Hello
My name is Joelene Murdoch-Ward, AKA Jo! I am a pelvic health and musculoskeletal physiotherapist, and have directed The Physiotherapy Clinic for 17 years, alongside Amanda Ellison. I am the founder of Born Ready, a comprehensive birth course for women who want to deeply understand Birth in all its forms, and who want to make informed decisions about thier upcoming birth, and of course our PB conferences.
I am currently completing a PhD looking at the relationships of pelvic floor distensibility and birth outcomes. I’m also currently studying medicine, with the vision to become an OBGYN. I have two beautiful girls, who keep me in line, and on task!
The PB Story
The catalyst for our first PB was the frustration of the confused non evidence based messages that were circling around our female athletes, as we were, and still are, seeing this explosions of female sports finally making it to the elite stage. As we all know there is very little research specifically on female athletes, but it is emerging and I felt the need to get the correct information out to clinicians in an efficient and effective way. Our First PB paving the way forward for the female athlete was born May 2022.
We decided the best way to do it was one day, a Friday, in a great location, with exceptional speakers. We took a big risk, but we managed to fill a room and had a brilliant day.
We realised this model of delivering up to date evidence based information to an audience of health professionals on a very relevant and topical issue was a good idea. We moved swiftly onto PB paving the way forward for endometriosis and once again experienced a sensational day.
The bonus, we’ve realised, aside from a great day of learning, is the wonderful networking opportunities. In this post covid era we felt a strong need to get people back together in the flesh, after all we all desire human connection. Get a bunch of health professionals passionate about female health and the connection is palpable. This for us has been one of the most powerful and wonderful outcomes of PB.
The PB Research Fund
This conference was never about making money, in fact it was just our hope we could cover the costs of room hire, speakers travel and accomodation, audiovisual equipment etc!
As we were realising we may actually make this idea a success I immediately decided any profit will go into The PB Research Fund. Each PB conference we will fund a project that aligns to our mission and donate the profits to the research. Proudly after PB endometriosis, we were able to donate over $18,000 to Ruth Schubert for her research looking at physiotherapy for the management of endometriosis.
We hope in time this fund will continue to build and contribute to great research for our females in the future. This will ensure the mission of PB evolves from disseminating great research to helping ensure great research continues to be done.
