European School of Physiotherapy

ESP Intro Week is a wrap! Class of 2027, you've made memories and friendships that will last a lifetime. Now, let's get down to business and start shaping the future of physiotherapy! We're excited to see what you'll achieve. Best of luck for a successful year ahead!

Exciting news from Hamburg, Germany! The Functional Med team was once again the official partner of the renowned international Hamburg Tennis Open and took care of professional tennis players from around the world. It’s great to see alumni from different generations of ESP collaborating together. Yannick, the owner of Functional Med (ESP class of 2010), Eleni (ESP class of 2014), and now Leon (ESP class of 2024) have been working 24/7 both on and off the court. Reach out to explore various projects, career opportunities, and internships with Functional Med! 🏆🎾

Congratulations ESP class 2024, the Euro 2024 is still going on, but you are champions already, well done! 🏆

Huge congratulations to the winners of the Entrepreneurship Conference - Alexandra Korakaki, Clarisse Delamare, and Priyanka de Manny! 🏆 Their innovative "Toss & Train - Exercise Game for the Elderly" swept up both the Pitch Award and the Audience Award with an outstanding pitch and prototype demo.

Last Call to Join the ESP Amsterdam EURO 2024 Pool!
🚨 Deadline Alert! 🚨
Hey, football fanatics! Do you think you know football? It's time to put your predictions to the test in the official EURO 2024 Pool!

Don't miss out! The sign-up deadline is TODAY. Click the link —> https://www.flexvoetbal.nl/subleagues/14188/espamsterdam.html join the fun, and let the predictions begin. 🌟⚽🏆

Last week, our professional assignment project conference showed again that our students are already true professionals! Judy and Jennie won the audience prize for the best presentation! Due to his absence at the final award ceremony, the winner of the best thesis remains a mystery for you... Congratulations and well done to everyone! 🏆

Join the ESP Amsterdam EURO 2024 Pool!
Think you know football? Join the official pool and prove it!
Sign up now and start predicting the EURO 2024 matches. Compete with friends and our ESP community!
Dates: 14/06/2024 - 14/07/2024
Join Now via this link: https://www.flexvoetbal.nl/subleagues/14188/espamsterdam.html
We're considering offering an awesome prize or gift for the pool winner! What kind of prize would get you excited? ESP Merchandise or something else entirely? Hit us with your best suggestions!

Join Our Team at ESP!

Are you passionate about teaching and physiotherapy? Become a Lecturer at the European School of Physiotherapy (ESP) and inspire international students in a unique, dynamic environment!

Why ESP?

* Teach highly motivated students from around the world
* Be part of an innovative and supportive community
* Enjoy flexible, part-time options

Apply now and inspire the Next Generation of Physiotherapists: --> https://vacaturesuvahva.nl/HvA/job/Hogeschool-van-Amsterdam-Lecturer-Physiotherapy-Hoge-Hogeschool/795724102/

Unfortunately for ESP, our colleague Lip San will stop as lecturer to focus completely on his practice Fyla Fysiofit! He will still be involved in internships and clinical sessions and he will remain visible in the famous Arthrokinematics videos so we will definitely stay close!

We asked Lip San about one favourite memory from his time as an ESP lecturer: “If I have to pick one, It would be this picture. This particular picture means a lot to me and speaks a thousand words. The students in the picture are all current first-year students and it was taken during the introduction week in 2023. Here I can see enthusiastic new students, ready for a new challenge and eager to start their physiotherapy career. Together with my colleagues, we organized an interactive clinical session with a spinal cord injury patient. Every time I see this picture, it makes me want to improve so that I can inspire and encourage the next generation of students. I also see real passion and dedication in each and every student at the ESP for learning about physiotherapy. I strongly believe all of you are going to make a big difference in people’s lives during your professional journey.

I hope that this example will also inspire a new ESP lecturer to contact ESP as soon as an official vacancy will be released”

Thank you to everyone who attended yesterday's ESPA Meet and Greet event! It was a pleasure hosting ESP alumni entrepreneurs Kai and Andreas from Physiotutors. They discussed how they successfully combined their physiotherapy skills with entrepreneurial strategies to build Physiotutors. They also shared valuable tips on the importance of partnership, setting achievable goals, and the necessity of continuous effort. Their personal stories and guidance provided great inspiration to our entrepreneurship students. See you at the next meet and greet!

