Zoe Peters

In Conversation with Zoe: Leadership, Clinical Placements, and Future Goals 

Join us for an insightful episode featuring the brilliant Zoe, a third-year physiotherapy student with a passion clinical practice. Zoe shares her journey through physiotherapy school, offering valuable advice on navigating clinical placements and building strong teamwork skills. She also discusses her experiences as a team captain, exploring how she's grown into her role and the impact she's had on her peers.

Beyond sharing her placement tips, Zoe opens up about her future plans, providing a glimpse into her aspirations as she prepares to graduate. Whether you're a physiotherapy student, an aspiring healthcare professional, or just curious about the journey through university, Zoe's story is sure to inspire and inform.

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[Seven Dark Lords - Glad Ghosts plays] Hello. Welcome back to It's Not Just Physio podcast with me, James Coughlan. This podcast is designed for listeners to get to know a wonderful staff. Also, some of our wonderful students here at the School of Health Sciences at Nottingham a little bit better. And I'm actually delighted to have Zoe with us today. Hello, Zoe. Hello. How you feeling about this is the first time you've been on a podcast? Yeah, it's the first time I've ever done anything like this. Hopefully you're not too nervous. You good? Yeah. We had Natalie on on before. Who had been on the podcast. So suddenly that put the pressure back on somebody. But there's no pressure on what we do today. It's going to be great. I've got to know you, Zoe. Really well. Over the last few years. I think you've got some really interesting things to say. so I'm looking forward to talking a bit more about that. So do you want to just take us through? Tell us a little bit about who you are, a bit about yourself, and then we'll kick things off from there, shall we? Yeah. So, my name so is James already mentioned. And I'm in third year of my physiotherapy degree at the moment. looking to graduate in the summer. just finished my final exam this morning. which is a bit stressful. I've got that done. So, yeah, on the final personal, place of form baseball, kind of alongside doing my degree and, softball captain this year, which has come with a lot of added factors and stresses and things to organize. But, that's been kind of a really good learning experience outside of kind of physio and kind of using what I've learned from the degree to kind of help kind of put that into practice with kind of helping my team and coach them occasionally and things like that. yeah. that's about it. Well that's great. Well, look, how was the season gone for your, so everything, with so few, baseball, we've kind of topped the Midlands League, for Bucs, in both, areas. Unfortunately, though, both the national competitions have been postponed because of the lovely weather we've been having. which has been a real shame. but softball's already been rescheduled, and hopefully baseball will as well, but that's kind of just been an added spanner in the works a bit. Yes. but topping the leagues fun. Fantastic. Yeah. And you as captain. Yeah. Well, you might not want to take credit for it, but you should take credit for that. How did you how did you become Captain Zoe? so in second year, I was on committee and did, welfare and Eddie, which is something I'm quite passionate about. And I enjoyed kind of having that role on committee. And, I kind of had discussions with one of my other teammates who was coming in our in kind of what position to go for. And we are both thinking kind of president or captain or softball. So we kind of discussed it and kind of thought about kind of who plays to what strengths and things. And I kind of thought at the end of the day, softball captain was really what I wanted to do. And I think kind of having the physio degree as a kind of a background to that and understanding sport and kind of why you need to do your warm up and things like that and make sure that, you know, players are communicating about injuries. It kind of felt like I had the skills to kind of do it as best I could, and also it would help me develop as a person, but also in terms of physio as well, and give me more skills there. and also I just really like kind of taking that kind of more of a manager role in that sense. And I've never been the most outgoing person, but I thought, you know, why not push myself outside my comfort zone? I found the sport that I really enjoyed. I only started at uni. and, you know, I think I can give it a good crack and I'm organized, so why not? So I kind of was a bit of a leap of faith, but I'm definitely glad that I did it. So do you think perhaps some of the skills that you've developed as a physiotherapist helped with some of these committee and leadership roles as a captain, and sort of vice versa? Do you think that there's sort of a relationship there? Yeah, I think the definitely I think especially with the course you get taught. So much and kind of communication and teamwork kind of within the like multidisciplinary team and things. And having been on placement and I think for me, placement has boosted my confidence within physio, but also outside of it massively because you can go in and be your own person and kind of fake the confidence a bit. And I thought, actually, I can take that skill and I can kind of apply that. And, you know, I think I quite often doubt my abilities, but actually you kind of once you get into things, you realize that you do often no more