Second Creek Physiotherapy
(08) 5550 0070 Book an assessment

About Second Creek

A clinic built around one question.

We work out what is actually causing the problem, settle the pain down enough to move, then build the strength that puts socks, stairs and the shopping back into an ordinary week.

Since 2016

Second Creek Physiotherapy opened on a Norwood side street in 2016 with one treatment plinth, a borrowed set of foam blocks and a diary with four names in it. Bridie had spent the six years before that in a hospital outpatient department, where the list was long, the appointments were short and almost everyone who walked in had already been told to rest. She wanted to run the opposite of that: a longer first appointment, fewer of them overall, and a plan a person could repeat at home without a folder of printouts.

Norwood was the obvious place. Bridie grew up two suburbs over in Payneham, and the inner east has a particular mix of people who need this kind of help. Older residents in the villas around Beulah Park and Rose Park who want to keep managing their own stairs. Tradespeople and nurses out of Kent Town who cannot take six weeks off and will not pretend otherwise. A large club sport population from Magill through to Trinity Gardens, and a steady run of knees and shoulders coming out of surgery who need someone to load them properly rather than tell them to be careful.

Bridie Callanan standing in the treatment room at Second Creek Physiotherapy
Bridie, still taking most first appointments herself.

The turning point

A sock, four months, one question.

Second year, 2018 Still asked first, every appointment

The turning point came in our second year. A man in his fifties booked in about a shoulder. Halfway through the assessment he mentioned, almost as a joke, that his wife had been putting his socks on for him for four months. He had not thought that was worth an appointment. We changed the way we run a first visit that same week. The first question here is no longer where does it hurt, it is what have you stopped doing. Socks, stairs, the shopping, the garden bed, getting up off the floor. Those answers tell us more than a pain score, and they give us something to measure that the person actually cares about.

What changed

  • The first question became what have you stopped doing, not where does it hurt
  • Socks, stairs, the shopping and the garden bed became things we actually measure
  • A written visit estimate now closes every first appointment

How we run a first visit

Four parts, forty-five minutes.

The long version is the guide. This is the shape of it.

  1. 01 You tell us what you have stopped doing comfortably, not just where it hurts.
  2. 02 We watch you do it: bend, sit to stand, step up, reach behind you.
  3. 03 Hands-on testing of the painful area and the joints above and below it.
  4. 04 A plain-language explanation of what we found, treatment started the same visit, and a written estimate of how many appointments the plan is likely to take.

Read the full guide

What we hold to

Four rules.

Get people back to the ordinary movements they had quietly given up, then get out of the way.

  1. 01 Say what we found in plain language, on the day we find it The first question is what you have stopped doing, not where it hurts
  2. 02 Fewer appointments, better used A written visit estimate at the end of the first appointment, not an open-ended course
  3. 03 Treat the week the person actually has, not the scan A progress review at visit three, including when the plan is not working
  4. 04 Tell people early when we are not the right help The same physiotherapist for the whole plan wherever the roster allows

Who you will actually see

Four clinicians and Sam.

The same physiotherapist for your whole plan wherever the roster allows.

  • Bridie Callanan in the treatment room

    Bridie Callanan

    Principal Physiotherapist & Owner

    Bridie opened the Norwood clinic in 2016 after six years in hospital outpatients. She takes most first appointments, coaches the hip hinge with a plain timber dowel because it beats any explanation, and is the one who will tell you at visit three if the plan is not working.

    AHPRA-registered physiotherapist, member of the Australian Physiotherapy Association · 16 years

  • Anh Trinh

    Senior Physiotherapist, Sports and Post-Surgical

    Anh covers the club sport end of the diary, mostly knees, ankles and shoulders, and runs the post-surgical caseload alongside the local surgical teams. He is blunt about timelines, which people tend to appreciate about a fortnight later.

    AHPRA-registered physiotherapist, member of the Australian Physiotherapy Association, postgraduate study in sports physiotherapy · 11 years

  • Tom Radburn

    Physiotherapist, Musculoskeletal

    Tom handles most of the back and neck work and the early morning appointments before shift start. He is patient with people who have had the same ache for years and have stopped expecting anything to change.

    AHPRA-registered physiotherapist, member of the Australian Physiotherapy Association · 6 years

  • Jodie Farrer

    Accredited Exercise Physiologist

    Jodie picks up the longer rebuild once the pain has settled, particularly older adults working on balance and stairs, and people managing a long-term condition through a GP care plan. She writes the shortest home programs in the clinic on purpose.

    Accredited Exercise Physiologist with Exercise and Sports Science Australia · 8 years

  • Sam Delaney

    Practice Manager

    Sam runs the front desk, the health fund terminal and the waiting list, and will find you a cancellation before you finish asking. He has been here since the clinic had one room.

    Certificate IV in Business Administration, current first aid and CPR · 9 years

Credentials and cover

The paperwork.

Every treating clinician is AHPRA-registered. Certificates are available on request.

  • AHPRA-registered physiotherapists, registered with the Physiotherapy Board of Australia
  • Members of the Australian Physiotherapy Association
  • Accredited Exercise Physiologist on staff, accredited with Exercise and Sports Science Australia
  • HICAPS terminal on site for on-the-spot private health fund claiming
  • Registered to accept Medicare chronic disease management referrals, DVA referrals and work injury claims
  • Professional indemnity and public liability insured

Today

Norwood, and the whole inner east.

There are four clinicians now, three physiotherapists and an accredited exercise physiologist, plus Sam on the front desk who knows most people by their first name before they reach the counter. We are not a clinic that books you in twelve times up front. A first-time back or neck plan here usually runs to about five visits, and we will tell you at visit three whether it is working. If it is not, we will say so, and help you get to a GP, a specialist or a different kind of care instead.

Hands-on treatment is part of almost every appointment, because settling things down is what makes the next part possible. It is never the whole plan. The part that lasts is the strength and the movement, and most of that happens between appointments. The goal we talk about most is a dull one. Not a personal best and not a posture. Just a sock, put on without thinking about it.

Straight to a person

(08) 5550 0070

Leave a message or use the booking form and we return calls from 7:00am on the next working day. For a new injury that cannot wait, your GP or an after hours medical service is the right first call.

Book an appointment