The Tribune

By CHESTER ROBARDS

crobards@tribunemedia.net

DR VIRGINIA Chan has all the initials behind her name you would expect of a doctor, but her qualifications allow her to do a job that few others in the Bahamas can do.

As a Physiotherapist, with a doctoral degree in physical therapy, and training in aquatic therapy, Dr Chan has two primary objectives: helping patients to reduce pain and increase their mobility. Of late, however, her aim has been to increase access to neuro-rehabilitation therapy in the Bahamas.

This specialised area of neuroscience brings a long-term, holistic approach to the recovery process from patients suffering from nervous system injuries.

Dr Chan works full-time at Providence Rehabilitation Centre where patients in need of neuro-rehabilitation are able to receive treatment at home instead of spending up to three months in the United States paying for in-patient care.

"When I came home I saw the need for physical therapy," said Dr Chan.

"We want to develop neuro-rehab here, but people are being sent to the states and they are spending so much money there. They don't know they can receive treatment here," she said.

Dr Chan said insurance companies could be the biggest road block to increasing local neuro-therapy rehabilitation. Neuro-therapy can be costly, said Dr Chan.

However, she said the Providence Rehabilitation Centre is working on how to offer special assistance to the uninsured, as well as those with insurance who do not want to receive treatment abroad.

Meanwhile, Dr Chan focuses chiefly on getting parts like knees and ankles back to working order. She sees patients - from pediatrics to geriatrics - who need motor function restored after surgery.

She is the newest physiotherapist at Providence Rehabilitation Centre, where she was inspired to do the job after spending summers there as a student.

"I always knew that's what I wanted to do," said Dr Chan.

"When I worked here in the summer we had a patient with an incomplete spinal cord injury and when I left he had begun walking again."

She initially wanted to be a surgeon, she said, but changed her mind after watching her patients learn to become independent again.

"You get much more satisfaction doing Physiotherapy," said Dr. Chan. "You see more progress as a Physiotherapist and it's more fulfilling."

Dr Chan also works part-time as a Physiotherapist at Doctors Hospital.

She is also certified in Electro Therapeutic Point Stimulation (ETPS), which she hopes to introduce to her repertoire. Dr Chan explained that ETPS is like acupuncture - without the puncture.