than you think you do. so it was kind of nice to apply that kind of both ways and realize that, you know, I can do it in every sense of the word. and it's been really good to kind of help me make sure I am managing my time properly. And sometimes that doesn't go to plan, but also learning that, communicating that to people and just, you know, being honest about, you know, I'm so sorry I haven't emailed you about the fixes we can do. I've been busy with my dissertation or whatever, and people are often more understanding than you think they are going to be. So it's just kind of also taught me to be kind of very open and honest about how much I've got, and also making sure I'm balancing things in a manageable way as well. Yeah, I think communication is often a a term used around physiotherapy and set, and there's often an assumption that we're all good communicators and but the communication can be in many different forms. Content. Yeah, definitely. I think like obviously spoken communication is preferable, but also realizing that sometimes that's not going to be an achievable method, you know, might not have someone's phone number, you might need to email them or whatever, and kind of making sure that you are keeping in contact with people as often as you can, and kind of making sure you kind of adopting communication approach to different people, because some of the people I'm on committee with for softball, for example, I'm really good friends with them. So I'll have a casual chat with them about something. But then it's understanding that if someone comes to me with a more important issue or a private matter, that now I'm not going to go and talk to them about it, because that's technically not their business or that's not their role on committee and as as their friend. I probably shouldn't be telling them. So kind of that kind of safeguarding aspect and like confidential charity also comes in to kind of managing things within softball, committee and managing your different relationships and realizing ones that committee based ones at friends based and that really is transferable to kind of physio and, you know, managing those professional relationships and also keeping that kind of confidentiality when it's appropriate to and realizing when actually you need to take that a step further and kind of raise any alarms or anything. I think that's that's really fascinating that you're talking about this because because I can only just imagine, actually, now having someone like yourself as the captain on the committee, I have seen firsthand when there are people who are in those roles that don't have those skills that you just talked about, and they're not always great with sensitive information. It's not always transparent or sometimes overly transparent. And I can only imagine that you having that, having that, that, that influence that you have on the team that I would imagine you've got a pretty good team spirit going on in your softball and baseball. Would that be fair to say, like to think, yeah, yeah, yeah. Great, great. Yeah. Like I mean the other day we, we had a social and one of the lads was chatting to me about quite a personal thing, but it was actually it was quite nice in a sense. I messaged him after just check in and it was just like, I'm glad you felt comfortable talking to me about those kinds of things. At my role as captain, I didn't want to come in and be bossing people around, and I want to be as understanding as possible because I know first hand life can really get in the way of things. And I often say to people like, look, I completely get that softball isn't your top priority. You know, if you've got a job, she's just about that's all right. Because I've had people or coaches in the past be like, why don't you at training, like, you know, you could have done this, this, this. So, you know, people being like, oh, well, she's not been training for a while, but actually it's because I had a fairly valid reason. But I also just didn't really want to talk to anybody about it. So for me, it's been important to kind of keep that communication like open and transparent, but also to kind of respect that some people don't want things spoken about beyond our conversation. So kind of acknowledging that transparency, like you said, only goes so far. And there are limitations to that has been kind of really important. And I think, would you say from your experiences, for example, being on on clinical placement, would you say some of those, those skills you've learned really sort of seem to develop in some of those, in that experiences that you've had? Yeah, definitely. I think placement, like I've already said, has boosted my confidence far more than, you know, as much as lectures on communication and all those kinds of skills are so, so important to kind of set the baseline. I think placement, you really get to put that into practice and you get to also observe so many different people and how they communicate in different ways, and kind of adopt your own strategies that you think work for you and also see, oh, actually they do that. Oh, maybe I'll do a bit of that now and kind of pick up little bits and bobs from what you learn from people. so I think it's nice. placement is kind of a constant learning thing, but not just from a kind of academic perspective, but also in terms of kind of developing your own personal skills and communication skills with people. I think that's like for me, sometimes what I enjoy most about placement and kind of getting to know the team and really feeling involved is so