Rebecca Phillips

Physiotherapy

Rebecca Phillips

PhD Candidate (Physiotherapy), Grad Cert Teaching and Learning (Higher Ed), B. App. Sci (Physio)

Lecturer in Physiotherapy
Orange
Building 1014, Room 103

Rebecca is an experienced musculoskeletal clinician and educator, who has worked in a broad range of environments from sporting teams and Clinical Pilates, through healthy ageing in Australia, the US and Kenya. She is passionate about health promotion, health equity and health professional communication to promote implementation of the WHO Rehabilitation 2030 Agenda through international collaborations.

Rebecca supports an Empowering model of improving the social determinants of health, as a partner in an Indigenous-led microfinance enterprise targeting unbanked and underbanked Masai people, with a focus on women. The focus is on SDG 1 – No poverty, SDG 3 – Good health and wellbeing, SDG 5 - Gender equality and SDG 8 - Decent work and economic growth.

Professional memberships with:

  • Australian Physiotherapy Association Member
  • APA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Committee Auxiliary Member
  • Friends of Indigenous Allied Health Australia Member
  • University of Melbourne Qualitative Research Methods Community of Practice
  • Monash University Musculoskeletal Research Unit

ORCiD

Rebecca’s teaching experience includes face-to-face lectures and tutorials, online tutorials and small-group mentoring, practical classes, clinical supervision for students (hospitals, private practice and remote Indigenous Communities), and teaching professional development courses in Clinical Pilates for registered health professionals.

Interdisciplinary and International collaborations in global health and undergraduate research.

Areas of teaching focus include:

  • Foundations of Physiotherapy Practice; Population, society and health
  • Global and Public Health; Case Studies in Global and Public Health and Global Health Opportunities and Challenges
  • Indigenous Health and Cultural Safety in Healthcare Practice
  • Allies of Indigenous Health; Allies I and Allies II
  • Health Promotion
  • Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL): An international, cross-cultural, interprofessional, collaborative learning unit.

Rebecca’s PhD research utilises behaviour change theory to extend and translate knowledge of the application of person-centred care in physiotherapy. Qualitative interpretive descriptive design methods were applied using longitudinal semi-structured interviews that were analysed using Framework Analysis to identify mechanisms of adherence by adults with Achilles tendinopathy.

Future research will implement a protocol for co-design using participatory design methodology and a framework specific to the development of clinical resources. This work will facilitate the collaboration of stakeholders to support the physiotherapist delivery of rehabilitation based on recommended guidelines in a way that supports adherence behaviour to tendinopathy rehabilitation.

Rebecca’s international research collaborations extend to the UK and Kenya, with a current focus conducting research into translation of musculoskeletal clinical practice guidelines from a high-income to a low-income country context.