Physio brothers united
by Kelly Stone
Treating South Australia’s elite soccer players is all in a day’s work for Adelaide physiotherapists John-Paul and Peter Chitti.
As sports physiotherapists for Adelaide United Football Club, the Chitti brothers work with the Reds at training and on game days, providing treatment, planning and supervising rehabilitation sessions for injured players, and preparing injury prevention and maintenance programs for each squad member.
The role has taken them throughout Asia where they have confronted the many challenges thrown up by a hectic playing schedule and intense travel commitments. But they say their UniSA Masters studies prepared for the professional intensity.
"When you get an injured player back onto the field within a very short period of time and see them have a really good game, that’s very satisfying," Peter said.
In addition to club commitments with Adelaide United and Super League clubs Adelaide Blue Eagles and Adelaide Galaxy, the Chitti brothers run their own private practice Pro Physio SA at Kidman Park. And the former Premier League soccer players turned sports physios are as passionate when treating everyday individuals, as they are when treating elite athletes.
"In the private clinic, it’s always satisfying to help someone after they’ve had an injury or accident and get them back into their daily activities without pain and with greater function," Peter said.
"It’s especially rewarding to manage a chronic condition for a patient," John-Paul said.
"I find this more satisfying than the management of acute injuries, which are often fairly straight forward, because it requires a greater depth of reasoning and offers the types of challenges that our postgraduate studies trained us to identify assess, and manage more thoroughly."
Interest in a physiotherapy career was sparked in the brothers’ teenage years when they both required physio treatment for knee injuries. John-Paul said the physio’s involvement in his own rehabilitation confirmed his aspirations to take up the profession.
John-Paul and Peter graduated from UniSA’s Bachelor of Physiotherapy in 2000 and 2003 respectively. John-Paul then worked in private practice and established his own business, while Peter worked at a medical specialist centre before travelling abroad. Both went on to complete UniSA’s Masters Degree in Musculoskeletal and Sports Physiotherapy (John-Paul in 2003 and Peter in 2007).
The brothers credit their postgraduate studies with helping them on their path to career success.
Peter said higher level qualifications were well regarded by elite sporting clubs and the Masters Degree in Musculoskeletal and Sports Physiotherapy "really hones your technical skills" through one-on-one tuition offered by expert clinicians. He said the Masters also provided a good base for clinical reasoning.
"Clinical reasoning is a big part of physiotherapy. It is a fairly complex process of integrating a range of subjective and objective findings in collaboration with the patient to establish a diagnosis and subsequently implement a treatment plan. The more effectively this reasoning process takes place, the more effective treatment is likely to be," he said.
"I also think it’s good for the physiotherapy profession to have people out there who are more qualified and more specialist in dealing with certain types of injuries, whether it be sports injuries or musculoskeletal injuries."
John-Paul said the Masters helped him realise his ambition to practise at the highest level in his profession.
"In terms of your own personal satisfaction, you want to be achieving the best results possible for your patients. The Masters program gave me the confidence to constantly challenge my reasoning and intervention strategies. This benefits the patients who are assured by the fact that a highly trained therapist is undertaking their care," he said.
"I think the biggest thing you gain from the Masters is the ability to extract information from various sources. You’re always undergoing a process of learning, whether it be experiential or by research - they equip you with the tools to critically appraise information and apply it to the clinical setting.
"With Adelaide United, we’ve been able to put in place strategies we’ve learnt or adapted from the postgraduate degree. The injury prevention and injury maintenance programs we put together for the players are derived from what we learned during the course."
The Chitti brothers encourage other physiotherapists to consider postgraduate studies.
Master of Musculoskeletal and Sports Physiotherapy program director Mark Jones said while postgraduate musculoskeletal programs exist in many countries, the unique benefits of the UniSA program were unmatched.
Jones said the program had a strong emphasis on clinical reasoning, high standard of clinical supervision, and integration of contemporary movement, motor control and pain science research into clinical practice.