Check out our new official ESP video!

Are you motivated and ready for an international physiotherapy adventure? The European School of Physiotherapy (ESP) in Amsterdam offers an exceptional experience:

• Official honours programme
• Diverse international classroom
• Small and intensive learning environment

In this video, current students share what makes ESP truly unique. If you're driven to excel in physiotherapy while being part of a global community, ESP could be your perfect fit! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFtJId99qQo

ESP student highlights | European School of Physiotherapy - HvA In this video, three students give you an insight into their lives at the European School of Physiotherapy (ESP) and in Amsterdam. They tell you what inspire...

Happy King's Day to our ESP community! Let's get those royal joints moving – after all, physiotherapy is the queen of keeping our seniors active and feeling fabulous. Did you know, regular exercise can make you feel younger than the King himself? 😉

We're thrilled to announce a groundbreaking step forward at ESP where innovation meets empathy! Our dedicated teacher, Jan-Jaap Voigt, and enthusiastic students are currently testing and assembling 25 state-of-the-art aging suits for a brand-new simulation module designed to revolutionize the way future students learn about elderly care.

Experience the future of learning! Students will step into the shoes, or rather, the suits, of elderly individuals to truly understand and empathize with the physical and mental challenges faced by our aging society.

Sneak peek alert! Check out our behind-the-scenes photos.

Stay tuned for updates as we roll out this innovative module and witness the transformation in healthcare education. Let's prepare our future professionals to lead with compassion and insight.

We're proud to share that Jan-Jaap Voigt received a Comenius Teacher Fellows 2023 Grant for this project!

Today, April 11th, marks World Parkinson's Day, a day to honor Dr. James Parkinson's birth and raise awareness. The red tulip symbolizes hope for those living with Parkinson's. Did you know that recent advancements in physiotherapy are significantly improving patient outcomes? Studies highlight the benefits of virtual reality for balance, wearable sensors for tracking progress, and targeted exercises for both motor and non-motor symptoms. Let's promote innovative research and comprehensive approaches to Parkinson's care!

Even our ESP super-students need a break! Wishing you a relaxing Easter break filled with plenty of time to put those books down and enjoy the holiday.

Secrets to a Swift Start: How did Anna Serafini transition from graduation to her first job in just three months? Zoë Hofstetter reveals the strategies behind Anna’s fast track to success. Stay tuned for the full story coming soon on our ESP blog.

International Internship Opportunities in Cape Town

ESP is very well represented in Cape Town these days! For strategic, quality, and personal reasons, this group of ESPeople, including students, a clinical instructor, an internship office, and a program coordinator, could enjoy a nice lunch together in sunny South Africa! For many reasons, South Africa is an important country for us as it fits beautifully into our international internship policy. For the next internship slots, several vacancies are still available, so contact us if you are interested!

Thanks everyone for joining our Entrepreneurship February month, where each week we've had the privilege of hearing from one of our ESP Alumni. They've shared invaluable tips, tricks, and insights from their life journeys.
As we wrap up this month, we're thrilled to feature our last but certainly not least alumna, Martina Plunger, from the class of 2010. Martina's entrepreneurial spirit has led her to open her first business in Amsterdam in 2012, followed by expansions in Innsbruck in 2017. In 2019, Martina set up The Prehab Studio in Amsterdam, marking a significant milestone in her journey. Embracing the digital world in 2023, she started an online business, making her services more accessible to those near and far. Beyond her businesses, Martina has also been freelancing for various national, Olympic, and Paralympic sports federations, contributing her expertise to athletes and sports professionals. Martina has enriched the ESP community as a guest lecturer for the entrepreneurship course, sharing her wealth of knowledge and experience with ESP students and soon-to-be graduates.

For those looking to make their mark in the physiotherapy industry as entrepreneurs and practice owners, Martina has some sage advice: "Stick to your idea, no matter what. If you're not convinced yourself, no one else will be. And on the boring but essential side: ensure you've done your market research/competitor analysis and always include a buffer for unexpected costs in your financial plan."