enjoyable. So based on a bit of what you said, do you feel like you've had to show some adaptations between each placement in terms of maybe the way that you've communicated or you've been, or do you do you feel like you've wanted to be? This is me, Zoe, and I'm just going to be who I am. And you know, I'm just going to be what I am through the placements, however you move. If you made of all that, how have you navigated your way through through them? Yeah, I think communication obviously varies between the patients that you're seeing. Like with pediatrics, it's a completely different ballgame compared to, you know, your average adult patient. But even, you know, within a stroke for some people you can't speak or kind of can't retain that information. So I think communication like has to be adapted on every placement. And even with every patient, you've got to take it kind of that kind of very patient centered approach and, you know, take it patient by patient as to how you communicate with them. But I think also you do learn to adapt your communication sometimes in a way that suits what you're educated to ones. And I think, you know, I remember my first patient, a first educator I ever had. He just said, you just got to play the game sometimes. And that stuck with me throughout because yes, you want to come in and you want to be your own person. And, you know, so many of like the physios, like even in first year, people will have much better kind of personal skills and I think they do. But even with, sometimes you're educator might be particularly picky about one thing, whether that's how you write, you know, it's how you communicate to patients, what you tell them, how much you're communicating with, kind of that multi-discipline team. You've got to kind of then use what their expectations are of you to kind of adapt your communication as well. So I think, you know, sometimes it can feel a bit harsh of like, oh, well, this educator on this patient wanted me to do this, but the other one said, oh no, don't do that. Do this. And sometimes you've just got to go with it for the for five weeks is a placement, and then you can come out with it and go, oh, I did actually find that useful or no, that's not something that I really kind of find helpful for me. You know, I'd prefer to do it the way I originally did it. And I think it's just kind of taking that moment after placement to kind of reflect on things you've learned and things you've maybe felt that you had to do to please your educator and say, you know, is that something I value and want to continue with? Or actually, I'd rather not do it that way. I'd rather do it the way that I originally planned on doing it, and kind of then with the next placement, see if that is still effective, or if actually it's kind of a common theme across the board, if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. And I think from what you're from, what I hear you say though, is that placement gives an opportunity to learn some different skills and practice some different skills. And you're right, you know, you might not use all of those, or you might use some of them, or you might use a lot of them in who you kind of want to be, but that there is an element of you, you know, educators are people, physiotherapists are people, and some will have particular things that they like to see in people. They they work with. I always remember going on one particular placement and one of the feedback. So I got and I'm doing it now. They go, James, you use your hands quite a lot when you're articulate. No one ever quite knew from that. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. but it's one of those where sometimes you think, okay, but to someone else, they've never been, it's never been mentioned. Some places you get told you've got to be louder, some places you get told you got to be quieter. Some places you get told you got to listen. Some some. You go and they get told you've got to die. You've got to lead. Yes, more. It's it's so confusing isn't it. Yeah. You get pulled in so many different ways and I think sometimes it can be quite intimidating when you come in in the first week and they're like, by the end of this placement, you should be leading the whole team, whatever. You're just like, oh my God, like, what is going on? Like, you just feel panicked. But actually, I think quite often going into placement, I always expect myself to know a lot more than is ever actually required of me. Like, I think you go into placement and often like actually, you know, more than they expect you to do quite often. And even if you aren't so sure, if you say, oh, I don't know to a question, they're not going to suddenly like, or they shouldn't at least turn around and be like, well, what are you doing here? Like you don't know anything. Like why you even try like more often than not, they'll be like, no, that's fair enough. Like explain it to you. And then as long as you kind of then go away and maybe research whatever it is, you didn't know a bit better. So you can come back the next day to kind of be like, oh no, I can do know a bit more about what you're talking about. Like, you know, educators are often a lot more understanding and forgiving for, you know, you not knowing one specific thing or whatever, or even if you're like, oh, we definitely got taught it, but I can't remember, like, you know, a full book of knowledge and I don't think you're ever going to know everything because, like, yeah, I was talking to my dad the other day and he was like, oh, it's weird that you say