Dr Gerard Farrell with his wife Nicole, daughters Poppy, and Lottie and son Archie.
September 30, 2023 was scheduled to be a big day for Dr Gerard Farrell. His PhD was due, his scholarship finished and it was close to the due date for his wife to give birth to their third child.
It’s fair to say, the months leading up to that date were a juggling act.
But now seven months later, having graduated with a PhD from the School of Physiotherapy, his whanau now a happy family of five and even having established and opened a new dysautonomia service, Gerard shares some tips learnt along the way.
A strong work ethic and even stronger support network were key.
“I needed a plan for this to be achievable and I’m very grateful to my wife Nicole, her parents, and our wider family for their help.
“I couldn’t have done it without them, along with the support of my Primary Supervisor Associate Professor Steve Tumilty and team at the School of Physiotherapy clinics, both past and present.
I would seriously encourage others headed down the same path to make sure they have a strong support network.”
Some mornings he would need to be at university by 4am to be back home for 6am “dad duties” and some nights he would need to return to work later in the evening after putting his kids to bed, but it was those choices that helped him reach his PhD milestone in time for his son’s birth.
“With the support of the Stanley Paris and Catherine Patla Scholarship and Otago PhD scholarship, I could afford to treat the PhD like a full-time job which was so appreciated because it can be easy to get distracted with life’s other demands, especially doing it over six to eight years part-time.
“I would encourage others in similar situations to stick to their workload for about four to five ‘power hours’ a day where it’s just you focusing on what needs to be done.
“Then, when you do go home, make sure to leave the work behind and be present with those around you as best you can.”
Gerard considers doing his PhD a privilege as it gave him the opportunity to learn from others and dive deeply into subject matter that really interests him.
For him this was investigating the mechanisms of manual therapy on the human stress response.
This means looking at the physiology behind what happens when people are injured and how post-injury symptoms could be improved by physiotherapy techniques.
His research unpackaged why physiotherapy interventions might work, how they can be used selectively to improve patient symptoms, and how this can be adjusted to cater to patient needs.
He found understanding this approach does improve people’s health, particularly the health of post-concussion patients, which led to him reaching out to Dr Julia Collett from Student Health with the idea of setting up a dysautonomia service.
Dr Collett and her colleagues were exploring options to help patients with these complex symptoms and so it was good timing all round, though the final name for the service is still up for discussion Gerard says.
“Dysautonomia is a blanket term for a disorder that affects a person’s autonomic nervous system, among other systems because they are all interlinked, leading to a variety of signs and symptoms, such as dizziness when changing position, brain fog, headaches.
“My PhD looked at one part of this system but, when I started extrapolating it out, my interest grew and so I got into contact with Julia.
“We started looking things like hyper mobility, long COVID, headache populations, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and from there the idea grew.
“We started getting referrals of patients and now were starting to open up to the whole of Dunedin.”
The conditions and unique presentations are not straightforward and are very patient-specific, so the presence of a dysautonomia service will not only support the complex needs of the patients but also normalise their experiences, he says.
General advice can go a long way when someone is facing things like dizziness every time they stand up or persistent brain fog and he plans to do the best he can for his patients.
Kōrero by the Division of Health Sciences Communications Adviser, Kelsey Swart.