As we conclude our Entrepreneurship February month, let Martina's journey inspire you to chase your dreams with the same passion and determination. Would you like to know more? You can check out Martina's Instagram page at: https://www.instagram.com/martina.the.physio/

Hi there, I'm Oisin Sedgwick, a proud member of the ESP class of 2018. My life is a unique blend of physiotherapy, entrepreneurship, and music, each element fueling my drive to innovate and explore. Today, I'm excited to share the journey of Wexel Code with you, a project that's close to my heart and a first of its kind in the digital world of physiotherapy.

The spark for Wexel Code ignited from a critical need to address the growing shortage of healthcare practitioners and to tackle the challenges arising from an ageing population. Our aim is to revolutionize the way physiotherapy knowledge is accessed, utilized, and shared, making it easier and more efficient for everyone involved.

The team behind this vision is as diverse as it is passionate. Alongside me, there's Andreas Sextl, a fellow physiotherapist and clinic owner with years of experience under his belt; Patrick Meister, a businessman with a knack for turning visions into reality; and Majeed Hussain, an engineer specializing in computer vision and NLP. Together, we're on a mission to enhance patient care worldwide, making a significant impact on how movement pattern issues are addressed.

Setting out on this path has meant preparing for challenges, especially the educational gap surrounding the potential of digital tools in physiotherapy. Nonetheless, we're driven by the excitement of overcoming these hurdles and the opportunity to empower both therapists and patients alike.

Through this journey, I've gathered a handful of insights that have been my guiding stars:

* Be a doer: It's easy to dream, but the real change comes from action. Never let your ideas remain just conversations.
* Stay curious: Curiosity leads to growth. Always question, learn, and engage with the world around you.
* Embrace failure: The path to success is paved with setbacks. See each one as a lesson and a stepping stone forward.
* Build strong relationships: The strength of your network is invaluable. Together, we can achieve more than we can alone.
* Enjoy every moment: Amidst the hustle, don't forget to smile. Joy and passion are the fuels that keep us going.

For those intrigued by our mission and eager to learn more about how Wexel Code is shaping the future of physiotherapy, I invite you to visit our website at https://ghost.wexelcode.de/ .

At ESP, our intervention strategy involves more than just conventional exercises. We are dedicated to discovering and implementing innovative techniques to mobilize and stretch our patients, offering necessary relief and muscle stimulation. Our current focus has been on the upper cervical and thoracic spine, with exercises targeting deep neck flexors and mobilization techniques for the vertebrae. During our classes, we blend theory with practice, learning, experimenting, and refining our skills together. Embark on this learning and discovery journey with us!

👨‍🎓 "As an ESP physiotherapy student, it's theory in action, all the way," says Mathys B., a first-year ESP student. '

My name is Anthony Brightwell (ESP Class of 2010). I started my physiotherapy career working in The Hague in a small chain of private clinics. I got this job through my performance and potential shown during one of my internships during my studies. Once I started, I proactively showed an interest in helping the clinic perform better and get busier and grow further. The company put me in charge of a small but new clinic they were opening and helped me learn how to build up the network for patient referrals, etc., to feed the clinic. I did this for three years and built that clinic into the busiest clinic within the company. After this point, I moved to London and joined a larger chain of private physiotherapy clinics (musculoskeletal) where they gave me charge of one of their clinics that was not performing very well. Within a year, I had turned that clinic into a successful profit-making clinic with a great network of referring doctors, etc. So the company gave me charge of two more of their clinics, which I also helped make busier and grow in capacity and availability, etc. Following 6 years with them, I then decided I was very passionate about the way I wanted a clinic to look and run, and so I set about opening my own clinic in London. I now have my own large single site clinic that is now turning 5 and doing very well (albeit getting through the COVID years), and we are now in the process of expanding into a second clinic and offering more services than what we currently do.

My passion for growing my business comes from being able to treat more people successfully and gain great feedback and build more working relationships from doctors and other medical professionals around me. This was only possible through being very attentive during my internships and not only learning how they assessed and diagnosed patients and treatment options, etc., but also seeing how they communicated to patients and doctors alike about patient care and how and why they are the best choice for the betterment of that case. You can be the best diagnostician or the most effective physiotherapist in your hands-on therapy skills, but if you cannot manage to bring that across to your patients (i.e., building a plan and pathway they agree on, including how many times they need to come back and that when the pain is gone, more treatment may still be necessary in certain cases to keep working on flexibility and biomechanics and prevent the injury from coming back) nor to the doctors you would like to build a working relationship with, then you will find it harder to build a successful and busy caseload of patients with a large network of referrers that will help your clinic or company grow in size and number.

