 weeks to complete a smooth patient handover after which Eleanor went on maternity leave.

We were all delighted when 10 days after going on maternity leave, Eleanor gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Freya who we have all met and love.

Vanessa is very excited that Freya has chosen Osteopathy as a career already!!

 

Always keen to explore new ways to help more patients, in September Vanessa attended a 2-day Shockwave Therapy conference in London. On the afternoon of the demo she volunteered to have some treatment on a hip problem she had been struggling with for nearly 2 years, and was so amazed at the results (in a Remmington Steele moment) ordered the latest model of the Swiss Doloclast Focused Shockwave machine.

We had to wait quite a few weeks for it to arrive in the UK and in November took delivery and completed our training.  It is a fantastic treatment option for patients struggling with chronic tendon problems, heel pain, osteoarthritis of the knee and frozen shoulder and that list is not exhaustive. There is also a great deal of supporting evidence for its use in treating these chronic conditions. We are already thrilled, along with our patients who have tried it, with the results. We cannot wait to see how many more people we can help with this new technology.  It’s very exciting.

In October, we donated a few raffle prizes for the Saint Wilfred’s banquet raffle including a free Sports Massage & Exercise therapy appointment worth £69.00.

We also continue to grow and thrive with our ‘Refer a Friend’ offering - you both get a £10 voucher each to go towards future treatments at the clinic.

And here we are about to head into December, so in a couple of weeks we are back off to Mario’s again for our well-earned Christmas meal.

The clinic remains open over the Christmas and New Year period only closing on Christmas Day, Boxing day and New Years day. If you are stuck for Christmas present ideas, we do have gift vouchers available to purchase at the clinic.

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and Healthy New Year. Thank you all very much for your continued support.