Fiona Taylor

Fiona is module lead for 3 of the 6 modules in the veterinary physiotherapy programme. She provides technical content for the digital learning space to ensure students have a solid theoretical framework from which to develop their clinical critical reasoning and practical skills. Fiona is committed to ensuring that students are confident in their skill acquisition and well prepared for clinical practice. Together with the other members of the Veterinary physiotherapy team she runs structured practical days based in the Greenback building for small animals and Myerscough college for equine.

Fiona was introduced to Physiotherapy through her competitive sailing career. Initially her goal was to become a sports physiotherapist but through a rigorous university education Fiona realised that she loved working in all clinical areas of the profession. As a junior physiotherapist she worked in a large London Hospital where specialist cases and dynamic staff further ignited her passion for working in a rehabilitation setting but also introduced her to clinical research. Family commitments saw her career move to the USA and then Switzerland where opportunities to present at a key conference reinforced her plan to move into education and research. An opportunity to work in commercial research with Proctor and Gamble provided experience in commercial research design but it lacked the clinical element.

A move back to the UK and a new passion for horses became the start of her transition to treating small animals and she achieved an MSc in Veterinary Physiotherapy from Hartpury with her dissertation being published as a clinical paper in the Journal of Comparative Exercise Physiology. Veterinary Physiotherapy provided the unique opportunity to apply her clinical skills from the many areas of human physiotherapy to animals.

After a few years of treating a mix of large and small animals, an invitation to work in referral practice specialising in small animal neuro-orthopaedic cases was impossible to resist and for the last 8 years she has worked in specialist referral practices treating complex rehabilitation cases. Education and Research has always been a key career goal and the University of Lancashire was the perfect place to start. In time the plan is to become an active veterinary physiotherapy researcher to help build the evidence base in this relatively new profession. Fiona has enjoyed being a guest lecturer at different universities and is looking forward to being a guest speaker at the ACPAT National conference in October 2025.