#IamMGH – Meet Erin Beange

#IamMGH tells the stories of our people. In honour of National Physiotherapy Month, meet Erin Beange, Physiotherapist at Michael Garron Hospital (MGH).

“I started working as a physiotherapist at MGH in October of 2020. In my role, I help cover medicine and surgical units. When planning the move from Sudbury to Toronto, especially during a pandemic, MGH was high on my radar. I was drawn to the commitment the organization had to its community and a few fellow colleagues at my previous hospital who had worked at MGH had nothing but great things to say about working here. Naturally, I was quick to apply when a job came up in an area that I work in and it landed me here!

Moving jobs and cities layered with a provincial lockdown was not an easy feat, but my colleagues made me feel welcome and part of the team right away. Establishing a sense of community within my work family was very important for me to feel grounded and have purpose. Within a few days, I knew I had made the right decision to start my career in Toronto at MGH.

What drew me to physiotherapy as a profession was the ability to help someone achieve their goals and improve their quality of life, while also being able to develop a connection when working with them. I discovered this first hand while working as an occupational therapy assistant after my undergrad at a rehab hospital, which led me to apply to physiotherapy. I truly value the patient relationship - getting to know my patients on a personal level to help make the treatments more meaningful to them makes it a very rewarding career.

As physiotherapists, we help to assess and restore function with patients while in the hospital and work with other members of the team to facilitate safe discharges. We work with other allied health, nursing and hospital staff to ensure patients are safe to leave the hospital or we assess for rehab if people are not where they need to be to get home and ultimately live at home safely.

Physiotherapy is a great profession for anyone looking to get into it - it’s a very rewarding career. When looking specifically at COVID, I think there will be a larger role for physiotherapists and allied health in the full continuum of the recovery process and long-term management with patients affected by COVID. While it is a challenging time for all members of healthcare right now, I think it is important to support each other and be kind to one another, as well as ourselves, and we will get through it together."