Hi, I’m Bronwyn and I’m a Resonance Podiatrist.
Often people find coming to see us a little bit embarrassing, and they break the ice by joking about whether I dreamed of doing this since I was a little girl. Although I have to admit that I didn’t necessarily picture myself dealing solely with feet (let’s get that foot joke over and done with!), I am really passionate about my job and our ability to improve the lives of people by ensuring they feel comfortable and confident doing the activities that make them happy.
I have been working alongside Katie at Resonance Capital Sports Podiatry and the rest of the Resonance Group for about 2½ years now, and it has really changed the way that I see Podiatry. Working with Resonance has given me the tools of true mentorship, of being inspired by what we can achieve in our healthcare role, and seeing and having actioned the standards to which we should all be striving for as podiatrists – to become Allied Health Accredited.
Being Allied Health Accredited means that all our clinics in the Resonance Group are working to attain the highest standards of patient care. Everything that we do is based around providing gold-standard care for the people who have come to us for help.
Getting to this point was quite an undertaking because we have a great team of clinicians, but we are working from clinics spread all over the country. This is where the true benefit of working online came into its own. We were able to create a ‘living’ handbook, which reflected the true day-to-day workings of each clinic, as well as the ethos that underpins the Resonance Group as a whole.
Working online using these live documents meant that we became really good at effective communication with not only our in-clinic colleagues, but our colleagues from all over New Zealand. These are the types of skills that have become so helpful at times like this, where we are no longer able to be in our clinics alongside our colleagues. We are all able to continue to work virtually alongside each other in real-time; continuing to manage our existing case load, while forward planning, and ensuring that we have strong and valid procedures and policies to ensure both our own safety and our clients safety in a time of heightened risk.
Part of the reason I became a podiatrist was because I like working with people. I like meeting new people all day and working with them to help solve or manage their issues – whether that be a niggling sports injury, ingrown toenail, or that weird skin thing which they have been meaning to get checked out but keep putting off. Another reason is because I really enjoy working with our older or high-risk clients, ensuring they continue to get the necessary primary foot care that helps to keep them mobile and ensure they continue to have positive health outcomes. This has been one of our biggest concerns during this lockdown period – knowing that we need to keep our high-risk clients safe. Safe in the sense of preventing foot problems, and safe in the sense of preventing the spread of Covid-19 to them.
Working online with our team of Resonance Podiatrists has been reminding me that I’m still working alongside a larger group, working on planning our safe return to client-facing work. This work has been really important for me mentally, as well as for us as group. It helps me to cement in my mind (and hopefully in yours too) that we are going to be back at work sometime soon, and we have solid, evidence-based hygiene practices set in place to ensure that we are going to be safely providing the same work that we love to do. For most this will continue to be in our clinics, in which we maintain stringent hygiene standards to ensure our own safety as much as yours, but for some, this will be through home visits to limit the risk of coming into contact with anyone with Covid-19. Trust that when you do get to see us again, we’re as excited to be able to see you as you are us.
