The ACR/ARHP Honors ARHP Members for Contributions to Rheumatology

Physical therapy teaching supervisor, Mary Pack Arthritis Centre; Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Physical Therapy, University of British Columbia

Background: As origin stories go, a bus ride to her first ARHP meeting is a pretty good one for Dr. Westby. It was 1990 and the entire treatment program staff at her first job with The Arthritis Society’s British Columbia and Yukon Division chartered a bus to drive to the ACR/ARHP meeting in Seattle.

“It was a wonderful team-bonding experience, and my first international conference,” she says. “I found the sessions, speakers and research being done so interesting and inspiring and by the end of the trip, I knew I had found my calling!”

In 2004, after 16 years of clinical practice, Dr. Westby returned to the University of British Columbia to pursue her doctorate in rehabilitation sciences. More recently, she returned to academia for a postdoctoral fellowship in the school of Public Health at the University of Alberta. She has focused her research on addressing care gaps for patients with arthritis.

Q: What do you tell students about the future of the specialty?

A: I tell them rheumatology will challenge them, use all of their clinical reasoning and problem-solving skills, enable them to apply a variety of treatment approaches and be very rewarding. I like to remind them that no matter what clinical setting they choose to work in, and many choose private practice, they will encounter people of all ages with arthritis and they will need to be able to screen for it, manage it and know the ‘why, when, how and who’ to refer patients to, including other health professionals and community resources.

Q: What would you say to rheumatologists about the role of PT in the care of arthritic patients?

A: The rheumatologists I work with for the most part understand the valuable role physical therapy plays in the overall management of people with arthritis. Even with the newer drugs available … for some forms of arthritis that can prevent the joint damage and disability we saw 20 years ago, we still see patients who are in pain, have restricted joint motion, have altered their way of walking and moving, and are becoming less active and deconditioned. Physical therapists can help with all of these areas while also addressing many of the extra-articular, systemic and co-morbid conditions associated with arthritis