I had never have considered dry needling courses until three years ago. I’d just gotten out of uni and was a year into my practice as a general practitioner. The work was a good balance of challenging and rewarding and after a six-year degree I felt that I was done with studying for a while. However, that’s when I befriended an older colleague who later became a role model, and he showed me just how much more there is to learn.

My colleague was taking a course in massage therapy at the time, which I found to be a bit odd for someone working as a doctor. But he explained that the course was shedding light on how many ailments can be treated without the (often expensive) use of pharmaceuticals. He also said that he’d done a course in natural medicine and had a certificate in counselling as well. All of these things had enriched his career as a doctor. I took his experience to heart and decide to add to my own qualifications. I ended up looking into dry needling courses around Sydney and learnt how to treat muscle pain and dysfunction using filament needles (-beats pumping patients full of painkillers!) A lot of medical practitioners don’t realise how relevant dry needling courses are to their practice. Whether you’re a GP, osteopath, chiropractor or physiotherapist, trigger point dry needling applies to your work. Other colleagues at my own clinic initially either thought I was loopy or brave to study trigger point dry needling because it seems a bit left of field. But that was before they realised how effective it is and how much science there is to back it up.

Since I made the leap to learn dry needling in Sydney, and have put it to great use in my general practice, I’ll definitely further my studies in the future. Perhaps I’ll study complementary medicine or something to do with mental health, who knows what the future holds. The more you learn, the more you realise how little you know!