that. Like, physios are practicing, like, not like they just. Or a physio. That makes sense. Like doctors are practicing. And I went, well, I think it's because you constantly are learning and you're constantly learning new skills and you are, you know, you do know what you're doing, but you are also practicing and you're putting the things that you're learning into practice. So I think that kind of aspect of, yes, obviously you should know a certain level of stuff, but don't beat yourself up if you don't know, you know, every muscle in the foot or you know, and I think also you got to know for each placement, like for a stroke placement, prep for that placement. Send an email to your educator. What do you need to know? Okay, okay, I only need to look at x, y, z of the. So I don't need to, you know, make sure I know all my MSC knowledge for a stroke p placement. So it's kind of taking that of like okay, which specialty am I going into and prep for that specific area rather than having a panic and going, oh my God, I'm never going to know everything. Just take it kind of one placement at a time. Make sure you're communicating in advance of the placement so you know what to expect and what they expect of you. and also kind of doing that kind of reflection almost before placement as well of like, okay, what do I know now? What do I want to know by the end of the placement? It's quite good. And I know reflections can be a bit of a pain sometimes. And sometimes it feels like a bit of a nag, but actually it's quite nice to come out of the placement and go, oh, I will kind of always remember that patient, because I jotted down a couple notes of things I learned or whatever, and it's quite nice to then be able to go back and look at in comparison to end of third year and my first ever placement, what were my views on things and what have I learned since then? I quite like kind of looking back and having to think about, oh, like I actually have come quite a long way. Yeah, it's nice to do that. So yeah, I think we've discussed before and you know, you've said you've written reflections. I think, you know, that you've kept sort of data about things and you see the power of looking back, of going actual fact. I do know a lot because I can see where it was when I wrote that, you know, whether it's a year, two years ago, two weeks ago, wherever that is, I think that's that's really important. And I think you were a really good. and you talk about expectations. I think often within the, the world we live, often I've experienced often when we have missed expectations or those expectations haven't been clarified. That's not that can often be a reason why there can be disappointment. You know, someone's expected something from this, but they didn't get that. So you're saying from from your experience, when you get your placement, you'll get that educator email. You're saying a student look, reach out early. Clarify what you need to sort of read around and then get that head start before the placement. Yeah, massively. I think it helps me like I have a template of kind of this is what I'm going to like. I just search it up in my emails and copy and paste it every time. Yeah, it's just the same template. And yeah, quite often, even if they've already told me, you know, on where you find your placements often might say like what uniform you need, but I'll still include that question in the email, because often that's a generalized thing, and it might not have been updated for a while. So I'll always just ask the same questions like, what am I meant to wear? What time do you want me to be there? Even things like, can I get my lunch though? Should I bring it with and things like that of just, you know, making sure that going into it, you're coming in and looking professional from the get go. And you know, if, you know, even if they send you a whole list of like prep work to do, but, you know, realistically, you're not going to get it done even if you just go, oh, like, thank you for sending that over. I've got a lot of uni assignments on at the moment, but I'll try to get through as much of it as possible, even just being open and honest, kind of from the get go. I think you just set yourself up a lot better to kind of then, they might be a bit more flexible in their expectations of you, from the beginning. And you're not kind of trying to set the standard too high from the start. And, I mean, maybe this is kind of somewhat cheating at placement, but sometimes you want to go into the first week and not give it 100%, because then you do have so much to improve from. There's not to say that if you went in 100% from the start, you wouldn't be improving by the end. But sometimes, you know, withholding a bit of, oh no, can you show me how to do that even if you think you should, and just go and actually, I'll take an extra day to observe just to kind of really get to grips with that. It's actually quite nice to go in and not go full speed ahead from the beginning. So then you can really build it up and then by the end. But the progress is obviously probably about the same, but it almost looks like it's more progress, I think. I think this is really good stuff because I think often I you talked about sport early and I often sort of make relationships between things like a placement and sport or even a placement, even sort of music or something. There is a way to do it. Like if you're playing, we've got producer George who's a great musician, but like he's been like, if you're playing a gig, you don't start your first song off the note for 100 mile an