Let Anthony's story inspire us to pursue excellence, not only in our skills but also in how we communicate and connect with our patients. If you would like to know more about his practice, you can check out his website at https://spectrum.physio/

Roses are stretchy,
Violets need flex,
Happy V-Day, ESP,
You're up next!
With bones and muscles,
We sure know how to play,
Here's to loving physio,
Each and every day!

Our next Entrepreneurship feature highlights Steen, the CTO & Co-founder of SyncSense, an ESP alumnus from the class of 2010. SyncSense stands at the cutting edge of digital training technology, offering specialized physical and cognitive VR training for the most challenged segments of society, including the inactive or impaired elderly and people with disabilities.

This innovative VR solution is a key resource for therapists and healthcare professionals, turning training sessions into engaging, enjoyable, and motivational experiences. It fosters physical, cognitive, and social engagement, representing a leap forward in healthcare and rehabilitation services.

When asked for advice or a tip for our students, Steen shared his guiding principle: "To me, success is walking from failure to failure without loss of stride. If anything, accelerate, and try to fail as fast as you can."

Let's be inspired by Steen's story and see our failures as opportunities for growth and learning. If you would like to know more about SyncSense, you can check out their website at https://www.syncsense.io/en/ SYNCSENSE

Part of the ESP education is not just aimed at becoming a physiotherapist but also at being an entrepreneur, something we often see in the DNA of our students. To celebrate that, and with the upcoming entrepreneurship course, we have decided to dedicate the month of February to ESP Entrepreneurship Month, during which each week we will share a story about our ESP Graduate entrepreneurs.

Our first spotlight is on the founders of Physiotutors, Andreas Heck and Kai Sigel, ESP class of 2016. They identified a crucial need for accessible, up-to-date educational resources in physiotherapy. Motivated by their passion, they created Physiotutors, an online platform for physiotherapy students and professionals to enhance their knowledge with quality online content. Their effort not only shows the innovation potential in physiotherapy but also the significance of entrepreneurship in enriching professional practice.
Celebrating their achievements, they've shared essential advice for our ESP students and graduates.

Unearth Your Passion: Discover what genuinely excites you in physiotherapy. This passion will not only drive you but also guide you toward rewarding and innovative paths.
Identify a Problem to Solve: Look for unresolved challenges in the field that resonate with you. Addressing these can lead to significant improvements in practice, education, or patient care.
Commit to Hard Work: Achieving success demands dedication and effort. The knowledge and skills you've gained are just the beginning; continuous learning and hard work are crucial.
Practice Patience: Building a career or business takes time. View every challenge as a learning opportunity and a chance to strengthen your resolve.
Embrace Flexibility and Adaptability: As the field of physiotherapy evolves, staying open to new ideas and adaptable to change will serve you well, regardless of your path.

For those interested in learning more about them, we encourage you to check out their website at https://www.physiotutors.com.

Stay tuned for more ESP entrepreneur spotlights. The next inspiring story could be just around the corner! Physiotutors

With the application deadline on Monday, January 15th, we're thrilled to have 350 applicants for our physiotherapy program.
Did you know this includes a young enthusiast of 15 and an experienced applicant of 49, highlighting the diverse range of ambitions? Additionally, our applicants come from 74 different nationalities, showcasing an incredible global interest. If you're still thinking about it, apply now and take the first step in your physiotherapy career. For more details, visit our official website: https://www.amsterdamuas.com/programmes/european-school-of-physiotherapy/enrolment

Happy New Year from everyone at the European School of Physiotherapy! As we step into 2024, we're excited to share our reflections on the past year. From the innovative 'Rap op Stap' project to our engaging alumni sessions, 2023 was a year of meaningful achievements. Check out our latest blog post for a journey through the past year's highlights, and stay tuned for another exciting year of growth and discovery at ESP! https://espamsterdam.com/hello-2024-and-goodbye-2023/

Hello 2024 and goodbye 2023 - European School of Physiotherapy Our 2023 highlights are about innovation, collaboration and connections! A year that will never forget... Read our recap on 2023 and plans for 2024!

Santa's balancing act is a seasonal reminder! At ESP, we're embracing stability in all aspects of life during these special times. Wishing everyone a holiday period filled with joy and balance!