National Physiotherapy Month 2025 – Member Testimonials
We asked CPA members across Canada to share what long-term impact they hoped to leave throughout their career. This is what you had to say.
Throughout the month of May, the CPA will spotlight the profession through a series of diverse testimonials and related professional resources, with more being added each week. Make sure to follow the CPA on social media to find out when new testimonials are live!
Join the NPM celebration by USING THE HASHTAG #NPM2025 on your posts, and TAGGING the CPA when sharing the toolkit materials and resources!
Thank you to our sponsor for NPM 2025 — BMS Canada
Annie Bélanger, Fellow T.Phys.
As a physiotherapy technologist and physiotherapy professional, I see our role as extending well beyond passive treatment or the simple application of techniques. We are mentors in functional health—guides who support patients in developing their self-management skills. This involves conveying clear knowledge (the what, the why, the how), while also providing real opportunities to put this knowledge into practice in daily life. It’s this combination—knowledge, purpose, and experience—that makes lasting changes possible.
My long-term goal is to contribute to a more personalized approach to physiotherapy, based on identifying modifiable factors unique to each individual. I want to promote a faster, more structured way of recognizing these prognostic indicators in patients with musculoskeletal disorders, in order to tailor care plans to clinical complexity and support effective intra- and interdisciplinary collaboration. My research-based master’s program is fully aligned with this vision.
By helping each patient become an active participant in their own health, we contribute to building the foundations of a more sustainable healthcare system—one that values individual capacity, autonomy, and accountability.
Melissa Lemarbre, Phys. T
I want my patients to understand that we are not here to heal them, but rather to support them in the healing process—that I am here to provide them with the tools they need.
I moved to Quebec’s Côte-Nord region in 2022 and took over ownership of the local clinic in 2023. The physiotherapist has since retired and we no longer have a physiotherapist on site. I’ve been able to connect with local physicians to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and they provide us with valuable support in managing patient care. We also partner with physiotherapists in Montréal and Québec City via videoconference, who assist us in caring for patients who either don’t have a prescription or meet the criteria for treatment by a physiotherapy technologist. This has allowed us to continue offering physiotherapy services to residents of the Sept-Rivières region. In June 2025, we will be opening a second location to improve access to care for people who are unable to travel to another city for treatment.
I have also joined the board of directors of Quebec’s physiotherapy association (APQ) as an administrator to help promote the profession and raise awareness of the challenges we face in remote regions.
Jennifer O’Neil, PT, PhD
My goal is to improve access to high-quality physiotherapy care and services. This means ensuring access to services in one’s preferred language, having options for offering services so that they are adapted to each person’s needs and realities, recognizing the importance of prevention and community-based physiotherapy services, and continuing to support a partnership approach with the person and centered on their fundamental needs and unique context.
Terry Wilson
I have had the opportunity to work abroad in international contexts. In this work, I support the rehabilitation systems of the country, as well as the national physiotherapists. The Canadian Red Cross supported my mission to Ukraine in 2024.
In Ukraine, the rehabilitation system focuses primarily on hospital care. The long term impact of my work there was to support the Ukrainian Red Cross Society to develop a physiotherapy program to offer a continuum of care including rehabilitation in patient’s homes. The other focus was to provide learning and capacity building for the Ukrainian physiotherapists hired by the Ukrainian Red Cross Society for this project. Finally, my long term impact was to support the development of physiotherapy as a profession in Ukraine.
Arthur Woznowski-Vu, PT, PhD, Cert. PRT, Cert. MDT
As a physiotherapist with a PhD and extensive training in chronic pain, my aim is to be an evidence-based expert and leader in the non-pharmacological treatment of chronic pain and the rehabilitation of pain-related disability. Through the private practice I founded in Montreal—”La Clinique de Réadaptation pour Douleur Chronique | The Chronic Pain Rehab Clinic”—I strive to set an example of excellence in this field. I am also committed to helping physiotherapy professionals enhance their expertise in chronic pain management, as I believe that greater proficiency in this area benefits not only individual physiotherapists and the patients they treat but also strengthens the profession as a whole.
Chronic pain is the leading cause of disability, which makes it particularly important for physiotherapists to excel in this field given their role as rehabilitation professionals. Furthermore, in a healthcare system often characterized by an overreliance on medication and invasive procedures for pain relief, non-pharmacological pain treatment is an essential alternative, and physiotherapists should be the first to come to mind as providers of such care.
As a clinician, educator, researcher, leader, and advocate, I have worked to demonstrate the value of physiotherapists in chronic pain care and to foster confidence among stakeholders—including healthcare professionals, policymakers, and patients—that physiotherapists should lead in this domain. This is the long-term impact I strive to achieve throughout my career.