hour, do you? And same with me. Even though you might want to make an impact, there's a way of doing that, but you've still knowing you've got to play for the next 45 minutes or an hour. But like a placement, isn't it? You've got 4 or 5 weeks where you're going to have to be. That's a lot of time and energy and I'm with you. But there's ways, as you've already said, of presenting yourself, saying, I'm keen, I'm eager, I've I'm reaching out. I'm setting that standard to then maneuver into throughout the weeks. Is there any other little tips of advice you could give someone of how they could show that progression through the through that, through the placement? Typically, you said about taking a bit of time to observe, maybe understand you seen you and how they work. Maybe what they look for, I think is a very smart move. Is there anything else you could give any nuggets of advice? Sorry to anyone. I think like doing reflections throughout and of sending them even immediately after you've done them or at the end of each week or something to your to your to to. Yeah. You're right. Okay. it's another point, I thought, although I've already forgotten, I think oh yeah, I was going to say, like, if you do prep work before, like I often make notes or something, or like, maybe make a poster out of something that you learn, like something that's kind of quite like, hey, look, I've done this because, like, reading, you can turn up and say, I've done the reading and maybe prove by them asking you some questions. But actually, if you kind of maybe give them a bit of kind of producible work that you've done and again, kind of back to that, don't go in at 100%. Maybe if you make that poster or you make, I don't know, notes on like five different ask who's send them to before you start even. Have you done the notes on the other one. Send them at the end of like the first week, because then you're not having to suddenly stress about or got so much stuff to do. You can get on with some other stuff and kind of delay sending it to them. So then it's kind of like, I promise I am doing the work for you. Can you can show that, it's kind of like you're doing it over more of a prolonged period of time than you actually are, and you're using those times where you've got more time to do it, to do the prep work, to do the extra reading. Yeah. And then, you know, just feeding that kind of sending it to them so that it, you know, it's very consistent throughout. So then it's a bit more manageable for you as well. Yeah I know I think that's a very smart move. And I think just to clarify, I think we all say when we say I don't know if not. So this when we say don't go 100%, we're not we're not implying that you turn up and be really not with it. And I'm really nice and we know we're not saying that, but I think what we mean isn't it, is that sort of there are some students who will want to start off and think, I've got to impart all my knowledge. I know everything there is about everything, and I want to get this out within the first couple of days to prove something, to prove I know what I'm doing. And I think you're absolutely spot on with what you're saying. You don't need to do that. You don't know. The whole point of the placement isn't. It's to grow into the placement. And again, I go back to things like, you know, sport, if you're playing, you know, softball, baseball, you got a game. You got to be able to look at your energy levels. There's no point depleting halfway through like a gig. There's no point getting off with a you sat and you're like, I'm absolutely done. You've got to get to the end and finish well and strong, isn't it? But I think that's a really sensible option. And reflective practice is really important, isn't it, for CPD and for things like job interviews and things. But I think it's a really good move of sending your educator something that you've done. And I know the work you've done. So you've done some excellent work here. When you did your education placement with us. absolutely phenomenal work on your placements. Have you seen any did any of the educators use some of those summary posters about a paper or a reflection that you read? Did you did that go into the departments anywhere? Was that ever disseminated across the staff and things like that? For my placements, I've never kind of heard like, oh yeah, I will share this or whatever. Quite often are the same kind of bullet pointed notes, but I, I do know other people that I kind of had well, I love had a project throughout a placement of like, oh, can you do a presentation on this? And sometimes you do that to kind of the staff or sometimes it's just to educate. But I do know people that, you know, as I, oh, can you make a poster, you know, something. And then it's like, oh, actually, like we're going to put that up front on the hospital and things. So it's like actually that's quite rewarding as well as once you put the effort into it and okay, yes. You know, I could also be better at not making a bullet point, a page of notes, but, oh, I'll make a nice poster or an infographic and make it look really nice. And actually, that might then lead to kind of like you said, like it being passed on to the wider team or used and put up around the ward or something. And I think that's not only rewarding, but also going back to kind of the KPD thing of like, oh, look like I made this poster and they put it up in the hospital because I thought it was really useful. So I think that's kind of helpful to kind of hope when prepping for kind of interviews and stuff, moving forward past the degree and kind of trying to apply for your first jobs and then having those kinds of things. Whilst it might not seem important at the time to like, like, I could spend this half hour making it a poster or not, actually, maybe if you put that half hour into it, you'll get more out of it. So yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think it's an excellent, excellent point. Really good really good tips. And I think just to summarize that's up here I think often in terms of placement, you know there is that sort of elements of, you know, they want to see students improve and grow with the placement. But yes, you said okay, well saying things but actually having something tangible, something there that's clearly had effort and things put into it, it's very hard for someone then to sort of say, well, they haven't done that when you can go, well, here it is. Yeah. You mentioned now at this point, Zoe, sort of coming to the end, sadly of your degree here. Hopefully if I don't you know, a good time doing it. What's your what's your plan going forward now. Have you got an idea of what you want to do. after you finish. Yeah. So I kind of want to just take a year out, I think having A-levels and Covid and then coming straight to uni and then doing quite a full on course, and obviously also having kind of softball and baseball on the side. It's been pretty hectic three years at uni, not say that I've not enjoyed it because I have. It's been an amazing experience and I kind of don't want to leave. but I know that deep down, I think if I went straight into a job, I'd just burn out so quickly because I think kind of going back to that, going into 100%, I think I'd want to prove that, you know, I am as good as I think I am and things like that. But I think if I did that knowledge kind of go guns blazing and then it just I just know that it's not quite a job for me right now isn't quite what I need. So I'm going to probably earn a bit of money doing probably like basic hospitality jobs, because why not though a bit of fun. and then probably go traveling and kind of just have a bit of more of a relaxed year and then kind of feel a bit more refreshed to then apply for jobs. And I think also in third year, it's so hard because you've got your dissertation and you got placement, you go and the module exams, and I honestly don't know how people are applying for jobs and going to interviews like currently. Like for me, that would just be too much manager, I think as well, because softball and baseball takes a lot of my time and especially being on committee for that, it's just like it's just isn't going to be manageable. I'm not going to be able to put the time into it that I want, and I don't really want a job right now. So just that I'm just going to save myself that stress and just push that off for a year and do what I want to do for a bit of time. And everyone's like, travel. Well, you're young, so I'm like, why not say, yeah, I think it's great. We've spoken to say a couple of the of the other students as well. And you've all had a different idea of what you want to do when you finish. And I think every single option is, is great, whatever you choose to do. And I think, you know, the opportunity to see the world and do something and it sounds fantastic. But what you've shown with that adaptability and the skills you've got cross transferable, I have no doubt you'll make a success if you go into hospitality with all those skills you've kind of created. I hope we don't lose you from the physio world because you've got so much to give. But this is one of the beauties of the degree and what it can lead you into. I think just to finish up as I them, if you were to give like one bit of advice to anyone listening to this podcast, you could think of it as someone maybe about to start their degree or someone going through it, or, you know, one bit of what we say, Zoe, pieces of advice, you know, have you got something you'd want to share? Just to finish off, I think just to trust yourself and trust in your knowledge and your abilities, because I think often I doubt myself and how much I can do. But actually, once you put that to the test, it's like, oh no, actually I am more capable. And even realizing that if you didn't know something as well as you thought you did or whatever, the world's not going to end. It's not going to stop. You know, if you don't do so well in one exam, you can make that up and another one. And also, at the end of the day, as much as exams and things like that are important and obviously you've got to get through the degree and you probably want to do really well. You know, someone's not going to say, oh, what? Like what grade did you get at uni? Like I think people hardly ever ask that. And actually you can turn around when, you know, you can take take the mCAT with me for getting A21 and not a first, even if I was like 2% off. But actually, you know, I did. I was captain of this team. And, you know, I went and did this with my friends and I had a great time. And I've done all of these other things outside of my degree that have helped me become a better person and a better physio, that actually that is so much more important than kind of the academic knowledge that you have. I think personal skills and your attitude towards life in general is so much more valuable than how much you know academically. Okay, so really nice summary. That's great Zoe, it's been great having you here. Thank you so much. And please keep in touch. Right. Yeah. Thanks for having me. We shall not have gone away.